Law&Crime Sidebar - ‘Jealous’ Judge Shot Ex in the Head While He Slept

Episode Date: April 12, 2025

When Michael McCoy broke up with his girlfriend, Pennsylvania district court judge Sonya McKnight, and told her she had to move out of his home, he says she refused. After a week of resistance, prosecutors say McKnight came up to McCoy while he was sleeping and shot him in the head. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber speaks with with Texas judge Brandon Birmingham about how McCoy’s own testimony helped convict his ex.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Go to the App Store and download the free Experian® app now! https://www.experian.com/credit/experian-app/?pc=bch_exp_sidebar HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. A shocking story out of Pennsylvania for you. A judge's boyfriend tries to end their year-long relationship, tells her she has to move out. In response, she shot him in the head while he slept. Now, he miraculously survived the shooting and testified against her at trial. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime. I'm Jesse Weber.

Well, it didn't take very long for a jury in Pennsylvania to find former Harrisburg District Judge Sonia McKnight guilty of attempted murder. Yep, you heard me right. Prosecutors say she was a scorn lover, and when her boyfriend at the time insisted she moved out of his home, she fired a gun at his head while he was in bed, possibly trying to stage things to look like a soon. suicide. But that boyfriend, well, ex-boyfriend, Michael McCoy, lived to tell the tale, and he did so on the witness stand, and we're going to get to that. Now, we first told you about

55-year-old Sonia McKnight's arrest a little more than a year ago. In February 2024, McCoy, who had been in a romantic relationship with McKnight for about a year, wanted to end the relationship. So he asked her to move out of his home, but says she refused, even took away her key. But then you go to February 9th, and he came home to find her. her hanging out on his couch in her pajamas. According to McCoy, he left to go out to a restaurant. And when he came back, he told McKnight, they'd talk about things in the morning. So he says he went to sleep at around 11 p.m. that night, but then wakes up a few hours later

in incredible pain. He was blinded, unable to see, but says he could hear McNight asking, Mike, what did you do to yourself? Well, it turns out, McCoy had a gunshot wound near his right eye. He was rushed to the hospital, told EMTs, though, he didn't shoot himself, was not suicidal, and if at any point his heart stopped or he stopped breathing, he told the medical staff, save me. Now, the only other person in that home that evening was McKnight. Now, police say she called 911 to tell them she heard her boyfriend screaming but didn't know what happened. The problem is, or the problem for McKnight was, police quickly started uncovering clues in the home.

The gun used in the shooting was owned by McKnight. Investigators found gunshot residue on her hand in clothes, and police say they caught McKnight and lies. For example, she told detectives that she didn't leave the house that night, but surveillance footage from neighbors proved that wasn't the case. McNight was arrested and released on $300,000 bail, and her trial started more than a year later, and that is what we're going to talk about. But to get into some more of the evidence, this case, I'm not just bringing on an attorney.

No, no, no, no, no. No, I'm going to bring on for a judge who was convicted of acting quite badly. I'm bringing on right now, Judge Brandon Birmingham out of Texas. Judge, my goodness, so good to see you. It is not often we hear of someone in your line of work arrested and charged, but let alone accused of trying to kill someone, your reaction to that. Well, it was shocking to say the least. Just as you said, you know, every now and then you'll hear about a judge getting in trouble,

But for this kind of trouble, you know, attempted murder, handgun to the face, trying to cover it up, lying to the police officers, you know, her story unravels, it was quite a shocking tale. By the way, we'll get into us a little bit more about her, you know, other prior bad acts. We'll get into that. But generally speaking, if a judge gets convicted of a crime, okay, attempted murder, what happens to all those cases that they presided over? anything? Well, all of those cases are going to be reviewed. Certainly, the lawyers that represented the clients are going to have an opportunity to look and they can file post-conviction writs if they think something untowards has happened, especially around the time frame that this crime happened. You know, if she was making big decisions, I'm sure that the lawyers

in those cases are going to be reviewing them to see if there is anything that they can point to in the record to say, you know, she wasn't acting right or she didn't rule in the right way. at these on these particular occasions okay so let's talk about this trial now because of mcnight's prominence as a judge in the community apparently a prosecutor from cumberland county prosecuted the case to avoid any conflict of interest and a jury was actually bust in from nearby delaware county judge not surprised by that but that's an issue and of itself right having a judge on trial it seems like they tried to take whatever safeguards were possible to make sure there wasn't a conflict or that she got a fair and impartial jury.

