Court: Woman Can Be Tried 3rd Time in Wife's Death

The highest court in Massachusetts has rejected an appeal from a woman who faces a third trial in the death of her wife.

Cara Lee Rintala is charged with strangling Annamarie Cochrane Rintala - a paramedic - in the couple's western Massachusetts home in March 2010. Her first two trials ended in mistrials with hung juries.

Rintala's lawyers argued that putting her on trial for a third time would amount to double jeopardy because the evidence at her second trial was insufficient to warrant a conviction.

A Superior Court judge rejected that argument.

On Thursday, the Supreme Judicial Court agreed, finding that there was enough evidence for a jury to rationally conclude that at the time Cochrane was strangled, she and Rintala were the only adults in their Granby house.