Peterson's conviction allowed to stand

The state Supreme Court rejects the Durham novelist's bid for a new trial in his wife's death

Mike Peterson lost his bid for freedom Friday when the state Supreme Court upheld the novelist's murder conviction in the death of his wife.

The court unanimously rejected Peterson's claims that he deserved a new trial. The appeals left to him -- a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court or other petitions to state or federal courts -- are long shots.

The 2003 trial of Peterson, a novelist, columnist and Durham mayoral candidate, was televised nationally and led to a book, a documentary and a Lifetime television movie.

Peterson has maintained that his wife died in an accidental fall on a staircase in the couple's mansion in Forest Hills in December 2001. The prosecution said Kathleen Peterson couldn't have died from an accident -- there was too much blood and her injuries were too severe.

"Anyone who has held the 8-by-10 glossies of that crime scene knows that it was no accident," said Jay Trehy, a lawyer who represented Kathleen Peterson's daughter, Caitlin Atwater, in a wrongful-death lawsuit against Peterson. "All you would have to do is look at those photographs, something the public has never gotten to do, and there would be no doubt in anyone's mind, any objective mind, that Kathleen Peterson was murdered."

Peterson learned of the decision on his appeal about 12:45 p.m. Friday. He was taken to the assistant superintendent's office at Nash Correctional Institution for a phone call. On the line was Kerry Sutton, a friend and lawyer, who told him the appeal had failed. Peterson was quiet for a moment, Sutton said.

"He immediately bounced back: 'I expected that. I'm fine,' " she recalled him saying. "As always, his main concern was, 'Tell the kids I'm fine. I'm OK. I was ready for this.' "

The appeal challenged the fairness of Peterson's 2003 trial on three issues. Peterson's attorneys said evidence from Peterson's computer obtained through an illegal search warrant tainted the verdict. They argued that a prosecutor's closing argument was overzealous and unfair. And they argued that jurors should have never heard any evidence about the 1985 death of Elizabeth Ratliff, a family friend who was found dead at the bottom of a bloody set of stairs.

The Ratliff evidence lent an air of mystery for the writers and filmmakers who followed the case.

In 1985, Peterson and his then-wife were neighbors and friends of Ratliff's in Germany. One night, the Petersons and Ratliff had dinner. The next morning she was found dead.

"In our view, he was involved in Elizabeth Ratliff's death, and he had gotten away with it once, and he was taking the position that he could get away with it again," said Jim Hardin, the former Durham district attorney who led the prosecution of Peterson.

The court agreed with the trial judge that there were enough similarities in the incidents that the relevance outweighed the potential unfairness.

"I'm dismayed that the court is willing to accept this level of prejudice," said Thomas Maher, who represented Peterson at trial and on appeal. "What's disturbing about it is there's a lot of totally irrelevant, but I guess interesting, similarities. But there is no proof that Michael had anything to do with her death."

Maher also challenged the fairness of evidence taken from Peterson's computer during a third search of the mansion. On the computer, investigators found evidence that the couple were having financial problems and that Peterson was trying to arrange an assignation with a male prostitute. Prosecutors used those facts to establish a motive.

Investigators found similar evidence from other searches that were legal, and having the jury see illegally obtained evidence was a harmless error, the court found.

The court also determined that an improper closing argument by a prosecutor wasn't enough to overturn the conviction. As the trial came to a close, Assistant District Attorney Freda Black told the jury that state witnesses could be trusted more because they work for the state and weren't hired experts from elsewhere. The state admitted in the appeal that the statements were "excessive and inappropriate."

"This trial spanned five months, and the record contains thousands of pages of transcripts," wrote Justice Edward Thomas Brady for the court. "The offending statements by Ms. Black spanned less than five minutes."

Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson, who presided over the trial, said Friday that he was pleased by the court's opinion.

"It obviously wasn't a perfect trial, but they did find that it was free from prejudicial error, and that's what you can expect as any defendant," Hudson said. "You're not entitled to a perfect trial."