State v. Hess

In a negotiated agreement with the State, defendant Marie Hess pled guilty to aggravated manslaughter for killing her husband James (Jimmy) Hess, a City of Burlington police officer. Under the terms of the agreement, defendant was required to acknowledge that she would receive a thirty-year prison sentence, subject to a parole disqualifier (twenty-five-and-one-half years); to concede that the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating factors; and to agree that neither she nor her attorney would seek a lesser term of imprisonment. At defendant’s sentencing, despite evidence in his…