NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The attorney for James Ford Seale, the reputed Ku Klux Klan member serving three life sentences for his role in the 1964 abduction and murder of two black Mississippi teenagers, argued before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday that the statute of limitations had expired, negating Seale’s conviction.

Federal public defender Kathy Nester said a 1972 act of Congress that abolished the death penalty for kidnapping, also imposed a five-year statute of limitations, and that was long gone by the time Seale was convicted June 14, 2007.