Deadline extended to resolve plea deal in Burlco woman's overturned manslaughter sentence

In September, a Superior Court judge gave the Burlington County prosecutor and a defense team until Monday to resolve a 12-year-old case involving a Burlington Township woman who shot her sleeping husband to death.

When both sides reported they had failed to reach a plea agreement - four months after the state Supreme Court overturned the woman's 30-year manslaughter sentence - Judge Jeanne T. Covert set a new deadline, Dec. 13.

Marie Hess, a former Burlington-Bristol Bridge toll-taker who was diagnosed with battered-wife syndrome while she was serving her term in state prison, said nothing at Monday's hearing.

Covert said she had met with the attorneys and learned there was "still more work to be done." The judge cleared her calendar for a day next month, saying she wanted to "really concentrate on resolving this, if possible."

In a scathing written opinion, the Supreme Court reversed Hess' sentence, saying the woman's rights were violated when her lawyer failed to argue for leniency or to object to an emotional and potentially prejudicial victim-impact video presented in court.

Hess, 47, admitted that she fatally shot her husband, Patrolman James Hess, in August 1999, but later said she was surprised to see the video played during the sentencing hearing while her lawyer said nothing to mitigate its impact.

Neither Assistant Burlington County Prosecutor Mark Westfall nor deputy public defender Kevin Walker would comment on the case after Monday's hearing.

In appealing Hess' case to the Supreme Court, her lawyers requested a new sentencing hearing, but when the court left the decision up to Prosecutor Robert Bernardi, he said he would rather try her for murder.

Jimmy Hess' mother, father, sisters, brothers, and a few family friends attended court, as did five friends of Marie Hess.