'RELEASE DREW PETERSON' LAWYERS SAY

"AUTHORITARIAN"

SAVIO

CONTROVERSIAL former cop Drew Peterson "should be released from jail" his lawyers have claimed and they're taking his case to the supreme court to get their client released.
The one time "Police Officer Of The Year" award winner is being held on a $20 million bond for the murder of his wife Kathleen Savio.
Her 2003 death was initially ruled accidental after she was found drowned in a bathtub at their Bollingbrook, IL home, but later ruled homicide.
His fourth wife Stacey Peterson disappeared in October 2007 and her body has never been found, although he maintains she called to say she was leaving him for another man.  
Peterson had been set to go on trial in July 2010, but the trial was postponed the day before the jury selection was to begin due to an appeal by prosecutors seeking to allow hearsay statements.
The Illinois Appellate ruled in July that prosecutors had filed their appeal late.
Prosecutors are now appealing that decision to the Illinois Supreme Court which could take more than a year WBBM reports. 
It is for that reason that defense attorneys say Peterson should be released now.
Comparing Peterson's treatment to that of an authoritarian regime, his defense attorney Joel Brodsky told the station: "His constitutional right to a speedy trial is being violated. Nobody can deny that.
"The government can't hold somebody locked up in solitary confinement for 13 months, when they don't have enough evidence to convict them or take the case to trial."
He hopes in the next 30 days or so, the justices will consider the motion and order Peterson's immediate release from jail.