Yeah, I think this case is a good illustration of how the process can work and is flexible. It's obviously unusual to have a judge on trial, but we do have processes in place to make sure that the appearance of impropriety doesn't exist in the trial and that we have a jury pool that is less likely to be influenced by the fact that the person is a judge or is less likely to know the judge, you know, after all, that a judge is somewhat a public. figure. And so you take that away. And I think this case is a good illustration of also having a neutral prosecutor. Obviously, there's going to be the appearance of impropriety potentially for the same prosecutor in the same district to be prosecuting a judge that that prosecutor has

probably appeared in front of. And so we have a good illustration of how the process can work independently. And in this case, I don't think that any of the questions about this trial have had to do with that process. And that's a good thing. Hey, real quick, I want to thank our incredible new sponsor, Experian for sponsoring sidebar. Now, this is big because Experian can help you stay on top of your finances. After all, April is financial literacy month. But with Experian, they're all about that all year round. So the first step to take control of your credit and finances is to download the Experian app, which, by the way, has tons of free tools. Your free FICO score, which can help

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Additional terms may apply and see the App Store for more details. Now, I should tell you, this trial wasn't very long. there was only two days of testimony. So according to reporting from Penn Live, the prosecution argued that there were only two people in the home, McCoy and McKnight. And McCoy insisted he didn't shoot himself. So that left McNight as the shooter, right?

The defense argued, though, just because McNight was the only other person in the house didn't prove that she did it, there's possibly reasonable doubt there. And on the first day, after opening statements, 17 witnesses were called. Most of them were police officers, other were first responders who were at McCoy's home and Penn Live reports that multiple officers say that they heard McCoy state multiple times he was not trying to kill himself he was not suicidal now judge having just one witness report about what someone said is one thing but to have multiple witnesses corroborate that information I imagine is critical by the way how is there not a hearsay issue right they're overhearing what he said is that is there a hearsay issue at all there can be um you

You know, there's also a number of exceptions to the hearsay rule that apply. When somebody is making excited utterances, in other words, saying something in an excited state, that may be one exception. If they're giving their state of mind or their feelings of pain or fear or anxiety, that's another exception that can be used. And then there's another one called present sense impression. So there's ways to get around that, and all of those really relate to the state of mind of the victim in this case. and what was going on in his mind at the time immediately after this crime had apparently occurred. And those are vitally important statements that obviously swayed the jury. And I think that was one of the key parts of this case.

And I'll get to the verdict. But, you know, it's interesting when you hear about this, because if this was a situation where he tried to harm himself, right, you've seen cases in the past where someone does try to do it. And then afterwards, it's like, no, save my life. Save my life. I regret this. you know, it wasn't necessarily that's what, that's not, I can't imagine that in and of itself was the reason she was found guilty, right? Because there could be situations where somebody does

try self-harm, but they may reverse course after it's attempted. So that only went so far for the prosecution, right? Sure. And that's one thing that you would, you would consider one of the circumstances in this case. I think the two biggest problems that she, had. Our number one, her prior involvement with him, as you said at the top, you know, he came home and she was in his house and she wasn't supposed to be there. And so that history is pretty important. And I think the other thing that's really important is that anytime a person accused of a crime is caught making untruthful statements, that usually is a good circumstance against them for a guilty verdict that the jurors will use. And we had some of the

that in this case. Let's go to another aspect of this, and I think this is really important. So the forensic scientists also testified about the results of their tests, and both McKnight and McCoy had gunshot residue on them after the shooting. Now, the defense noted that there was more residue found on McCoy rather than on McKnight, according to the test, but one witness testified that McKnight had washed her hands at least once before her hands were tested for any residue. Now, Judge, sometimes testimony from experts can be confusing for juries, especially when you have forensic experts, get down into the nitty-gritty of how their testing works, but why is it so important for them to basically, you know, show their work to jurors, not just give their conclusion. What do you think this impact had on the jury? A jurors are always going to be looking for physical evidence.

They know, and they're told, and they expect that when a person fires a gun, that there's the potential that gunshot residue might be on their hand. The expert would also say that just because you have gunshot residue on your hand, that doesn't mean necessarily you fired it, but it could mean that you were in close proximity to it. So that may explain the gunshot residue, but it goes back to those statements that you make insofar as somebody's caught in a lie. That's usually a piece of evidence against them. The same thing is if they're covering up evidence, and certainly somebody in her position is going to be familiar with gunshot residue, how it works, at least have a working knowledge of it. And so she's going to know when jurors are thinking, man, she knows how this process works, and now she's in there washing her hands twice, that looks pretty bad. Even if she didn't have an understanding of gunshot residue, she knows how evidence works. She knows the rules of evidence, right?

