OSWEGO, NY – Joyce Malone had her sentencing postponed once again.
Malone, 70, of Tug Hill Road in Oswego Town, was convicted in January of first-degree manslaughter in the shooting death of her husband, Ralph.
She was to be sentenced last month. However, Her lawyer, Jim Eby, told the court she had been diagnosed with lung cancer and was undergoing treatment. To stop them at that time, Eby said, “would be life-threatening.”
In Oswego County Court this morning (April 8), Eby, told Oswego County Court Judge Walt Hafner that his client had been hospitalized on Monday. She is hooked up to IVs in Oswego Hospital, he said.
Her blood pressure dropped to 75 over 45 and she was dehydrated, he said.
The defense attorney said he didn’t know when Malone would be discharged.
Assistant District Attorney Gregory Oakes agreed Malone was too ill to appear in court today.
She is scheduled to start her second round of chemo treatments at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, at Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse.
Oakes said he was agreeable to adjourning the sentencing until early next week.
Hafner described it as a “cat and mouse game” trying to catch her between hospitals.
“I don’t know if she’s ever going to come back here. It’s quite obvious where we’re headed here,” the judge said.
He scheduled her to appear at 9 a.m. Tuesday.
After the verdict came in, Eby asked his client to get a complete health examination.
In the course of that it was revealed that she has cancer in the lungs, it has moved into the lymph nodes and her brain.
“Basically, it’s inoperable. It’s in stage four and the only available treatments now are radiation and chemotherapy. So, therefore, we asked the court for an adjournment so that she could continue those treatments which have already commenced,” he said last month. “I understand, from the doctor, that it is life-threatening to discontinue the treatments at this point.”
She is facing a minimum sentence of five years to a maximum of 25 years.
Malone remains free on a $100,000 bail bond.
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