The defense boat demonstration - is it credible?

RoseMontague commented:

I think the boat video is pretty silly. Man, motor, and body all in the back of the boat with the guy trying to lift as he is sitting down in the very back of the boat. The prosecution was allowed to show an example of someone fitting into the compartment up from that one which would be in a more stable area.
Conversely, the man is shown in the first part of the video one compartment up standing up and the boat appears stable from that standpoint. He could have done his lifting from the middle of the boat rather than the rear. In addition the fishing expert (and they do catch some very heavy fish) indicated he believed he would not have a problem disposing of a body over the side of such a boat.
I wondered after seeing the video what was cut out of it from the point of the guy standing up to the point where he is being silly.

Can we agree that the Prosecution's demonstration should not have been admitted?  It no way can be considered a replication of the crime:  this was a living woman who was able to crawl into the boat and squirm around until she fit.

Here is the defense demonstration for those who haven't seen it.

There were other boat-dumping experiments.  One of the reporters who attended the trial and had doubts about Scott's guilt did his own experiment and reported that he could not do it without capsizing the boat.  Two brothers who attended the trial and were absolutely convinced Scott was guilty did an experiment.  They did successfully dump the body without capsizing the boat, but the body wouldn't sink.  I'm not sure whether there are videos of these demonstration available or not.  If anyone knows, please leave the information in the comments.

Detective Hendee wanted the MPD to do its own experiment during the investigation.  He seems to have had some question about the boat being stable enough to dump a body from.   The lead detectives said No.  However, Grogan did theorize that Scott would have to stabilize the boat, and they examined the boat for any signs of paint transfer to indicate he had tied the boat to one of the buoys. They did find some red paint on the boat, but it didn't match the paint used for the buoys and the defense suggested that the red paint transfer came from the red dolly where the boat was stored.

The fisherman's testimony -- he does say he believes he could dump a body the size of Laci and weighted down with weights from a boat Scott's size.  I wish he would have been given the opportunity to show that he could do it, alone.  He did say in his testimony that in handling the large fish, he usually had someone along with him, and that they "slid" out of the boat when they put them back into the water.   The other key factor is that we have no evidence that Scott had a similar experience with large fish.  Unless he did, could he match the feat of that fisherman?

So, for boat experiments, we have two that capsized while trying to dump the body, and one that could not get the body to sink.  

And I find it interesting that a lot of people ridicule Scott for taking such a small boat out onto the Bay to fish, but don't have any trouble believing he took it out on the Bay to dispose of Laci.

Let's discuss the exonerating evidence

During jury deliberations, several media focused on what the jury didn't hear, in anticipation of a hung jury or, even worse (from their perspective), an acquittal.  These media wanted to be sure America knew that Scott was really guilty, regardless of a bad jury outcome.  Of course, the jury did as expected and Scott was convicted.

In the years since then, we've attempted to provide information on exonerating evidence that the jury did not hear.  Many resolutely reject such a premise, arguing that if any such evidence existed, Mark Geragos would have presented it.  This is a pretty ridiculous argument, given that most post-conviction exonerations result from evidence not presented at trial.  We're not here to throw stones at Mark Geragos -- 42,000+ pages of discovery turned over piecemeal with no sense of organization was hardly inadvertent.

Others reject our efforts on the argument that we don't have expert witnesses to confirm that our arguments are correct, and therefore they are under no obligation to consider such evidence.  However, this argument is very weak simply because the exonerating evidence in this case doesn't require being an expert to understand -- to put it bluntly, it's not rocket science.  People of average intelligence and good common sense can read the same professional literature that we've read and come to the same conclusions.  And any expert called to testify in the future on Scott's behalf will be trained in the professional literature, or at least very well familiar with it, and may even have written some of it. We know that many think we simply scour the Internet looking for that one obscure source that says what we need it to say to make our arguments.  We ask that those who do not believe that the professional information we provide is representative of the body of literature available, to simply give us the name(s) and publication information of the professional literature that disagrees, and we'll take a good look at it and then discuss it.

Others use anecdotal information to dispute the exonerating evidence.  Anecdotal information can indeed be useful in making us aware of the things that could possibly happen, such as a very large wave propelling Conner to his final resting place 24 feet from the breakwater and well out of the reach of the debris line.  We are eager to discuss any possible explanation for Conner's location, or any of the other exonerating evidence, but we expect that we will be able to find some evidence that the possible explanation actually did occur.

I know there will be a strong response along these lines -- what about all the incriminating evidence, how do you explain all of that?  I don't attempt to explain all of that, except to say that if this body of exonerating evidence is credible, then all of the incriminating evidence simply falls by the wayside.  I'm sure you've heard the phrase, "that's a deal-breaker."  What makes a person look guilty does not win against what proves a person is innocent.  At least it shouldn't.


There also might be some people that think, Even if this exonerating evidence is credible, that doesn't prove Scott is innocent.  So let's discuss your theory of how Scott can still be guilty.

This venue isn't the best for discussions, but I think we can make it work.  You post a question about, or an objection to, or an argument against the exonerating evidence.  I'll copy your comment into a new article, and that will open the discussion, through my reply and through comments posted.  If we keep on subject, we should be able to have a good discussion.

Here we go again . . .

It's quite alarming to see the undue attention I've gotten over the years from a small group of people who are rabid in their hatred towards Scott Peterson and anyone who advocates for his innocence.  The accusations against me over time range from being fired to illegally claiming disability to defrauding Mark Geragos out of money collected for Scott's defense.  Of course, the persons making these accusations never provide evidence -- because none exists.

There is now a person posting on the Facebook page "Scott Peterson Case: Truth be Told" by the name of Howard Gere who is not only repeating all of those age-old unfounded accusations but also claims I have made death threats on SII (pwc-sii.com) and this blog against Sharon, Amber, Distaso, and Sneddon.

Of course, Howard hasn't produced any evidence of either the age-old accusations or these death threats.  That's because there isn't any evidence to produce.  Zip, nothing, nada.

By the way, who is Sneddon?