The states highest court has thrown out the conviction of an Auburn man convicted of murdering Bates College student Morgan McDuffee in March 2002.

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled Thursday that Brandon Thongsavanh deserves a new trial because the state unfairly influenced the jury at his first trial by mentioning an inflammatory phrase on the T-shirt that Thongsavanh allegedly was wearing the night of the murder.

The T-shirt contained a derogatory and lewd statement about Jesus.

There can be little doubt that disclosure of the phrase of Thongsavanhs T-shirt presented an extremely high danger of unfair prejudice, the justices wrote in their ruling. It is, in fact, difficult to conceive of a more inflammatory and prejudicial expression than the one at issue here.

State prosecutors argued at an appeal hearing in June that mentioning the phrase during the trial was necessary because it helped several witnesses place Thongsavanh at parties earlier in the night, and it helped prove that Thongsavanh handed over a different shirt to police when they asked for his clothing.

These arguments are undercut, however, by the fact that, at trial, Thongsavanh did not dispute that he attended the parties, and that the shirt he gave to the police was a different shirt, the Judicial Court ruled.

Thongsavanh is serving his 58-year sentence at a maximum-security state prison in Arizona. A date for his second trial has not been scheduled.