By Ed White
Associated Press
DETROIT (AP) -- A judge has overturned the conviction of a teacher who hacked her husband to death before going to school, saying she wasn't allowed to fully develop a defense of battered-woman syndrome.
U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman two weeks ago ordered authorities to put Nancy Seaman on trial again within four months or release her from prison where she's serving a life sentence. An appeal by the Michigan attorney's general, however, likely will freeze the process.
There is no dispute that Seaman, now 58, killed Robert Seaman in May 2004 by striking him with a hatchet 16 times and stabbing him at least 21 times in their garage in Farmington Hills.
She said she was a victim of emotional and physical abuse and was threatened again that day.
Seaman went to school after failing to find a substitute teacher. She returned home, wrapped the body in a tarp and used bleach and paint to get rid of blood stains in the garage. Police responding to a missing person's report eventually found the body in her car trunk.
Friedman turned aside much of Seaman's arguments in her claim that her constitutional rights were violated at trial. But he was persuaded that her attorney could have done more.
An expert in battered-woman syndrome, Lenore Walker, testified for Seaman, but she wasn't allowed to interview her.
"Reasonable efforts to argue his client's case required defense counsel to attempt to introduce as much favorable testimony regarding battered-spouse syndrome as allowed. It was the defense's only defense," Friedman said in his Oct. 29 decision.
Jurors, he said, could have had a different opinion about Seaman's guilt if they had heard more.
"The prosecution did not present overwhelming evidence ... of first-degree premeditated murder," Friedman said.
A jury in 2005 convicted Seaman of first-degree murder, but the Oakland County trial judge reduced it to second-degree murder. A state appeals court reinstated the jury's verdict.
Published: Mon, Nov 8, 2010
