Newlywed guilty in husband's cliff-push death appeals

KALISPELL, Mont. -- A Montana woman is appealing her conviction for killing her husband of eight days by pushing him off a cliff in Glacier National Park last year.

Jordan Graham's attorneys argue in an appeal filed with 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that prosecutors distorted and withheld evidence to convince jurors that Graham planned to kill Cody Lee Johnson on July 7, 2013.

Graham pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, which doesn't involve premeditation, just before closing arguments in her December 2013 trial. A judge rejected her motion to withdraw her guilty plea after she argued the government's request for a life sentence was an attempt to punish her for first-degree murder.

Graham was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

The appeal, filed Oct. 17, requests the conviction be reversed and Graham be tried for manslaughter.

In a recorded statement made to an FBI agent in Kalispell on July 16, 2013, Graham said she and Johnson argued in the park and he accidentally fell when she tried to remove his hand from her arm. The recording was played at her trial in December, 2013.

Johnson was reported missing on July 8. Graham concocted a story that her husband of eight days had gone off with friends and had not returned. His body was found by Graham on July 11.

In the recording, Graham calmly told FBI agent Stacey Smiedala that she and Johnson were having a fight and decided to drive to Glacier to discuss their issues. While venturing off trail, Graham said Johnson grabbed her arm. Graham then took Johnson's hand off her and pushed him over the cliff.

"It was a quick thing, I just wanted to get him off me," she said in the recorded interview. "I don't feel like I killed him; I mean I pushed him, but it was an accident."