The Arkansas Supreme Court will rule on a request by condemned child killer Damien Echols' request for a new trial.
Echols was convicted with two others in the slayings of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis a decade ago.
Lawyers for Echols put forth a pair of arguments yesterday before the high court.
The lawyers asked for a hearing on Echols' mental competence, a move that could lead to a new trial.
The lawyers are also arguing that Echols' first team of attorneys didn't provide a competent defense. Echols was sentenced to die for the May 1993 bludgeoning deaths of the boys.
He does not currently have an execution date pending.
Second-graders Steven Branch, Michael Moore and Christopher Byers disappeared May fifth, 1993, while riding bicycles in their quiet, tree-lined neighbor in West Memphis.
Their bodies were found the next day in a watery ditch near their homes. Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, all teenagers at the time, were convicted in the murders.
Echols was the only one sentenced to death. Baldwin is serving life without parole and Misskelley was sentenced to life in prison plus 40 years.
(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
