Jim Hammer-- Lawyer, Or Entertainer?

In the conversation that continues on Greta Van Susteren's blog over at FoxyLady News, Jim Hammer has come up in the comments section. So I looked him up to see what his role is in this debacle.

He's a "legal expert" for television news programs, he does speaking engagements, he influences conversations and thought, for a living. And he's a great example of why this story stinks to high heaven.


Source


"They've put on a whole lot of nothing," said Michael Cardoza, a former prosecutor turned Bay Area defense attorney, of the state's case so far. "The first week was immensely important, and they blew it."

Cardoza, who sat in on the trial in Redwood City, and other experts say the prosecutors' opening statements -- a road map of what they hope to prove -- were a muddled mess that failed to do much more than portray Peterson as a cheating, smarmy jerk. Furthermore, the prosecution's first few witnesses, including a Trader Joe's manager who read off Laci Peterson's shopping list in tedious detail, failed to deliver much punch, the experts say.

"Every law student is taught that the two things the human mind remembers is the first and last piece of information it hears," said Jim Hammer, a former San Francisco prosecutor who now does legal analysis for Fox News. "And a Trader Joe's receipt is not the most powerful thing they have."

Some believe that one of the biggest blows to the prosecution's case came during the defense's opening statements. Prosecutor Rick Distaso set the stage for defense attorney Mark Geragos' move when he told the jury that Peterson had lied to investigators about the day he said he last saw his wife alive -- Dec. 24, 2002. Peterson said he had spent the morning with Laci watching the Martha Stewart show -- a segment on meringue. Investigators apparently studied the show that aired that day and decided there had been no mention of meringue and that the episode Peterson referred to had run the day before.

Based in part on Peterson's so-called lie, authorities obtained a search warrant to go through the 31-year-old fertilizer salesman's belongings.

But when Geragos took his turn before the jury, he played a clip of the Dec. 24 show on two giant, flat-screen monitors flanking the jury box. And sure enough, Stewart and her guest talked about making meringue cookies. Geragos rewound and repeated the tape, saying, "I played it twice, just in case the Modesto P.D. couldn't hear it."

The courtroom erupted into laughter. Geragos had thrown down the gauntlet, and his attack on the investigators who he says bungled the case had begun.

"I nearly fell off my damn chair when I heard it. It was definitely a good moment for the defense," Cardoza said, adding that the jury now has been officially conditioned to be skeptical of anything the police testify to during trial.

But Hammer, who also has been in the courtroom, says the defense won't win the case with whipped egg whites and sugar.

"The prosecution still has some powerful evidence," he said. "And the defense never addressed three big questions: Why did the bodies of Laci and the couple's baby wash ashore only 2 miles from where Peterson went fishing? Why did Scott Peterson lie right away about what he did (telling some he had played golf, when he went fishing instead) on the day his wife disappeared? And was the cement residue found on his boat trailer from homemade cement anchors used to weigh down his wife's body?

"These are facts that could get him convicted," Hammer said.



What facts?

Where was it proven that Laci and Conner "washed ashore"?

The prosecution's "expert" on the movements of objects via tidal currents in the Bay could not track Laci's trajectory.

Conner "washed ashore" over those huge, sharp rocks without sustaining any damage? Conner was inside his mother's womb for four months, but his skin was still intact? No animal feeding?

Who knew Peterson went to the bay? Everyone within reach of the telly, including anyone besides Peterson who might have been the actual killer and who could surmise that placing the bodies by the shore would suggest Scott's guilt? How many people had access to that area, by night, when no one was around? The searches were long over.

This would be evidence---if it had not been broadcast far and wide.

But it was.

Regarding the golfing/fishing business---
What's so hard to understand about a plan A, and a plan B? Scott tells Laci he might golf, he might fish, the day before. This gets relayed to Laci's relatives, who then claim Scott said he was golfing.
So what? He decided to take the boat out instead?
This is a non-issue as far as I'm concerned.

And, finally, the cement. A competitor of Scott's testified that he'd seen concrete mix on the trailer months before. Scott was putting in fence posts at his home.

Besides, that "evidence" fell apart in trial. The bucket supposedly used to make anchors wasn't used after all. And the anchors wouldn't have been sufficient to weigh Laci's body down, anyway. And ---- since we're on the anchors..what happened to the bloody things? Anchors sink...they don't just wash out to sea. Never found a one of 'em.

From Marlene Newell's editorial on the matter:



Phil Devan, a very interested trial watcher, conducted his own experiment, determined to prove that Scott Peterson used that 14 foot Gamefisher boat to dump Laci's body in the Bay. He used 4 8-lb. weights, the same size and number as the ones Scott was supposed to have made, and a dummy. He was able to get the weighted dummy overboard without capsizing the boat, but he had one problem. The weights weren't sufficient to sink the body. It kept bobbing up.

The State provided no expert claim that 32 lbs. of weight would have been sufficient to sink Laci's body and keep it submerged. The area where Scott was fishing is shallow, only 3-4 feet deep at low tide. The buoyancy caused by the gases forming in her decomposing body would have eventually caused the body to float.




But, most curious of all, is Hammer's assertion that these questions are "facts."

They are not facts, and no facts were presented supporting the theories at trial.

But also---as a person trained in the law---why is Mr. Hammer placing the burden of proof upon the defense?

Maybe 'cause the audience does that, and the audience likes to hear what it likes to hear, and he's pimped out to it and to the Fox gig?

Who knows?

It's only the lives of others, after all.