Convicted Texas murderer featured in 'Bernie' film gets sentencing hearing

By Marice Richter DALLAS (Reuters) - A former mortician serving a life sentence for murdering an elderly East Texas woman in a case that inspired the 2011 film "Bernie" will receive a new punishment hearing, a state appeals court ruled on Wednesday. Bernie Tiede, 56, was ordered released from prison on a $10,000 personal bond in May pending a ruling by a state criminal court of appeals on whether his punishment was too harsh. Attorneys for Tiede had argued that new evidence indicated he was sexually abused as a child, which may have led him to shoot 81-year-old Marjorie Nugent in 1996 in a fit of rage and hide her body in a freezer. The jury ruled out sudden passion and sentenced Tiede in 1999 to the maximum of life in prison for premeditated murder. The state had argued against sudden passion using the testimony of an expert psychiatric witness who said Tiede's mental health history was unremarkable. The testimony was proven false, Judge Elsa Alcala said in a concurring opinion for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which agreed with a trial court that recommended a new hearing. "The state currently makes a factual representation that, had it known then what it knows now, it would have to punish applicant under a second-degree punishment range," Alcala wrote. In a dissent, Judge Sharon Keller said Tiede confessed to moving the rifle to a convenient place and removing food from the freezer to make room, suggesting against a sudden-passion defense. Since his release, Tiede has been living in Austin, Texas, with filmmaker Richard Linklater, whose film "Bernie" is a dark comedy starring Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey and Shirley MacLaine. The film chronicles the relationship between Nugent, a wealthy widow, and Tiede, who left his job as an assistant funeral director in Carthage, Texas, to become business manager and personal companion to Nugent. Nugent family members want Tiede returned to prison. "There is no happy ending here," said Shanna Nugent, granddaughter of Marjorie Nugent. "Any chance for justice for my grandmother is likely gone." (Reporting by Marice Richter; Editing by David Bailey and Peter Cooney)