May 18, 2009 4:50 pm US/Central
Drew Peterson Pleads Not Guilty In Savio's Death
Experts Say Peterson's Mouth Could Compound His Troubles
JOLIET, Ill. (CBS) ―
-
-
Drew Peterson is escorted to the Will County Courthouse for his arraignment on May 18, 2009, on charges that he killed his third wife, Kathleen Savio.
Chicago Sun-Times
Former Bolingbrook police sergeant Drew Peterson has pleaded not guilty to charges that he killed his third wife, Kathleen Savio, whose body was found in a dry bathtub five years ago.
"We"ll enter a plea of not guilty to both counts," attorney Joel Brodsky said in court as Peterson stood next to him, dressed in blue jail fatigues.
"He was certainly upbeat," Brodsky said of Peterson. "He's confident. He knows he didn't do anything."
Also in court Monday, prosecutors asked for a new judge because they say the current judge is prejudiced against them.
Will County state's attorney's office spokesman Chuck Pelkie provided a court order asking for Judge Richard Schoenstedt's removal from the case. It requests that Judge Richard Schoenstedt "be substituted from this cause on the ground of prejudice against the state."
Brodsky called the move gamesmanship.
"I think it indicates to us the weakness of the state's factual position. It shows they don't want to deal with this on the facts," Brodsky said.
In November, Schoenstedt dismissed felony gun charges against Peterson after Will County prosecutors refused to hand over internal documents.
Attorneys had also been also expected to make a bid to lower his $20 million bond, but that effort was derailed by the prosecution motion. Thus, Peterson will remain jailed on the bond until at least Thursday.
Savio's family members were focused on Peterson in court Monday as he, in their view, taunted the family.
"He was waving at my mom," said Savio's nephew Michael Lisak, "just continuously looking at my mother and my family, the Savio family, almost in a mocking way."
His mother is Sue Doman, Savio's sister. Five years ago she testified at her sister's coroner's inquest saying she believed Peterson killed her sister.
But at that time the family says no one listened to them and Savio's death was ruled accidental.
"I believe state police stick together," Savio's half-brother Nick Savio, said. "I think it was a cover up. Drew knew a lot of people and had a lot of money."
In an interview on the CBS Early Show, Brodsky said he believes if the case makes it to trial, it would be clear that there is "absolutely no evidence that Drew did anything wrong, or anything at all, regarding Kathleen Savio's death."
Savio was found dead in a dry bathtub on March 1, 2004. Her death was initially ruled an accident, but her body was exhumed in 2007 and her demise was reclassified as a homicide staged to look like an accident.
The exhumation followed the disappearance of Peterson's fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, who vanished in October 2007. Peterson is also a suspect in her disappearance and suspected homicide.
Peterson is in protective custody at the Will County Jail, instead of being held with other prisoners, Brodsky said.
"He's being treated well, and he's being taken care of," said Peterson attorney Reem Odeh.
"It's a little bit boring, but much better than normal jail circumstances," Brodsky added.
As prosecutors try to put him away, Peterson's words could play a big role even if he never takes the stand.
Peterson never shied from the media that has followed his every move since Stacy vanished and he became a suspect in Savio's killing.
In fact, he's seemed to relish the spotlight, often offering reporters a joke or smart-aleck remark -- like smiling and calling his handcuffs "bling" as he was led to his first court appearance earlier this month.
And that, attorneys say, could be one of Peterson's biggest problems.
"If one wife goes missing and (another) wife is dead, those aren't usually the subject of jokes," said Roy Black, a defense attorney whose clients have included Rush Limbaugh and William Kennedy Smith. "People are going to think this is a very bizarre person, who's more likely to have committed murder than someone who is in mourning."
Marilyn Brenneman, a senior deputy prosecutor in Seattle's King County, once won a murder conviction after she showed a jury a video of a news conference given by the man she was prosecuting in a drowning death.
"We used it to show his attitude was blase," she said. "He was kind of wooden and didn't show any emotion. ... That is not really an appropriate response."
Defense attorney Mark Geragos has seen what a defendant's own words can do to a case -- starting with one of his most famous clients, Scott Peterson, who was convicted of murdering his pregnant wife, Laci, after a trial in which jurors watched three television interviews given by Scott Peterson before he retained Geragos.
The interviews included Scott Peterson saying he told police about his affair with another woman the first night his wife was reported missing and saying he told his mistress the truth about being married within several days of the disappearance. Neither was true. And by the time those clips played at trial, jurors knew from other testimony they were watching Scott Peterson lie.
"Some of the most compelling evidence the jury can see is prejudicial but unfortunately it's compelling," Geragos said.
If the Scott Peterson case is exhibit A in how their own words can hurt defendants, then the case of Cynthia Sommer is exhibit B.
Sommer was convicted in San Diego in 2007 of first-degree murder in the slaying of her husband after prosecutors based much of their case on the idea that Sommer did not behave like a grieving widow after her husband's death.
The jury heard about how Sommer used insurance money to pay for breast implants, took part in wet T-shirt contests and had casual sex.
Then a year later, a judge dismissed the charges that Sommer poisoned her husband with arsenic after new tests revealed there were no arsenic in his system.
"This case was all about a grieving unbecoming of a widow," said Sommer's attorney, Allen Bloom. "That's all it was, it was a lifestyle, it was painting her with a scarlet letter."
Even if the videos of Drew Peterson's arrival in court or of his interviews don't make it into trial, they can still have an effect.
"Whether it's admissible or not is one thing ..." said Joe Tacopina, a prominent defense attorney in New York. "But it's certainly admissible in the court of public opinion, which is your jury pool."
Brodsky says his client uses humor to deal with stress, and argues that his remarks won't stop them from prevailing at trial.
"Juries work very hard to ignore personalities and dislikes and focus on the facts, as long as we can get a jury that focuses on the facts or the lack of evidence in this case," Brodsky said.
Peterson said he wouldn't behave any other way.
"Would it be better if I hid my head down and tried to hide my face and hunched and had tears in my eyes?" he asked NBC's Matt Lauer during a telephone interview aired on the "Today" show Friday. "I mean, no, that's just not me."
Instead, from almost the day Stacy Peterson vanished in October 2007, Peterson has done things like joke about his fourth wife's menstrual cycles and agree to take part in a radio show's suggested "Win a Date With Drew" contest.
Brodsky said he is confident that if Peterson stands trial the jury will do the right thing.
"My experience is that juries usually work very hard to put away biases and look at the facts," he said.
Others, though, aren't so sure.
Bloom said even though most people who sit on juries want to be fair, they can still end up being swayed by things that have nothing to do with evidence.
"They say they won't, but they can be impacted by innuendo, suspicion, speculation and moral judgment," he said.
That explains why Peterson reminds Black of a lawyer who displayed a mounted fish on his wall.
"It had a sign that said, 'I wouldn't be here either if I kept my mouth shut,"' said Black, chuckling.
CBS 2's Mike Puccinelli, CBS News Correspondent Hari Sreenivasan, the Associated Press and the STNG Wire contributed to this report.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Jewish Celebrities
Click to enlarge
Stumble It!
