Illinois high court upholds former cop Peterson's murder conviction
The Illinois Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the conviction of former Chicago-area police officer Drew Peterson for murdering his third wife.
Peterson, 63, who was sentenced to 38 years in prison for the 2004 murder of Kathleen Savio, was given an additional 40 years in 2016 after being found guilty of trying to hire a hit man to kill the prosecutor who argued for his conviction at his first trial.
Peterson's attorneys had urged the state's highest court to overturn his conviction of Savio's murder on several technical grounds, including the admission of hearsay statements and the competence of his lawyer for calling as a defense witness Savio's divorce lawyer, Harry Smith.
The court's seven justices, however, unanimously rejected all of Peterson's arguments, upholding an earlier ruling by an appellate court.
"Based on our review of the record in this case, we conclude that defendant has failed to demonstrate that counsel’s decision to call Smith as a witness at trial was 'not within the realm of trial strategy,'” the court said in its 40-page opinion.
Peterson's lawyer, Steven Greenberg, accused the court of applying a legal double standard to his client and said he intends to appeal the ruling to U.S. Supreme Court.
"The ruling today demonstrates that courts are willing to overlook the obvious to achieve a certain result," he said in a statement. "As a nation of laws, this is a fundamentally flawed premise, and if we operate in this manner, over time all of us will suffer."