LOS ANGELES, CA - April 28, 2026 - A superior court in California today declined to review new evidence supporting Scott Peterson’s claim of actual innocence set forth in a habeas petition filed in August 2025.  The court held that procedural bars prohibit Mr.  Peterson from bringing forth new evidence showing that he did not kill his wife and unborn son. 

On Sunday February 13, 2000, 53-year-old Jane Dorotik reported her husband Robert missing after he failed to return home from a jog in Valley Center, CA. An avid runner, Robert’s body was found the next morning. He had been strangled with a rope and his skull was fractured. After investigators found what they purported to be human blood throughout the Dorotik residence, the state developed a theory of Jane’s guilt. She was quickly arrested and tried. The trial, riddled with junk science and faulty forensic testimony, resulted in a jury finding Jane guilty. Despite the defense’s continuous discovery of evidence both during and after jury deliberations, the trial court reinforced the conviction and sentenced Jane to 25 years to life.

After more than a year of investigation, the Los Angeles Innocence Project (LAIP) has presented new scientific evidence and witness statements that undermine the prosecution’s case against Scott Peterson. The new evidence is the basis for a petition for a writ of habeas corpus with the California Court of Appeal for the First District, filed late Friday, seeking to overturn Mr. Peterson’s conviction

The day I was arrested it felt like the whole world had caved in on me. I'd read about these kinds of tragedies before; these acts of fate. The person standing on the corner, catching the transit bus, who gets shot and killed by a stray bullet. I wondered, was I one of those people? One of those people you read about and think: "It's sad that person lost their life." Would I be someone who was condemned to die in prison?

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge on Wednesday found Maurice Hastings factually innocent of a crime that put him in prison for 38 years. Factual innocence is a high bar and it’s rare for courts to grant it. It means the evidence proves conclusively that he did not commit the crime. For Hastings, the ruling is an exoneration with exclamation points. For the Los Angeles County criminal justice system, it is a reminder of an enduring stain that may never be washed off.

Maurice Hastings, a man wrongfully convicted of a 1983 robbery-homicide and sexual assault, has been declared innocent by a California judge. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge William C. Ryan formally declared Hastings factually innocent and cleared the arrest and prosecution from his criminal record during a Wednesday hearing.

A team of experienced post-conviction attorneys is establishing the Los Angeles Innocence Project (LAIP) at Cal State LA, bringing the fight to free the wrongfully convicted to the university. Through the new partnership, the litigators will work alongside faculty and students in the university’s California Forensic Science Institute and School of Criminal Justice and Criminalistics to identify and investigate cases of individuals with credible claims of actual innocence, and to litigate those claims where new evidence supports overturning a conviction.

No matter how long it took, a legal team at the Los Angeles Innocence Project were going to free Maurice Hastings. A small group of dedicated attorneys at the Los Angeles Innocence Project, and a quiet older Black man who lives in the South Bay, are rejoicing over the profound meaning of freedom after Maurice Hastings, 69, heard a judge say that he was factually innocent of a murder that kept him behind bars for 38 years.