Talk:Michael Peterson trial

message: I concur the use of "Criminal" is vague and generalized. "Murder Trial & Conviction" He's not infamous for being a "Criminal", that would be Jesse James, Al Capone, Charles Ponzi. He is notable because of 1 alleged crime that in the end he chose not to fight because the Alford Plea was a guaranteed release, a retrial might not have been.  The part about maintaining his innocence and not getting the death penalty, life in prison without parole, etc. The Alford Plea allows DAs to release a convict without having to pay reparations for false imprisonment. "Convict" or "Conviction" would be much more accurate than "Criminal".  He's still alive, is he currently committing crimes?  Isn't part of the allure of the story that there isn't definitive proof he killed his wife?  If they were exhuming her body for owl feathers...
Zerostatetechnologies (talk) 01:06, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: , he pled guilty (yes, an Alford plea is treated as guilty).  He can maintain his innocence all he wants, but he is a convicted felon who's notability is entirely around Kathleen's death.  Ravensfire (talk) 14:35, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

text: I agree with , putting “criminal” in his article sits in judgement of him, which Wikipedia isn’t supposed to be doing. Stereorock (talk) 13:42, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

text: There are several people named Michael Peterson with articles about them. This particular Michael Peterson is notable mostly for the trial and the controversy around it - one aspect of that controversy being that the case remains in a sort of perpetual legal limbo. Because of that, "trial" was chosen as the best way to disambiguate without taking a side about the trial's outcome. Gazeboist (talk) 05:44, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  (Criminal) in page name 

message: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Staircase_Murders?wprov=sfla1 isn't listed. 80.189.85.38 (talk) 17:17, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  TV and film versions of the case 

message: :The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 
The result of the move request was: There's definitely consensus to move, and it looks like the originally proposed title is the one that has most support at the moment.   (t · c) buidhe 10:23, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Michael Peterson (criminal) →  – To start off with this discussion, I will say this has been anything but an usual trial. There has been sustained coverage beyond the 2003 conviction with the The Staircase documentary.
The first requested move was in June 2018 for "Death of Kathleen Peterson" which came to "no consensus" as opinions were split. There was an AfD for the Kathleen Peterson article concurrent with the RM. The AfD resulted in the article being redirected here. I believe this is when The Staircase aired on Netflix which piqued interest back into the case. A second requested move came from me in October 2018 for "Michael Peterson (author)" which came to "not moved" to which I admit my reasoning was poor.
My request to move the page to "Michael Peterson trial" I think is a better option than its current place. The article and talk page history will at least show the use of "(criminal)" in the article name wishing for it to be moved but with no solid reasoning or consensus based on Wikipedia policies and guidelines.
WP:CRIME states  The discussion about the disambiguation to be novelist or author in the past has been solid on understanding Michael Peterson is not notable for his published works. Do understand the argument presented is not about whether or not he was a criminal. He is a convicted felon in the eyes of North Carolina. The focus should be kept on the trial as this is the item with sustained coverage. It minimizes repeated concerns of BLP violations or undue weight. Anything about his life throughout the trial up to his Alford plea can be covered in The Staircase which is a separate article. (I just realized there's also an upcoming miniseries) – The Grid (talk)  22:25, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

text: *Support renaming I am one of the ones who think the “(criminal)” attachment to his name created undue weight, and supported the move to (author). In realizing more about this, the focus has always been in the case itself, and in light of learning of the Kathleen Peterson AfD, support this merge into the 2 pages listed: Michael Peterson trial, & The Staircase as put forth by . Stereorock (talk) 01:22, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested move 5 December 2021 

message: Missing from this article is the fact that the Petersons didn’t just find the blow poke, it was ALREADY FOUND early on by the police. They examined it, determined it wasn’t the murder weapon, moved it to the basement from its original location, and persisted in arguing in court that it was the murder weapon but that it was NEVER FOUND! Such staggering corruption should lead to jail time for the police and forensic scientists who were involved in this travesty and should be reported in the article. It first gets mentioned in either the last or penultimate episode of ‘The Staircase’ on NetFlix. Overlordnat1 (talk) 09:51, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: For what it's worth it should also be noted that it's claimed by Peterson's lawyer tha the police also handled with weapon without gloves during that occasion, so when it was later rediscovered by the Peterson's and brought into the trial it's integrity as forensic evidence was already compromised. Quacktaccy (talk) 18:49, 4 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  blow poke 

message: He, via Alford Plea, plead guilty to manslaughter.  This is covered in the 'Alford plea' section of the article where it says "On February 24, 2017, Peterson entered an Alford plea ... to the voluntary manslaughter of Kathleen".  The Verdict in the article short points in the top right only refers to the 2003 guilty verdict.  Isn't this a little bit unfair given the widely believed wrongful conviction in the 2003 trial?  Even the judge admitted on video he felt that trial had been prejudice towards Michael.  Can another line be included to denote the eventual outcome rather than make it look like at a quick glance that the main takeaway from the case is he was declared guilty? Quacktaccy (talk) 18:43, 4 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  In the article short notes in the top right the verdict from the first trial is listed as guilty for murder, but there is no mention of the alford plea for manslaughter, why?