The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear the case of convicted murderer Markus Kaarma, however, his attorneys believe there are other options available for their client.

Attorney Nate Holloway laid out the next steps in the case.

“Markus will be seeking post conviction relief,” said Holloway. “He’ll be hiring other attorneys to work on that because they’ll need to review our work. They’ll look at the state claims and the habeas claims in federal court and that requires new counsel.”

Holloway said Kaarma will continue to seek a new trial.

“A petition for post conviction relief within one year of the time when the U.S. Supreme Court denies certiorari,” he said. “They’d be looking for any new information, anything that wasn’t done at trial, arguing ineffectiveness of counsel and things like that.”

Following the tactic of post conviction relief, Holloway said the next step would be pursuing sentence review.

“To give you an example that people might be familiar with, the Netflix series ‘How To Make A Murderer’, all the state remedies were denied, but ultimately, he got relief in the federal court of appeals through habeas. Luckily, there was some publicity through Netflix and it totally took on a new tone. So, that’s the kind of thing that can happen down the road.”

Holloway said he believed someone may be writing a book, but had no direct knowledge of any such effort on Kaarma’s behalf. When all legal efforts have eventually been exhausted, Kaarma will be eligible for parole after serving 20 years of a 70 year sentence in the Montana State Prison for the shotgun slaying of 17 year-old German exchange student Diren Dede in 2014.

 

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