JACKSON, MI - A man convicted of murder for bludgeoning his wife to death and then cutting and cooking her remains has lost another legal battle.

Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Ohio, affirmed a lower federal court's decision to deny Kevin "Kip" Artz a writ of habeas corpus, a right of detained Americans to challenge their imprisonment.

It is the latest in a string of failed appeals.

Artz, 59, remains in prison, serving a life sentence at the Gus Harrison Correctional Facility in Adrian, almost 17 years after the July 1999 death of his wife, Patricia Artz, 46.

He hit her on the head with a metal bar while in their apartment in Jackson. Artz then dismembered her body and baked, boiled or broiled her remains at the restaurant they owned, Kip's Pizza Taco House in Summit Township, according to the recent opinion and past accounts.

To the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, he argued the prosecution, during his trial in 2001, withheld an exculpatory opinion from a neuropsychologist who examined Artz.

Dr. Joseph Galdi testified in 2008 that Artz suffered from a "marijuana-induced psychosis," information that came to light in a letter Galdi wrote in September 2007 to a U.S. District Court judge in Detroit.

This had not come up during the initial trial and a subsequent evidentiary hearing addressed the exclusion, which Circuit Court Judge Thomas Wilson decided would not result in a "reasonable probability of acquittal" if presented. Further, he found it had been noted before Artz's trial.

Artz continued to contend this information could have bolstered his insanity defense. When efforts in state courts were not successful, he turned to the federal courts. "But there are good reasons to think that the omission of that opinion made no difference at Artz's trial," found the U.S. Court of Appeals, siding with Jackson County Chief Appellate Attorney Jerrold Schrotenboer.

Joseph Filip, Artz's trial lawyer and now a Jackson County District Court judge, testified in 2008 he would not have used the opinion on the marijuana, according to the Court of Appeals.

The strategy was to argue Artz was psychotic at the time of the killing because of a brain injury and defense experts told the jury this, the appellate opinion states.

Prosecutors contended Artz killed his wife because she objected to his marijuana habit, particularly in the days immediately following a June 1999 surgery to repair a hemorrhage in his brain.

Jurors rejected the insanity claims and convicted Artz of first-degree murder.

Now retired Circuit Judge Edward Grant sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

He has been incarcerated since his 1999 arrest, when police, responding to concerns from Patricia's family, found what was left of her body in and near the taco restaurant, contradicting her husband's claim she was on a trip.