New trial in Internet killing case

FLINT, Mich., Aug. 30 (UPI) -- A federal judge has reversed the conviction of a Michigan woman convicted of getting a man she met on the Internet to kill her husband.

U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts said a suicide note written by Sharee Miller's alleged lover, Jerry Cassaday, should not have been allowed into evidence at her trial, the Flint Journal reported. Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton said he will ask the state attorney general to appeal.

Bruce Miller was killed in 1999. Several months later, Cassaday took his own life in Kansas City, leaving a suicide note that said he had killed Miller under pressure from Sharee Miller.

She was convicted in 2001 and sentenced to life in prison for second-degree murder and 54 years to 81 years for conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. Her lawyer, David Nickola, argued at the trial that the suicide note should not be shown to the jury because its writer could not be cross-examined.

"We did not lose a fair fight. I know what was just and what wasn't just," Nickola said. "I knew at the time we were wronged."

Charles Miller reacted angrily to the possibility of his sister-in-law being retried.

"As far as I'm concerned she's guilty as hell," Miller said. "Everything she's ever told us has been a lie."