CONCORD, N.H. – Former lawyer Seth Bader, convicted of murder in the death of his former wife, still is practicing law in prison by appealing his conviction.

In his latest attempt to overturn his conviction, he has asked a federal judge to grant him bail through a law that protects people who are wrongfully imprisoned.

Bader of Stratham wants several of the co-conspirators in the murder plot to testify in federal court. While their testimony incriminated him during his trial, Bader believes they will change their stories if granted immunity and confronted with new information he says he has learned from an unidentified inmate at the state prison.

Bader was convicted by a jury May 8, 1998, of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder for orchestrating and carrying out the shooting of his former wife, Vicki, in August 1996, and burying her body near a hiking trail in Waterboro, Maine. Her body was discovered in April 1997 after the Baders’ adopted teenage son, Joseph, went to police.

Bader insisted he was not the killer, instead pointing the finger at his former fiancee, Mary Jean Martin, and Joseph. He said they were having an affair and framed him to get him out of the way.

He was sentenced to life in prison.

Bader appealed his conviction to the state Supreme Court last year, arguing that he should be granted a new trial because jurors who convicted him were coerced. The court turned him down.

According to Bader, Sandro Stuto of Everett, Mass., an acquaintance of Martin, later told another inmate that Bader had nothing to do with the murder. But the high court said the information was similar to arguments Bader’s defense made at trial and was not a valid reason to order a new trial.

To appeal to a federal court, Bader must have exhausted all of his options in the state court system.

Federal Judge James Muirhead gave both sides two weeks to submit further written arguments to Bader’s appeal filed last month. Bader said he would be doing most of the legal research himself.