CHICAGO _ Former Bolingbrook, Ill., police Officer Drew Peterson has launched another bid to have his murder conviction overturned, once again arguing that his attorney's incompetence landed him in prison.
Peterson, 65, who was convicted by a Will County jury in 2012 of killing his third wife, Kathleen Savio filed the post-conviction motion Sunday in federal court after exhausting all his legal options at the state level.
Illinois courts repeatedly have rejected the former police officer's claims that his trial lawyer committed errors so egregious that Peterson did not receive a fair trial.
Savio's death in 2004 came amid a hostile divorce battle over his police pension. Will County prosecutors have also named Peterson as the sole suspect in the 2007 disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson.
In his latest appeal, Peterson largely blames his conviction on attorney Joel Brodsky's decision at trial to call divorce lawyer Harry Smith to the witness stand. Prosecutors were barred from calling Smith as a witness, but Brodsky put him on anyway over the objections of other defense team members and a warning from the judge about opening a Pandora's box.
Smith, who represented Savio in her divorce, testified that in a call to his office in October 2007 Stacy Peterson told him that Drew Peterson killed Savio and she knew how he did it. Stacy Peterson also told Smith she wanted to leave Drew. She disappeared a few days after the telephone conversation.
Brodsky argued Smith's testimony proved Stacy would do anything to gain an advantage in a potential divorce. Jurors, however, said Smith's testimony factored into their guilty verdict more than any other witness.
Prosecutors called Brodsky's decision to call Smith "a gift from God," but Peterson's weekend filing was less charitable, calling it among "the Mount Rushmore of boneheaded moves."
The Illinois Supreme Court indefinitely suspended Brodsky's law license in June amid an investigation into a series of bizarre antics that drew the ire of both opponents and judges. None of the allegations involve his handling of the Peterson case.
Brodsky issued a comment Monday noting that Peterson's claim of ineffective assistance of counsel has been rejected by the trial judge, the state Appellate Court and the Illinois Supreme Court.
"The reasons that Peterson was convicted has nothing to do with me or any of his counsel," Brodsky said. "The Illinois Supreme Court put a great deal of work into its well written opinion, and anyone who wants to know why Peterson was convicted should read it."
There was no physical evidence tying Peterson to Savio's drowning in her Bolingbrook bathtub, a death that authorities originally deemed an accident. Prosecutors secured a conviction with a circumstantial case that relied heavily on hearsay statements such as Smith's.
In 2017,, the Illinois Supreme Court unanimously found that the hearsay testimony did not violate Peterson's constitutional rights. The court also declined to rehear his appeal of that decision.
The U.S. Supreme Court last year refused to hear an appeal based largely on the legality of Smith's testimony. Peterson's attorney Steven Greenberg, who was a member of the trial team, now wants a federal district judge to review whether Brodsky provided ineffective counsel.
"I am hopeful that the federal court will give Mr. Peterson the fair hearing that he has thus far been denied during his appeals," Greenberg said Monday in a statement.
The spokeswoman for Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow could not be reached for comment.
Peterson is currently serving a 38-year sentence for Savio's murder at a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. In 2016, he was sentenced to an additional 40 years in prison for attempting to hire a hit man to kill Glasgow, meaning Peterson will likely spend the rest of his life in custody even if the murder conviction was overturned.
