MARTINEZ, Calif. — A housewife who was convicted last year of stabbing her psychologist husband to death with a paring knife was sentenced to 16 years to life in prison Friday.

"I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees. I'm not going to beg. I'm not going to beg for mercy," Susan Polk, 49, said defiantly before being given the maximum sentence for the 2002 murder of Dr. Felix Polk.

"She won't beg, but I will," defense attorney Linda Fullerton said on Polk's behalf Friday. "I do not think that a woman who lived her life the way she did deserves to be locked up for the rest of her life."

A jury convicted Polk of second-degree murder last June, saying they were unconvinced of her claims that she acted in self-defense and that her 70-year-old husband died of a heart attack during the struggle — not from his numerous stab wounds.

"During the course of four months of trial we heard an enormous amount of information ... I did not find that the testimony or the physical evidence supported self-defense," Judge Laurel Brady said Friday before sentencing Polk and denying defense motions for a new trial.

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Polk stabbed her husband of 20 years to death in October 2002 toward the end of a nasty divorce. Her youngest son, Gabriel, found his father's bloody, half-naked body lying on the floor of a poolside cabana at the couple's $1.85 million Orinda, Calif., home.

Polk will be eligible for parole in about 10 years, but could spend the rest of her life in prison.

"She'll have to earn her way out," Deputy District Attorney Paul Sequeira said to reporters outside the courtroom Friday. "The odds of that are slim to none. She has no remorse. She's still defiant."

Polk, who has no legal training, represented herself after firing a series of attorneys. Her behavior was erratic during the lengthy trial. Polk told jurors that she was psychic. Felix, she said, was an Israeli Mossad agent. She claimed he beat her, poisoned her dogs and threatened to kill the children if she ever left him.

"She's a danger," Sequeira said. "Worse, she's never going to admit she did anything wrong. I don't know — do any of you folks want to live next door to her?"

Fullerton and co-counsel Paul Feuerwerker unsuccessfully argued Friday for a new trial, alleging juror misconduct and judicial errors.

Fullerton also asked the judge to give Polk probation or a reduced verdict, and pointed to Polk's troubled relationship with her husband, whom she met as a teenager in therapy. Susan was 24 and Felix was 40 when they married.

"She was a kidnapped child," Polk's former neighbor, Elizabeth Drozdowska, said in a statement to the court. "She didn't so much go by her own will. Dr. Polk used his professional skills to seduce her."

Drozdowska, testifying from a wheelchair and struggling to speak through labored breathing, said she couldn't face God if she did not come to court to stand up for Polk.

"It's hard for me to understand why this trial is even taking place," Drozdowska said.

Dr. Felix Polk was found dead in the poolhouse of his home.

A shout of "Hallelujah!" rose from the packed courtroom gallery as Polk's 73-year-old mother Helen Bolling pumped a fist in the air.

"Please let her go!" Drozdowska cried out before being wheeled out by her son. "Please let her go so all of us who love her won't have to suffer too."

Polk quietly sobbed at the defense table.

Eli Polk, 23, wiped his nose on his sweatshirt sleeve as he cried from the podium and begged the judge to give his mother probation.

"She's not a danger to herself or anybody else," Eli said, "If she got out, she'd come home, bake a batch of cookies, and say, 'Gee, now I can start my life.'"

Felix Polk's two children from a previous marriage addressed the court Friday, seeking to clear their father's name after it was "dragged through the mud" by Polk.

"My father was a good person," Andrew Polk said in a videotaped statement, adding that Felix Polk was not a spy, an abuser or a schizophrenic, as his stepmother alleged.

"He was stabbed 27 times. I'm going to do something, because this will bring it home," Andrew said as he counted off, "one, two, three," while jabbing his fist in a stabbing motion, 27 times.