Nyla Murrell-French leaned her head back when the judge announced she was to be sentenced to seven years, sending the 19-year-old’s long black hair farther down her back as she stared at the ceiling.

A woman stormed out of the courtroom and could be heard crying in the Ramsey County District Court hallway.

“My baby got 84 months,” she wailed.

It was not the sentence her defense attorney, Christopher Anderson, had hoped to secure for his client.

Murrell-French was in court Wednesday to be sentenced on one count of first-degree assault after stabbing a 17-year-old girl during a fight.

The altercation occurred after Murrell-French and her friends got into a dispute with the teenager at a St. Paul gas station last June.

The victim later told police she was pulling Murrell-French’s hair when someone told her she was bleeding from the neck.

The girl had to be hospitalized for several days for a collapsed lung and injuries to her jugular, and she still suffers from nerve damage, according to Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Daniel Rait.

Rait pushed for prison for Murrell-French at the hearing, arguing that the nine theft charges she had picked up since the assault indicated she wasn’t suitable for probation.

While acknowledging his client’s violent conduct that day was inexcusable, Anderson insisted it was an isolated incident fueled by the “impulsivity” and under-developed brain of a teenager with her own traumatic past.

Though her subsequent theft charges were troubling, none involved violence, Anderson pointed out.

He asked the judge to consider the impact prison would have on the young woman, arguing probation and jail time would provide her with the structure and support missing from her life.

She did well in the juvenile criminal justice system in the past, he said, adding that probation and jail could provide similar supervision, while also keeping her away from her problematic peer group.

“The consequences of sending her to prison would so greatly outweigh the benefit to society,” Anderson told the judge. “We are frankly asking the court to give her (a) chance.”

Ramsey County District Judge Sara Grewing said she understood the role a teenager’s developing brain can play in reckless behavior. Grewing said she wished the court’s juvenile system recognized it and allowed defendants to remain under its jurisdiction until 24 or 25.

But it doesn’t, Grewing told Murrell-French and Anderson, adding that she couldn’t ignore the string of thefts the teen is accused of since she pleaded guilty in her assault case.

She reminded Murrell-French that she had warned her at her plea hearing that she needed to be on her best behavior if she wanted to avoid prison time at sentencing, and that the young woman chose to do otherwise.

“There are no winners here today,” Grewing told her. “I don’t think you’re a bad person … but in order for me to have faith you can succeed in the community you weren’t supposed to have any new offenses.”

One or two she could possibly overlook, Grewing said, but not nine.

Murrell-French cried and spoke so softly that it was hard to make out what she was saying when it was her turn to address the court.

“I am very remorseful for the mistake I made,” she said. “I apologize.”

The state prosecutor read a letter from the victim, who did not attend the hearing.

She wrote that the nerve damage she suffered in the stabbing still affects her control over her arm. That has affected her ability to work and perform simple tasks, such as washing her back in the shower, she said.