The Prosecutor's Case .. Continued

Now, let's talk about the age of Conner. The, remember we talked about that at length. Dr. Galloway's example, her estimate was 33 to 38 weeks. That was based on some anthropological charts that she did. But if you remember her testimony, and if you're at all unclear on that, I'd ask you to get it read back. You know, I've asked you that a bunch of times. The court reporters hate it when we say that because it's a lot of work to find those testimonies and read it back, but it's important that you guys do that.
The, what, what she said was that estimate that she gave, you have to, I think it's an average of 35 weeks from anthropological charts. And then you have to plus or minus, part of her study, two weeks on either end. So I think that's how she came up with 33 to 38.
Well, remember what she said. It's in the redirect. So, you know, this is where this stuff is said. What she actually said was to get two-thirds of the babies, so for us to get kind of a good guess on two-thirds of the babies, you have to plus or minus two weeks. Well, that still leaves out 33 percent of, of the babies that are out there, right? One third don't fall into that range.
She said to get 95 percent of them you have to plus or minus four weeks on either end. So, now, that gives us with Conner 31 to 40 weeks.
So what does that tell us? It tells us the anthropological charts that Dr. Galloway had is just too big a range for us to really make any definitive determinations.
What the anthropologist is really good for is dating how long remains have been in the water, or on land, or whatever. You know, the three to six months that she gave for each individual, with Conner being inside Laci, is very accurate.
But the dating of the baby is not as much.
So we have to look for some other, other things. Remember what Dr. DeVore said. Dr. DeVore was a specialist in neonatal ultrasound. That's all he does.
He takes pregnant women and he does ultrasounds on them and tries to measure the babies.
He came and measured Conner's femur. He also compared it to Dr. Galloway measurement and he came up with, he applied a standard growth curve. Nothing magical or mystical about what he did. He just took those measurements from where they were, from what those earlier ultrasounds were, he applied a standard growth curve to them that they do with babies, and he said Conner's date of death, depending on which of the three measurements he had, was the 21st, the 23rd or the 24th.
Now, we kept hearing two of those were no good because we know she was alive on the 23rd. Well, we know she was alive on the 23rd up until 8:30. We don't know if she was alive after that. In fact, there's a lot of evidence to support that she wasn't. Either way, though, Dr. DeVore's measurements show us and his testimony shows us that Conner died right at the exact time the prosecution said he did.

De Vore’s theory is bunkum, and mathematically unsound. P. Jeanty (his own reference), F. Rodesch, D. Delbeke and J. E. Dumont say that his bone measuring method is an unreliable method (Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine, Vol. 3, Issue 2 75-79). Every other witness said he was a full term baby. There was no vernix or lanugo nor any other signs of pre-maturity on Conner's body. Shortened foetal long bones may be indicative of a skeletal dysplasia and will also throw off the estimate and that possibility was not disproved. The baby was also not curled up as he would be in the womb.

The, the other experts you heard, Dr. Endraki put the baby at 32 weeks and six days. Dr. Towder said that Dr. Yip didn't change the due date. So all that testimony about changing the due date was contradicted by one of the doctors in his office.
What happened was at that second ultrasound, I'm trying to make this kind of simple, but at that second ultrasound, the second ultrasound has a plus or minus, I think it was testified to, of ten days. So if it's within seven days, the doctors' office doesn't change the due date. But the ultrasound had a different, had a different calculation, so they put in the chart. It was a corrected date of confinement, I think that's what they call it. That's all that was. It didn't really mean anything.
Now, the only evidence that you heard to contradict any of the prosecution witnesses regarding Conner's age when he was found and the date of death and all of that was Dr. March. That's it.
Nothing else contradicted anything else that the prosecution expert said.
But before, actually, before I talk about Dr. March, I'm going to forget something if I don't bring it up now. There was, remember what Dr. Peterson said about Conner's body when he examined it by itself? When he didn't, you know, put it in context with Laci's. When alls he had to look at was a baby that washed ashore in the San Francisco Bay and he didn't know that Laci and Conner were associated. Remember what he said? He said: Based solely on that, I couldn't determine if the baby was born alive or not.
That's very important because I have a feeling when the defense gets up and argues they're going to argue to death that the doctor said that that baby was born alive. That is absolutely not what the doctor said. Alls he said was: The baby was too decomposed for me to make that determination. That's it. Based solely on the baby alone.
But you put the baby with Laci, and everything makes perfect sense. And that's how he came up with his opinion that Conner died while he was inside Laci.

Which may or may not be true. However there was not the slightest valid evidence offered that Conner did not live until around Feb 20th, and that Laci did not live until the middle of March. Her uterus was 2 to 3 weeks post partum and this is impossible if she was dead when Conner was removed from her.

Now, let's go back to Dr. March for a minute. I think it can be argued that Dr.
March was the most unbelievable witness of the entire trial.

No, that would be Brocchini, who altered, destroyed and invented evidence.

You know, I think if we had asked Dr. March any question at all, if we had said, you know: Dr. March, what date is Halloween going to be on next year? He would have come up to this chart, he would have scribbled furiously, he would have drawn a whole bunch of things, and he would have said December 29th.

This is despicable and insulting to an honest man who gave truthful testimony. His estimate was based on experience and was not invented for the sole purpose of convicting Scott Peterson. Devore’s ‘theory’ violates Daubert in every conceivable way.

Because that's pretty much what he did.
Dr. March's entire testimony was based on, apparently based on a conversation, I mean Laci's conversations with Rene Tomlinson that she had announced her pregnancy. And from that, and his whole opinion was critically based on this.
From that he deduced that Laci took a positive preg, I mean, took a pregnancy test on that day, had never had a positive pregnancy test prior to that day, and that, and so because of that he could then deduce these date of deaths that were different than what Dr. DeVore said. That's what it was based on.
And he came up with that because he said Well, Laci went to a baby shower the day before. And he said well, if she had known the day before, of course she would have spoiled this other woman's baby shower and announced this whole thing, because that's what women do. Geez, I'm a fertility specialist; I know what women do. They would of course announce it at a baby shower. There's no way they would keep it to themselves.
That's just not true. You know, women wait to announce pregnancies all the time. Some women wait to announce it until they're showing. There's no indication at all that Laci would have gone to Rene Tomlinson's baby shower and announced that she was pregnant.
I mean, you know what, maybe she didn't want to spoil it. Maybe she said Hey, you know what, this is your day. That is much more reasonable than making these medical, coming here before you and making a very critical medical decision based on information that's not within the medical records. There's nothing in the medical records that says on what is it, June 9th, I think, that Laci Peterson took a positive pregnancy test. I mean, he said that right on the stand.

However her own pregnancy diary supports Dr. March and repudiates DeVore.