"We are asking them to review the Appellate Division ruling and overturn that ruling," said James P. Lynch, Gloucester County's first assistant prosecutor.
Burris, who was 23 at the time of her trial, was convicted in Gloucester County Superior Court of shooting her mother, Carol Jean Burris, 42, on April 19, 1990, and using her mother's credit card on a four-day spree.
But the Appellate Division ruled in January that the prosecutor at the July 1992 trial had used two statements that were illegally obtained from the woman.
The trial court ruled that the statements could not be entered into evidence, but it allowed the statements to be used to attack Burris' credibility when she testified.
The appeals court, however, said the statements should not have been used for any purpose.
In the first statement, the records showed, Burris waived her constitutional rights and denied using her mother's car or credit card. She then said she wanted a lawyer, and the questioning stopped.
Less than an hour later, however, Burris changed her mind and gave a second statement. During this discussion, the court said, she confessed to shooting her mother and taking the credit card.
During this sequence, the appeals court ruled in January, Burris was not properly advised of her rights to remain silent and to be represented by legal counsel.
"We are convinced that admission of the two statements deprived the defendant of a fair trial, respecting the charges of murder and possession of a firearm for an unlawful purpose," the court said.
Burris testified that the murder weapon, a .38-caliber revolver stolen from her father's home in Delaware, had fired accidentally during an argument with her mother over money.
She has asserted that a personality disorder, developed after her parents divorced in 1985 when she was 16, enabled her to block out her mother's death and spend the next four days shopping and staying in a hotel, charging about $1,000 on her mother's American Express card.
Burris is being held on $200,000 cash bail.
