NC Supreme Court upholds Peterson murder conviction

RALEIGH (AP) — The state Supreme Court has upheld the murder conviction of novelist Michael Peterson, ruling that evidence improperly obtained from his computer wouldn’t have
changed the outcome of his trial.

Peterson is serving a life sentence for the first-degree murder of his wife Kathleen, whose body was found at the bottom of a staircase in the couple’s Durham home in 2001

In a unanimous ruling, the state’s highest court also determined that the presiding judge at the 2003 trial didn’t make a mistake by admitting evidence about the 1985 death of a Peterson family friend in Germany.

The justices also ruled that statements made by Durham prosecutors during closing arguments don’t warrant a new trial.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)