(CNN) California's Supreme Court on Monday reversed the death sentence handed down to Scott Peterson for the 2002 deaths of his wife Laci and unborn son. The high court found that the trial itself was fair and the murder convictions stand. In an automatic appeal, which was first filed with the Supreme Court in 2012, the court found that potential jurors were dismissed erroneously, in part because they expressed general objections to the death penalty on a questionnaire. "While a court may dismiss a prospective juror as unqualified to sit on a capital case if the juror's views on capital punishment would substantially impair his or her ability to follow the law, a juror may not be dismissed merely because he or she has expressed opposition to the death penalty as a general matter," the opinion states. Nothing in the questionnaires showed that the dismissed jurors would have been unable to vote for the death penalty if the the circumstances warranted, the justices said.

Source: CNN August 24, 2020 19:40 UTC