Scott Peterson’s Murder Conviction Can Be Appealed, Says Legal Expert

Scott Peterson has unsuccessfully tried to appeal his conviction two times ever since he was found guilty in the deaths of his wife, Laci Peterson, and their unborn son, Conner, in 2004. The case will be re-examined in an investigation led by veteran defense attorney and ABC News legal consultant Chris Pixley in A&E’s two-part docuseries Scott Peterson: The New Evidence. Ahead of the premiere, Pixley exclusively spoke to Us about why he believes the decision in Scott’s case has the potential to be appealed.

Pixley noted that Judge Elizabeth Hill rejected Scott’s third petition for writ of habeas corpus in its entirety in April 2026, meaning she would not review the case for an appeal. The petition was submitted after the Los Angeles Innocence Project took over Scott’s case in 2024.

“One of the things that happened right before we went to air with this, of course, was Judge Hill’s ruling where she denied a review. This is not her having reviewed the evidence,” Pixley told Us. “What you expect in that situation is that she issues an Order to show Clause and then the LAIP brings their witnesses and their evidence and they put it forward.”

After noting that Hill is a “lower court judge,” Pixley said that they “don’t typically deal with habeas corpus petitions.”

“It is a discrete area of constitutional law. State court judges are not experts in it, and she was up for re-election days after she made that ruling, and she really wasn’t free because of that election,” Pixley said of why he believes Hill declined to review the case. “She wasn’t really free to kick this unpopular case to another date. She had already extended her time for giving an answer.”

Pixley said that he’s “very confident that the California Supreme Court is going to look at her decision,” particularly “where she talks about the admissibility of evidence.”

“[For] this kind of petition you don’t look, you don’t discuss, you don’t review it for admissibility. That’s what the evidentiary hearings [are] for, and it’s not pled to prove that every argument that’s being made involves admissible evidence,” he continued. “It’s pled to demonstrate to the court that this case deserves a review.”

As a legal expert, Pixley said that he believes Scott’s “case deserves a review” from the court.

“We’re giving it a review for the public,” he said of the new docuseries. “It absolutely deserves a review by the courts. I’m not really overly concerned that the California Supreme Court will get that wrong.”

While Pixley is confident that Scott’s case will return to court, he added that he believes the case also “deserves the review of the public.”

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“It’s deserving of judicial review. The California Supreme Court, I think, will get it right, but there’s also federal appeal, federal habeas corpus beyond this,” he said, adding that the LAIP has presented new evidence in the case that the court should consider.

According to Pixley, “California law recognizes that when scientific consensus says that something that was testified to is no longer true,” it should be properly reviewed. He added that the evidence the LAIP had found is “absolutely new” and he’s “really confident” it will be reviewed by the court.

Pixley breaks down the new evidence found by the LAIP in A&E’s Scott Peterson: The New Evidence. Part 1 premieres on Thursday, July 16, at 9 p.m., while part 2 will premiere on Friday, July 17, at 8 p.m.

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