Innocence Project Shocks American Media — Is Scott Peterson Innocent?

The double murder gripped the nation in the early 2000s. Now the Los Angeles Innocent Project is saying we got it all wrong. Are they right?

Welcome back to our crash course in the U.S. Constitution — everything you need to know to better debate those aunts and uncles of yours on Facebook, without the law school price or the weird professors. Each issue tackles a different big idea that’s shaped American life: free speech, due process, equal protection, search and seizure, etc. Expect real-world examples, understandable explanations, and the occasional lawyer joke (now you’ve been warned, so you can’t be upset). Whether you're a news junkie, a student, or just someone who wants to finally understand what “strict scrutiny” actually means, you’ll leave each issue a little smarter — and way more equipped to fight mistruths. The law was meant to be understood by the people. This series is here to prove it.

Today’s issue: Innocence Project Shocks American Media — Is Scott Peterson Innocent?

✅ NOTE: Another unexpected, application-based constitutional topic today. It was announced that the Los Angeles Innocence Project has filed to overturn the conviction of Scott Peterson, notoriously convicted of murdering his wife and unborn child in the early 2000s while having an affair with another woman. Today’s post examines not just what the LAIP has uncovered and what it believes, but also how it illuminates the intricacies of our criminal justice system, the evidence and standards to which we hold each side, and the implications for constitutional law in America.

Previous Issue: Emil Bove: The Most Dangerous Man in America? (available here)

Next Issue: Military Bases Are Being Converted to Migrant Detention Camps — Is This Constitutional?

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💡As always, paid subscribers can find the embedded audio voiceover below the “Part 1” header of this issue.

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ConLaw Lesson #56: Innocence Project Shocks American Media — Is Scott Peterson Innocent?

It’s been over twenty years since the Scott Peterson murder case gripped the nation, arguably the first high-profile trial since OJ Simpson to captivate the 24-hour news cycle. It had all the elements of a terrible story with a horrific villain — a wife, nearly 8 months pregnant, found dead off the coast in almost the same spot the husband said he had been fishing at earlier in the day (a husband who was having a secret affair with a woman who knew nothing about his other family). It was a tabloid frenzy, virtually sealing Scott Peterson’s fate in the court of public opinion long before the jury ever deliberated. He was, to many Americans, the archetype of a sociopathic husband: charming on the outside, cold beneath the surface, and caught in lie after lie. His face became synonymous with guilt.

And the guilty-before-proven-innocent problem hardly seemed to be a problem at all — no one cared much that he hardly stood a chance at trial, because we all believed he did it.

But now, two decades later, a surprising voice has entered the conversation: the Los Angeles Innocence Project. Known for championing the wrongfully convicted — often those with weak legal representation, overlooked DNA, prosecutorial misconduct, or no access to appeals — their involvement isn’t just a procedural footnote. It’s a constitutional and legal bombshell.

The LAIP doesn't take many cases. And the ones they do take? They tend to end favorably for the accused, resulting in a disproportionate number of overturned convictions. That’s not just by luck — it’s a product of painstaking research and significant amounts of time, largely because their greatest asset is their credibility. If they take a case, it’s usually for a very good reason.

So why would one of the nation’s most respected post-conviction organizations take on the case of a man so publicly reviled? The answer isn’t just about Scott Peterson. It’s about what we demand from our justice system when the stakes are life and death, and the evidence isn’t as airtight as we once believed (or were made to believe). It's a reminder that our system must protect everyone’s rights, even the most unpopular among us, or it fails all of us.

This isn’t a rehash of true crime lore. It’s a test of our national commitment to due process, fairness, prosecutorial conduct, judicial review, and the limits of circumstantial evidence. And it just might change how we think about guilt, innocence, and the high bar we set for overturning a conviction — even when new truths emerge.

And I’ll preface this by saying…I always believed Scott Peterson killed his wife. After reading the nearly 400 pages of documentation and court filings from the LAIP, though, I’m not so sure anymore.

So today, let’s break down why. And in the process, we’ll cover the fundamentals of circumstantial evidence in criminal trials (how they’re used and how they can go wrong), the process for overturning a conviction under constitutional due process arguments (and how the government’s misconduct in prosecuting a case can be so treacherous), and what the legal experts I’ve talked with now think about whether Scott Peterson was actually the right man.

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Part 1: Why the Innocence Project Got Involved

(Full audio narration by me, as well as the full text, available for paid subscribers. These lessons take hours to put together, so we’d love to have you on the journey.)