And I have to say, you know, look, I'll be the first to tell you, Judge. Sometimes I look at judges, and we forget that they're real people, right? They're held to this position. They're held to the standard. Rightfully so. It's an incredible position to have. It's a privilege to have. And I sometimes forget that they're human beings, and it makes me wonder, you know, what she did here, the surveillance footage, lying, the 911 call.

And I'll say this. One of the police officers testified that she dropped some sort of article of clothing that was supposed to be turned over to investigators into a toy. at the police station. So now you're talking about, again, potentially tampering with evidence, not a good look, but it makes me wonder how, how did she think she was going to get away with this? I ask myself that question quite frequently in my line of work, you know. I think it's probably stems from something being short-sighted, you know, it's probably stems from arrogance, probably stems from self-preservation, you know, you commit the crime and you try to get away with it. You don't anticipate all of the problems, and so you've got to cover up, man.

And that's, man, oh, man, my, my courtroom is full of stories like that. So Mr. McCoy took the stand during the trial. This is big, okay? Now, he had told the jurors that he had been asking McNight to leave his home every day for a week, and she ignored him. And on the night of the shooting, the last thing that he remembers is McKnight saying to him before he went to bed in the guest bedroom, oh, so you're saying, serious. And McCoy testified that when he woke up in searing pain, he thought he was actually

having some sort of aneurysm. He didn't even realize he'd been shot until a paramedic told him. This shooting left him blind in one eye. He's already had two major surgeries. An ophthalmologist testified that McCoy would need medical treatment for the rest of his life to maintain the eyesight that he has left. And he told the jurors that when McKnight responded to his screams, he had to ask her to call 911 and she didn't do it right away and she then according to him led him to the furthest bathroom on the second floor of the house so judge i mean really really bad testimony you don't always get a surviving i mean you don't get a victim to testify a surviving victim testifying. It's unbelievable. And in this state, to recount what happened is very,

very powerful evidence, no? Absolutely. This is through no fault of her own, you know, not a murder case. She tried her very best to make it a murder case. That's what the attempted murder charge is. And, you know, had he succumbed to his injuries, we never would have known about that final statement that she made. Oh, now you're serious. And boy, once you put it in context with her prior conduct and what was what we know now happened, it seems like that's the moment in time that maybe she decided what she was going to do. She probably considered it some time before. Obviously, she had the weapon, but maybe that was the moment in time when she realized this relationship is truly over. And that's when she, I want to use the word snapped. That's when she decided that

she was going to commit this crime. And what a chilling piece of testimony that only comes because he survived. And I imagine the jury seeing him in the state, learning more about his condition, that helps. That helps the credibility aspect of him, right? It's going to help the court craft the sentence as well. This permanent physical disfigurement and permanent injury

is going to be a permanent reminder for the victim for the rest of his life. And that's going to have an impact on what the sentence is and the outcome of this case. Oh, absolutely. And it's incredible. And I mean, it's a miracle. He's alive after something like this.

So the idea is not only did she shoot him, not only did she make it clear that she wasn't trying to save him, make sure paramedics wouldn't get there as quickly as possible. But here's the thing. During his testimony, McCoy admitted he didn't actually see who shot him. He said, I can't say who it was. I was blind, but I can tell you who was in that house prior to me going to sleep. The only other person in that house was Sonia McKnight.

And once the jury got the case, they didn't deliberate. very long. Within two hours, they convicted Mcnight of attempted murder and aggravated assault. Now, Judge, you think the jury got it right in the end? Did the prosecution prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt? This is a wonderful example of a circumstantial evidence case because we don't have any direct evidence about who actually pulled the trigger. The circumstances before the crime, this souring relationship, the character of the defendant, and then the lies that she told and the cover-ups that she tried to make afterwards all convince this jury beyond a reasonable doubt that she's the one that did the crime.

By the way, it was interesting they charged her not only with attempted murder, but assault. So in the other words, if the jury wouldn't believe this was murder, you know, attempted murder, they could at least get her for the assault charge, right? Yeah, assault charge, you know, intent to commit assault or cause serious bodily injury is a lesser charge of attempting to commit murder, at least in some jurisdictions. And really, it's all about punishment. But the jurors are going to look at the location of the wounds. They're going to look at the type of weapon used, how far away was the weapon?

