The Markus Kaarma defense team has successfully filed a notice of appeal with the Montana Supreme Court.

Attorney with Paul Ryan and Associates, Nate Holloway, said the notice of appeal was filed on Thursday.

"We're officially on the docket," Holloway said. "The case is with the Supreme Court  The time for submitting briefs is essentially stayed for a period until all the transcripts are received by the Supreme Court, which may take awhile in this case. We requested all of the transcripts from all of the pretrial proceedings as well as the trial. It may take some time until those transcripts are actually received by the Supreme Court, and we'll have 30 days from that time to file our initial brief."

Holloway repeated the issues they are presenting for consideration by the high court.

"We are asking the Supreme Court to reverse certain decisions made by the District Court, and to send it back down to Missoula County and the Fourth Judicial District for a new trial," he said. "One of the issues of primary importance will be the venue, Obviously, we respect the trial court and the judge's decisions, but we disagree. We believe that Markus was not going to get a fair trial in Missoula County."

Holloway will be submitting over 450 exhibits of media coverage that the defense team asserted were prejudicial to a potential jury pool. In addition, the defense team will ask for a new trial because of the instructions given to the jury by District Judge Ed McLean.

"We believe it was an error to instruct the jurors on justifiable use of force against a person because we felt this case fell squarely on our affirmative defense of justifiable use of force in defense of a structure," Holloway said. "The standards of proof are very different between the two issues of justifiable use of force."

Holloway said the court has not yet stated that the Kaarma case will receive a hearing for oral arguments, however, it is on the docket of the highest court in the State of Montana.

Kaarma was convicted in December of deliberate homicide in the death of 17 year-old German exchange student Diren Dede, and was sentenced on February 12 to 70 years in prison.

More From KBUL NEWS TALK 970 AM & 103.3 FM