Blecker Is Available to Offer Perspective to the Media
on the Sentencing of Scott Peterson

New York, December 14, 2004—New York Law School Professor Robert Blecker, a nationally known retributivist advocate of the death penalty, but only for the “worst of the worst,” is available to comment on the death sentence handed down yesterday to Scott Peterson.

In particular, Professor Blecker is most interested in stepping back and discussing the case’s larger significance. Rather than asking “What good will it do?” to execute Peterson or any other murderer, he asks “What evil has been done?” by the individual to warrant the harshest punishment available.

According to Professor Blecker, Peterson deserves the ultimate penalty. “If his wife Laci had been his only victim, the death penalty would have been an overly harsh sentence; you could take the position that the crime grew out of a relationship that she entered into voluntarily,” he says. “But when you add the second victim—the eight-month unborn child, Connor, with a name and a form, and a heartbeat and potential — and consider his vulnerability along with the callousness Peterson demonstrated in doing away with both mother and child because they were basically in his way, it’s clear that the proper sentence was handed down.”

Professor Blecker has witnessed an execution and just returned from interviewing inmates on Oklahoma’s death row for a planned documentary film. He has frequently been quoted in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and as a guest on PBS, CNN, BBC World News, and other major media outlets discussing aspects of the death penalty and its application in specific cases. Most recently, he appeared four times on CourtTV discussing the Peterson case. Last night he commented on WPIX-TV (New York City, channel 11) during its news coverage of the Peterson death sentence.

ABOUT NEW YORK LAW SCHOOL:

Founded in 1891, New York Law School is the second oldest independent law school in the United States. Located near the centers of law, government, and finance in New York City, the school has more than 11,000 graduates and enrolls some 1500 students in its full- and part-time J.D. program. It is one of only two law schools in the metropolitan area to offer the Master of Laws (LL.M.) in Tax Law.