Amy Bishop in prison for life -- but wants to be put on trial again
Amy Bishop wants another day in court -- even though her last outing resulted in a sentence of life in prison. To be exact, Bishop, a former University of Alabama-Huntsville professor, wants to go on trial in the 1986 shooting death of her brother, Seth, 18, in Massachusetts.
Last month, Bishop was sentenced to life in prison without parole in a 2010 shooting rampage at the University of Alabama that left three of her colleagues dead.
Officials had said last week that, given the Alabama sentence, going forward with the Massachusetts charges didn’t make sense. The indictment was withdrawn without prejudice, meaning it can be reinstated.
But Bishop insists that she wants a trial so that she can show she had a “loving and caring relationship,” according to her lawyer, Larry Tipton.
“She wants to use a trial to help demonstrate that she’s innocent. She never intended to kill her brother,” Tipton told the Associated Press on Tuesday.
Bishop has insisted that she accidentally shot her brother while trying to unload her father’s shotgun in the family’s Braintree home. Bishop’s mother, who witnessed the shooting, has backed that claim. Authorities initially ruled the shooting accidental.
But the case was reinvestigated after Bishop was charged with opening fire during a faculty meeting and killing three co-workers and wounding three others.
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