Court upholds Peterson conviction

The state Court of Appeals has upheld the murder conviction of Durham novelist and columnist Mike Peterson.

In a 2 to 1 decision, the panel held that Peterson received a fair trial. The dissenting vote means that the case will be heard by the state Supreme Court. But for now, the decision is a victory for the state and an affirmation for Durham Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson, who presided over the much-scrutinized case.

Peterson was charged with the December 2001 death of his wife, Nortel executive Kathleen Peterson. In the early morning hours of Dec. 9, 2001, Peterson called 911 in a panic to say his wife was hurt.

When emergency workers arrived they found her at the bottom of a staircase. Investigators were suspicious because of all the blood.

The Peterson saga became a nationally televised drama as a high-powered defense took on Durham prosecutors. The case featured many twists and revelations. Two of them would ultimately become the basis for Peterson's appeal.

Prosecutors told the jury about a similar incident in 1985 in Germany. A Peterson family friend, Elizabeth Ratliff, died at the bottom of a staircase. There was a lot of blood, and Peterson may have been the last person to see her alive.

In his appeal, Peterson objected to the introduction of that evidence.

"We can see no error in the determination that the circumstances of Elizabeth's death were admissible to, at the very least, show the absence of accident in Kathleen's death, as defendant claimed," Judge Rick Elmore wrote in the opinion. "In isolation, it might be plausible that the defendant acted accidentally or innocently; a single act could easily be explained on that basis. However, in the context of other misdeeds, the defendant's act takes on an entirely different light. The fortuitous coincidence becomes too abnormal, bizarre, implausible, unusual, or objectively improbable to be believed."

Also in Peterson's trial, prosecutors presented evidence to show that Peterson was bisexual and had arranged sexual encounters with men. Peterson's lawyers argued that Peterson's sexual practices were irrelevant and so prejudicial that he could not get a fair trial. The appeals court found that the information was relevant, especially after one of Peterson's lawyers said in his opening statement that the Petersons had an idyllic marriage.

"As defense counsel, in his opening statement, extensively discussed defendant and Kathleen's relationship and portrayed the marriage as a happy and loving one, the trial court properly found that evidence of defendant's attempts to have sexual relations with a male escort and interest in homosexual pornography were relevant to rebut defense counsel's opening statement," Elmore wrote.

Peterson is serving a life sentence in Nash Correctional Institution in Nashville.