AUGUSTA — An Oakland woman previously sentenced to 90 days in jail for firing a bullet from her handgun into the floor while arguing with her then-husband in 2023 was resentenced Monday to a year in prison.

The state Supreme Court, sitting as the Law Court, ruled earlier this year in an appeal of the original sentence, that Justice William Stokes erred in sentencing Heather M. Hodgson to three years in prison with all but 90 days suspended. The justices ruled that the state’s mandatory minimum of at least a year imprisonment, with no time suspended, for anyone found guilty of committing a Class C crime while using a firearm against an individual should have been applied to her case but wasn’t.

The end result is Hodgson, who continued to work at a local car dealership while out on bail awaiting her resentencing, and who said she’s been sober for 1,018 days since the incident and undergoing counseling, will serve a year in prison.

“I wanted to give her 90 days, I thought she needed a shock sentence,” Stokes said at Hodgson’s resentencing at Capital Judicial Center. “She didn’t need a year in jail, but the Law Court says I made a mistake.”

Hodgson was found guilty in June 2024, following a nonjury trial by Stokes, of domestic violence reckless conduct with a dangerous weapon, criminal threatening, and endangering the welfare of a child.

However, both Hodgson and state prosecutors appealed Stokes’ decisions to the state Supreme Court. The justices rejected Hodgson’s appeal that there was not enough evidence to convict her. But it granted the state’s appeal of her sentence as not meeting the state’s mandatory minimum for crimes involving the use of a gun. At her original sentencing, Hodgson’s defense successfully argued that because she fired the gun into the floor, not at a person, she hadn’t used the firearm against an individual as state statute requires be proven.

The couple’s two young children were home at the time of the February 2023 incident, upstairs from where the shooting took place. The couple, who have since started the process of divorce, fought over alcohol that Hodgson’s husband brought into their Oakland home, after she told him not to because she was trying not to drink.

Hodgson was originally charged with attempted elevated aggravated assault, domestic violence reckless conduct with a dangerous weapon, domestic violence criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon and endangering the welfare of a child following the incident. She had fired a 9mm hollow-point round into the floor of a basement bedroom where her husband had gone to collect his things to leave.

Before the one-day trial began, state prosecutors dropped the Class B charge of attempted elevated aggravated assault, which would have come with a maximum sentence of up to 10 years in prison. And midway through the trial Stokes ruled there was not enough evidence to continue with charges of attempted aggravated assault and a second count of domestic violence reckless conduct with a dangerous weapon.

Both parents spoke, emotionally, in court Monday.

Hodgson’s husband, whom the newspaper is not identifying because its policy is not to identify victims of domestic violence without their permission, said he’s raised their two kids, now 4 and 6 years old, alone since the incident. He said he lost his “dream job” because he couldn’t travel because he needed to be home to take care of the children.

He said they still haven’t told their kids what happened, although he thinks at some point they’ll need to do so. He said he has never spoken down to the children about their mother and never will.

His sister and his mother said the incident has been incredibly hard on their entire family.

Hodgson, speaking at times through tears, said she’s sober and is rebuilding her life, with a goal of being able to be in her children’s lives.

“In a very short period of time I lost my family, my home, my career as a teacher, and being a day-to-day presence for my children,” she said. “Losing my role as their mother and protector in their daily lives has been constant grief. My children being relocated to Delaware, more than 525 miles away, it deepened that grief. My children are my heart, and everything I do is to one day rebuild a healthy relationship with them.”

Stokes, in sentencing Hodgson to one year in prison, followed by one year of probation, said Hodgson would still be able to visit her children in Delaware while on probation, with her probation officer’s permission.

About a dozen family members, friends, co-workers, and people who know Hodgson through recovery programs they’re in together, spoke in support of her, saying goodbye as she was taken from the courtroom to begin serving her sentence.