Drew Peterson Is Going To Urge The Judge To Overturn His Murder Conviction.

 

Peterson, of Bolingbrook, Illinois, is serving a 38-year term for the murder of Kathleen Savio in 2004.

Drew Peterson, a former Chicago-area police sergeant convicted of killing his third wife in 2012, is due to return to court this month after a judge agreed to hear his plea to overturn the judgment.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Will County Judge Edward Burmilla ordered the Jan. 21 hearing after finding a "gist of a constitutional" argument in Peterson's six-page handwritten motion. Peterson was assigned a public defender as well as two investigators from the public defender's office by Burmilla.

Peterson, of Bolingbrook, Illinois, is serving a 38-year term for the murder of Kathleen Savio in 2004. After being convicted in 2016 of planning to assassinate the prosecutor who put him behind bars, he will serve another 40 years.

Savio's body was discovered in a dry bathtub in 2004, just weeks before a hearing to resolve financial and child custody concerns following her divorce from Peterson. Her death was officially considered an accident, but her bones were unearthed after Peterson's fourth wife, Stacy, vanished in 2007. Savio's death was later determined to be a homicide.

Although her corpse has never been found, Stacy Peterson is assumed deceased. Drew Peterson has been named as a suspect in her disappearance, although no charges have been filed against him.

Peterson claims that his lead attorney, Joel Brodsky, did not offer effective counsel in a motion filed in October. Brodsky allegedly pressured other attorneys with dismissal from the case if they disagreed with him, and Peterson claims that he wanted to testify in his own defense but was denied by Brodsky. Peterson also claims prosecution misconduct and intimidation of witnesses.

He also contends that two important witnesses who were authorized to testify under the state's hearsay law should not have been allowed to do so. In a unanimous 2017 judgment, the Illinois Supreme Court determined that hearsay testimony from Savio was admissible.

He also contends that two important witnesses who were authorized to testify under the state's hearsay law should not have been allowed to do so. Because of evidence that killed Savio and Stacy Peterson to avoid their testimony, the Illinois Supreme Court found unanimously in 2017 that hearsay testimony from them did not violate Drew Peterson's constitutional right to confront his accusers.