Olathe ? A Johnson County judge has ruled that a former Prairie Village doctor who is serving a life sentence for killing two of her children cannot withdraw the no-contest plea she entered nearly a decade ago.

Debora Green, 53, is not a victim of “manifest injustice,” District Judge Peter Ruddick said Friday in denying Green’s request for a new trial. Her lawyers said they would appeal.

Green pleaded no-contest in 1995 on charges of murder and arson. She also entered a no-contest plea on a charge of attempted murder for poisoning her estranged husband, who survived. She was not trying to withdraw her plea in that case.

Authorities initially charged Green with two counts of capital murder, saying she set the fire that consumed her Prairie Village home and killed her 13-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter. Green and a 10-year-old daughter escaped.

Green challenged her no-contest pleas five years ago, claiming she was mentally incompetent at the time of the deaths. She withdrew her challenge when prosecutors said they would seek the death penalty against her.

But in December, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled the state’s death penalty law was unconstitutional. Her lawyers argued that had Green known the death sentence could not be imposed, she would not have entered the no-contest pleas.