MONROE - In a courtroom fraught with family tension, a Green County judge rejected a plea agreement for probation and instead sentenced 28-year-old Shannon Golackson to one year in jail for stabbing her husband and leaving him on the floor bleeding overnight.
Her attorney, Gregory Knoke, plans to file a motion to withdraw her plea and ask the court to reconsider the decision. Golackson's jail sentence is postponed until a hearing on this motion can be heard March 6.
The plea agreement Knoke and Assistant District Attorney Jeffrey Kohl came to "wasn't entered on a spur-of-the-moment coffee break. We've spent hours and hours and hours on this," Knoke said. The case doesn't warrant jail time, he argued, given Golackson's lack of a criminal record and her commitment to counseling.
The agreement downgraded two felonies to misdemeanors and dismissed - but allowed for a three-year stay of proceedings - on two other felonies.
In discussing the amended charge of battery, Judge Thomas Vale said he has never seen a more serious injury charged as a misdemeanor and not a felony. He reasoned the severity of the stabbing injury called for jail time, not probation.
It is incomprehensible, he told Golackson, that she could leave her husband on the floor bleeding overnight and then try to negotiate with him before taking him to the hospital the next day. Any "mature adult seeing a person bleeding on the floor" would know to call 911 immediately, he said.
According to testimony last January from her husband, Joshua Golackson, the couple were arguing in their home in Monroe late on a Sunday in December 2011 when the dispute escalated. She grabbed a steak knife out of a knife set on the kitchen counter and threw it at him, then took a second steak knife and stabbed it in his upper left chest, causing a "massive amount of blood" to gush from him.
Next, he said, she rinsed his blood off the stabbing knife in the sink and went outside to smoke a cigarette.
"There was discussion of me going to the hospital," he testified. "I didn't feel it was necessary." He changed his mind overnight when he realized how serious the wound was. In the morning, she took him to the hospital on the condition that he lie and say he accidentally stabbed himself while cutting an apple. The stabbing injury required four days of hospitalization, and a liter of blood was drained from his lungs, he said.
Speaking to the court at Thursday's hearing, Joshua Golackson's mother, Krystal Hoffman, recalled her horror when her son described the sounds of the blood gushing and "the air collapsing from his lungs."
"I looked at (Shannon Golackson) and asked her how she could be so cold, and she had no response," Hoffman said.
Joshua Golackson also spoke to the court Thursday, saying he has gone through "incredible trauma" in the past year and his wife should face a harsher sentence than probation and get help for her "unresolved issues."
The couple have a 3-year-old girl together and are currently in the process of divorcing.
Their families sat on opposite sides of the courtroom. Members of his family often shook their heads and whispered at the proceedings, particularly when the attorneys argued for probation only and not jail time.
Speaking on Shannon Golackson's behalf were her father, Steven Geiger, and her uncle and godfather, Robert Larson.
"I would like to see her name cleared," Larson said. The case has worn her down, he said, and he wants to see her return to a normal life. "Her health has deteriorated. She has lost a lot of weight. She has aged about 20 years."
Shannon was given the opportunity to speak last.
"I don't think there are words to say what I'm feeling ... how deeply sorry I am," she said. "I'm truly sorry this incident occurred."
She pleaded for her husband's family and her family to get along, for the sake of the couple's daughter.
Knoke argued Golackson should be granted probation so she can care for the girl, but Vale said the seriousness of the offense could not be ignored and jail is necessary. He is allowing Golackson to have Huber work-release privileges, meaning she will be able to leave jail daily for work or to see her daughter.
"I certainly don't bear you any ill-will and I hope that (the sentence) changes your life," Vale told her.
Her attorney, Gregory Knoke, plans to file a motion to withdraw her plea and ask the court to reconsider the decision. Golackson's jail sentence is postponed until a hearing on this motion can be heard March 6.
The plea agreement Knoke and Assistant District Attorney Jeffrey Kohl came to "wasn't entered on a spur-of-the-moment coffee break. We've spent hours and hours and hours on this," Knoke said. The case doesn't warrant jail time, he argued, given Golackson's lack of a criminal record and her commitment to counseling.
The agreement downgraded two felonies to misdemeanors and dismissed - but allowed for a three-year stay of proceedings - on two other felonies.
In discussing the amended charge of battery, Judge Thomas Vale said he has never seen a more serious injury charged as a misdemeanor and not a felony. He reasoned the severity of the stabbing injury called for jail time, not probation.
It is incomprehensible, he told Golackson, that she could leave her husband on the floor bleeding overnight and then try to negotiate with him before taking him to the hospital the next day. Any "mature adult seeing a person bleeding on the floor" would know to call 911 immediately, he said.
According to testimony last January from her husband, Joshua Golackson, the couple were arguing in their home in Monroe late on a Sunday in December 2011 when the dispute escalated. She grabbed a steak knife out of a knife set on the kitchen counter and threw it at him, then took a second steak knife and stabbed it in his upper left chest, causing a "massive amount of blood" to gush from him.
Next, he said, she rinsed his blood off the stabbing knife in the sink and went outside to smoke a cigarette.
"There was discussion of me going to the hospital," he testified. "I didn't feel it was necessary." He changed his mind overnight when he realized how serious the wound was. In the morning, she took him to the hospital on the condition that he lie and say he accidentally stabbed himself while cutting an apple. The stabbing injury required four days of hospitalization, and a liter of blood was drained from his lungs, he said.
Speaking to the court at Thursday's hearing, Joshua Golackson's mother, Krystal Hoffman, recalled her horror when her son described the sounds of the blood gushing and "the air collapsing from his lungs."
"I looked at (Shannon Golackson) and asked her how she could be so cold, and she had no response," Hoffman said.
Joshua Golackson also spoke to the court Thursday, saying he has gone through "incredible trauma" in the past year and his wife should face a harsher sentence than probation and get help for her "unresolved issues."
The couple have a 3-year-old girl together and are currently in the process of divorcing.
Their families sat on opposite sides of the courtroom. Members of his family often shook their heads and whispered at the proceedings, particularly when the attorneys argued for probation only and not jail time.
Speaking on Shannon Golackson's behalf were her father, Steven Geiger, and her uncle and godfather, Robert Larson.
"I would like to see her name cleared," Larson said. The case has worn her down, he said, and he wants to see her return to a normal life. "Her health has deteriorated. She has lost a lot of weight. She has aged about 20 years."
Shannon was given the opportunity to speak last.
"I don't think there are words to say what I'm feeling ... how deeply sorry I am," she said. "I'm truly sorry this incident occurred."
She pleaded for her husband's family and her family to get along, for the sake of the couple's daughter.
Knoke argued Golackson should be granted probation so she can care for the girl, but Vale said the seriousness of the offense could not be ignored and jail is necessary. He is allowing Golackson to have Huber work-release privileges, meaning she will be able to leave jail daily for work or to see her daughter.
"I certainly don't bear you any ill-will and I hope that (the sentence) changes your life," Vale told her.