SANDPOINT - The Idaho Court of Appeals is affirming the sentence imposed against a Post Falls man who stabbed his estranged wife at her home near Priest Lake in 2013.

James Laverne "Vern" Carlton was accused of slipping into the woman's home and attacking her with a knife as she sat on a couch reading a book. The woman was stabbed once in the chest and a tendon in her hand was severed.

The woman did not hear Carlton enter the home because she is deaf.

Carlton, who also is deaf, told a Bonner County sheriff's detective through an interpreter that he broke off the attack because God told him not to kill his wife. Carlton let the woman go in Priest River in exchange for a promise not to report the attack to authorities.

Carlton pleaded guilty to attempted murder. An Idaho Department of Correction presentence investigator noted that while Carlton was remorseful, his previous attacks on the woman, including the stabbing, were "clear and convincing evidence" the governance of Carlton's emotions and actions were so greatly diminished that he posed an ongoing threat to the woman and others in society, court records show.

First District Judge Barbara Buchanan ordered Carlton to serve a five- to 15-year term, the maximum punishment. Carlton subsequently made a plea for leniency under Idaho Criminal Rule 35 and argued that the sentence was excessive.

Buchanan declined the motion for leniency, holding that one of the primary goals in sentencing in Carlton's case was protecting society, a goal which was met by an extended period of incarceration.

Carlton appealed, but the appellate court ruled that the denial of a Rule 35 motion cannot be used as a vehicle to review the underlying sentence without the presentation of new information.

"Because no new or additional information in support of Carlton's Rule 35 motion was presented, we find no abuse of the district court's discretion," the court said in an unpublished opinion released on Tuesday.

Carlton, 62, is serving his sentence in the medical annex of the Idaho State Correctional Institution in Kuna. He becomes eligible for parole in 2018, according to IDOC.