DUBUQUE, Iowa (AP) — An eastern Iowa judge refused to consider a man’s guilty plea to a charge of attempted murder after the man wouldn’t admit in court that he tried to kill his wife. The Telegraph Herald reports that Judge Michael Shubatt ended the plea hearing Wednesday in a Dubuque County courtroom for 51-year-old Clifford Smiley. Smiley’s accused of stabbing his estranged wife in a Dubuque store parking lot on April 1. A proposed plea deal would have dropped five other charges in exchange for Smiley’s guilty plea to attempted murder.

When Shubatt asked Smiley whether he was voluntarily pleading guilty, Smiley said he didn’t have much choice, given the possible sentence of 52 years without the deal. He denied intentionally stabbing the woman. He told the judge: “If I (had) thought of killing her, she would’ve been dead.”