Attorneys for Jordan Graham, 22, had sought to rescind her guilty plea in December, saying that prosecutors were overreaching by seeking a life sentence and reneging on an agreement that they expected would involve less prison time.
But U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy denied the request at a hearing in Missoula, and later sentenced Graham to 30 years in prison with no chance for early parole, followed by five years of supervised release.
"Jordan Linn Graham didn't have the human capacity to feel the wrongfulness of what she'd done, to seek help or even tell his (her husband's) mother," Molloy said.
Graham has admitted in court to pushing her husband of eight days off the edge of a cliff last July. She said that on the day he died, the newlyweds had driven to the Montana park and walked down to an embankment on the cliff face, where she told him she wasn't happy and "wasn't sure we should be married."
Her husband, 25-year-old Cody Johnson, responded by grabbing her hand, she said.
"I told him to let go and I pushed his hand off," Graham said. "I just pushed his hand off and just pushed away."
In exchange for Graham pleading guilty to second-degree murder in a deal struck just as closing arguments were due to begin in the high profile case, prosecutors dropped a first-degree murder charge, which carries a mandatory life sentence.
Before sentence was pronounced, Johnson's mother, two uncles and an aunt called on the judge to put Graham behind bars for life.
"Today and every day I have a broken heart, Cody is my only child," said his mother, Sherry Johnson. "I believe life in prison for Jordan is fair."
Graham, wearing a skirt and sweater the hearing, broke down in tears before sentencing as she began her address to the judge, saying she still loved the husband she killed.
"A day doesn't go by I don't think about what happened and why I didn't make different decisions," she said. Turning briefly toward Johnson's mother, Graham apologized to her.
Prosecutors had argued a life sentence was warranted, given the seriousness of the crime, Graham's lack of remorse and the "mental preparations" she made before killing Johnson during a marital dispute while hiking a steep trail at Glacier.
Johnson told acquaintances on the morning of his death that Graham had planned a "surprise" for him that evening, Assistant U.S. Attorney for Montana Zeno Baucus wrote in legal documents.
