LOS ANGELES—A California judge on Tuesday rejected a new murder trial for Scott Peterson, nearly 20 years after he was charged with dumping the bodies of his pregnant wife, Laci, and the unborn child they planned to name Conner into San Francisco Bay on Christmas Eve 2002.
Peterson, 50, alleged the resulting trial that gripped the world was tainted by a rogue juror who lied about her own history of abuse to get on the panel that initially sent him to death row.
Superior Court Judge Anne-Christine Massullo found that Juror No. 7, Richelle Nice, committed misconduct by providing false answers during jury selection—but that she did not commit enough misconduct to require a new trial because she wasn’t biased against Peterson….