Amy Bishop, Ex-Univ. of Alabama professor who pleaded guilty to shooting six people, heads to court

(CBS/AP) HUNTSVILLE, Ala. - Amy Bishop, the ex-university professor who pleaded guilty to shooting six people during a faculty meeting in Alabama, is headed to court for an abbreviated trial.

Pictures: Amy Bishop pleads guilty to Ala. Univ. shootings

A judge scheduled jury selection Monday for Bishop, 44, a Harvard-educated biologist who went on the shooting spree in February 2010 at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Bishop avoided a possible death sentence when she pleaded guilty earlier this month to killing three people and wounding three others. Now, she faces life in prison. She had earlier pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

But a trial is still required under Alabama law because Bishop admitted to a capital charge of murder. So lawyers will select a jury and Circuit Judge Alan Mann will hold a brief trial.

Bishop awaits trial in the shotgun death of her brother in Massachusetts in 1986. The shooting of 18-year-old Seth Bishop had been ruled an accident after Amy Bishop told police at the time she shot him in the family's Braintree home as she was trying to unload her father's gun.

But the Alabama slayings led to a new investigation and charges.

In the university shooting, police and people who knew Bishop have described her as being angry over the school's refusal to grant her tenure, a decision that effectively would have ended her employment in the biology department at UAH.

The gunfire killed Bishop's boss, biology department chairman Gopi Padila, plus professors Maria Ragland Davis and Adriel Johnson. Professors Joseph Leahy, staff aide Stephanie Monticciolo and assistant professor Luis Cruz-Vera were shot and wounded.

Complete coverage of the Amy Bishop case on Crimesider