Cape Breton judge stays manslaughter case because man already sentenced

SYDNEY, N.S. -- A Nova Scotia judge has stayed a manslaughter charge laid against a man who pleaded guilty to aggravated assault for shooting a man who died seven years later.

In a written decision released Wednesday in Sydney provincial court, Judge Peter Ross says the continued prosecution of Nelson Kenneth MacPhee would be an abuse of process.

Ross says MacPhee's case has already been heard, his actions judged and it isn't appropriate to revisit the 2007 sentence based on a consequence that occurred after the original prosecution.

MacPhee is serving a 17-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to charges of manslaughter and aggravated assault following shootings in 2005 at a home in Glace Bay.

Kenneth Seymour was killed and his brother Donald was seriously injured.

Donald Seymour died in December 2012, and the medical examiner concluded the death was attributable to the gunshot wounds inflicted by MacPhee.