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 Jordan Graham pleaded guilty in December 2013 to second-degree
murder over the death of Cody Johnson, 25, her husband of eight
days, and was sentenced by a U.S. judge last year.
In legal motions filed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the
former nanny accused prosecutors of distorting facts and acting
vindictively, including by suggesting she had blindfolded her spouse
before shoving him to his death.
Graham's attorneys also alleged that prosecutors engaged in
misconduct by calling her a sociopath during a court hearing, and by
wrongly arguing that she deserved a life sentence because she
plotted Johnson's killing in advance.
 A three-judge panel dismissed her arguments and handed down a
decision on Thursday siding with U.S. prosecutors and a lower court,
which had already rejected how Graham's lawyers sought to
characterize the plea deal she signed.
The U.S. appeal court's ruling also found Graham failed to prove the
allegations of vindictiveness by prosecutors, and it upheld the
30-year sentence imposed by the district court.
"Graham lied repeatedly to law enforcement and, even after
confessing she pushed Johnson off the ledge, told friends she had
been exonerated by multiple polygraph tests," the panel of judges
wrote in their decision.
Graham was sentenced last year by a federal judge who refused a
request by her to withdraw her guilty plea. That admission of
second-degree murder was secured under a deal with prosecutors that
saw them dismiss a first-degree murder charge.
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Her lawyers had acknowledged she behaved in a "somewhat shameful
manner" by lying to officials after the incident. But they said that
was because she feared authorities might not buy her account that
she accidentally shoved her newlywed off the cliff during a marital
dispute while climbing a steep trail.
(Reporting by Laura Zuckerman in Salmon, Idaho; Editing by Daniel
Wallis and Sandra Maler)
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