And what was the victim doing during the time that the weapon was used? And all of those things would indicate that she had murder on her mind when she walked into that bedroom. You mentioned punishment. Let's talk about that. So according to Penn Live reporters that were in the courtroom, when the verdict was read, McCoy bowed his head, McKnight didn't have any kind of reaction. The judge deemed she's a flight risk, raised her bail to $3 million. dollars. Sheriff deputies took her into custody, led her from the courtroom in handcuffs,

and McKnight reportedly faces between 30 to 60 years in prison when she's sentenced in May. By all account, she's going to have to serve her sentence at SCI Muncie, the only prison in Pennsylvania that houses women. Judge, what's she looking at? What kind of punishment you think? She's looking at, well, 30 to 60 years, and, you know, I'm not 100% familiar with the statutory scheme there. But I do know that there are certain aggravating factors that a court will take into consideration in a punishment phase as well as certain mitigating factors. And that's what all punishment phases are about. It helps that in her life, she's led a good life. She's been in, she hasn't ever been convicted of a felony before. And so she has a lack of criminal

history that would warrant some mitigation. On the other hand, this seems to be a premeditated crime of defenseless person that was extraordinarily violent, and she tried to lie to cover it up. And so that's going to hurt her in that analysis. I am curious if something that might hurt her as her past. What do I mean by that? So this apparently is not the first time that former Judge McKnight has been in trouble. It's not even the first time she was accused of shooting a lover. So at the time of her arrest, she was actually suspended from the bench without pay. There were claims that she violated judicial probation in a misconduct case in 2020 when she allegedly got involved in a traffic stop of her son. She was acquitted of criminal charges but remained suspended.

According to the District Conduct Board of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, McNight violated seven different rules governing standards of conduct of magisterial district judges. Those violations included theft of time when she allowed employees to take extra vacation days. She also allegedly told her office manager to pretend she never received. the civil complaint regarding a loan that she owed. 2019, by the way, McNight was investigated for shooting her estranged husband in the groin. Prosecutors didn't file charges. They said it was self-defense. But judge, can any of that come into her sentencing?

In jurisdictions like Texas, the answer is yes. We're pretty wide open. Some jurisdictions have, you know, sentencing guidelines that they've got to follow. I will say that if somebody is acquitted of a crime, that usually is not. admissible right in a punishment phase because they've been acquitted of the of the conduct even if the conduct was justified and i believe that in the the case of the shooting of her former i guess it was her ex-husband yes yes that was a justified shooting according to the news reports that i read so that probably won't come in but you know the allegations of

official misconduct if the state can prove that beyond a reasonable doubt in the punishment phase and it's something under pennsylvania law that uh will allow for an enhanced sentencing then then yeah the answer is yes it comes in you know as a judge friend mine used to say it comes in like a freight train you got to ask this you got to answer this for me what goes into a judge getting on the bench i mean what is the background check process what is there a psychological evaluation when i see what she is now convicted of obviously i say this in a lot of different cases is about law enforcement acting badly teachers acting badly kind of Hindsight's 2020. Nobody has a crystal ball. But you got to tell me. Look, you may know this

better than me. I don't see cases every five seconds about judges being arrested and convicted of crimes, let alone attempted murder. There has to be, there's some sort of review process, right? Unless it's, I know it's not foolproof, but when you hear a judge getting involved in this stuff, what does it take for a judge to get on the bench? Well, this is an interesting question. It's different. every state. In Texas, we're simply elected. You have to have been an attorney for five years, and you are elected in popular elections. Other states are appointed by the governor's office. Some states have retention elections. There's always going to be some minimum from qualifications

about your legal standard and have a good law license and all of those things. But there's no like mental health evaluation or anything like that. I think really maybe what this case illustrates is that, you know, judges are, as you said at the very beginning of this segment, judges are are human beings and you know some apples are bad and we can unfortunately see how those apples have spoiled in this case and you know that that's the same for any profession you know lawyers teachers you know gosh it anytime there's humans involved there's human error and uh in this case is a good example of the judges are humans we're not special we're not omniscient we won elections or we got appointed and that's basically the only thing that qualifies us and there's

nothing more than that i talked to members of law enforcement about cases of law enforcement members being charged with crimes committed of misconduct i accused of misconduct i imagine and this is what they say the people who get who want to hold the members of law enforcement members of authority accountable more than anybody else are the members of law enforcement they take offense to them they get more angry than anybody else when you see a case like this does it make you angry yeah there's there's I feel like all my judges all across the country are my brothers and sisters. They're my colleagues, and we're committed to making sure that our process is safe and to anything that would impugn the process we dislike.

And this is certainly something that disparages the judiciary as a whole. And that's tough to take, tough to take. Judge Brandon Birmingham, great seeing you. One of the best judges we know and so happy that you came here and talked to us about it. really, it's a disturbing case, but I'm happy you had the chance to talk about it. Yes, sir. Thank you very much. Look forward to seeing you again. All right, everybody. That's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify,

wherever you should get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.