A man convicted earlier this year of strangling his wife to death faces up to 25 years in prison when he is sentenced on June 7.
Kenneth Gann dodged a first-degree murder conviction -- which could have gotten him life in prison -- in February when the jury chose to convict him of the lesser crime of second-degree murder.
His sentencing hearing, scheduled for Monday, was rescheduled to allow for more time to prepare, defense attorney Dan Ripper said.
Mr. Gann, 25, killed his estranged wife Robyn Burns Gann in their Hixson home on March 2, 2008, a fact Mr. Ripper readily admitted to the jury during his opening statement.
PDF: Gann sentencing report
The two-day trial in Hamilton County Criminal Court largely would play out as an exercise to determine whether Mr. Gann acted intentionally and made a conscious decision to kill his 25-year-old wife -- the main ingredients of a first-degree murder -- or didn't plan it at all and simply "snapped" as the defense claimed.
In convicting Mr. Gann of second-degree murder, the jury acknowledged that Mr. Gann knew that what he was doing as he manually strangled his wife would cause her death, but rejected the prosecution's claims that he planned the killing.
Mr. Ripper on Monday reiterated his opinion at the end of the trial that the outcome was "much better" than a first-degree murder conviction.
But Mr. Ripper expressed disappointment that the jury had not considered voluntary manslaughter, a lesser homicide crime than second-degree murder, which acknowledges the killer's actions during a moment of "passion."
"They (the jury) could have gotten there if they wanted to," Mr. Ripper said Monday.
Mr. Gann tried to kill himself after strangling Mrs. Gann, then putting a pillow over her face to "speed it up," trial testimony revealed.
Mrs. Gann had just told her husband that she wished she could have him killed so she wouldn't have to pay his rent, according to the statement Mr. Gann gave police from his hospital bed as he lay recovering from his suicide attempt.
"That's when I snapped," Mr. Gann told police.
While the defense claimed Mr. Gann was in a state of passion during the killing and didn't realize what he was doing, the prosecution didn't buy it.
Prosecutors called Mr. Gann's confession to police a "self-serving statement" to explain away his actions.
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