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The Wisconsin Supreme Court has denied the appeal of a woman who robbed a cashier at a Hallmark store in Milwaukee by threatening her with a butcher knife.

Shantell Harbor, 37, had argued Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Dennis Moroney had failed to consider her mental health and drug addiction issues when sentencing her to 12 years in prison followed by 12 years of probation.

The Supreme Court, in a unanimous opinion, concluded the issues weren’t “highly relevant to the imposition of the original sentence” as prescribed by prior case law and didn’t, therefore, justify a modification of her sentence.

Harbor was convicted of robbery in 1992 and 1993 and escape from custody in 2006. In 2008, four months after she was released from Taycheedah Correctional Institution, she attempted (unsuccessfully) to rob two check cashing stores in Milwaukee.

In the first attempt, Harbor passed a note to a clerk demanding money then fled after the clerk triggered an alarm. Later, on the same day, Harbor tried the same tactic at a different branch, but the note was illegible. The clerk eventually made out the words “money” and “shoot” and realized Harbor was attempting to rob the store. Harbor then put her hand in her pocket, according to court records, to imitate a gun, but the clerk walked away from the counter.

Harbor left the store and didn’t attempt another robbery until 10 days later, when she pointed a butcher knife at a cashier in a Hallmark store and left with $100 in total cash obtained from both the store’s register and the clerk’s wallet. A police officer later noticed Harbor carrying the knife in her jacket pocket and arrested her for carrying a concealed weapon.

At her sentencing hearing, Harbor’s attorney told Moroney she was “really an inept robber … It’s almost like she was asking to be caught.” The attorney said she suffered from “bipolar disease and fairly severe depression.”

In her appeal, Harbor presented an evaluation from a counseling center which stated, “It appears quite likely that Ms. Harbor’s mental health issues and severe drug dependency problems are at the core of her criminal behavior.”

In the Supreme Court opinion, by Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, the court rules that these issues weren’t “highly relevant” to Moroney’s sentence, which he had stated was based primarily on protecting the public.

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