PORTLAND (AP) – Lawyers for Christian Nielsen told the Maine Supreme Judicial Court on Tuesday that Nielsen’s statements to police shouldn’t have been admissible in court because he was denied his right to a lawyer the day of his arrest.

Nielsen last year entered a conditional guilty plea to four counts of murder and was sentenced to life in prison for a bloody killing spree in western Maine. But he can take it back if his lawyers persuade the court that his statements to police should have been suppressed.

When he was arrested in September 2006, Nielsen wasn’t given an attorney after telling a state trooper that he wanted one, defense lawyer Margot Joly told justices.

While in front of Trooper Daniel Hanson at the Black Bear Bed & Breakfast, Nielsen agreed when his father said that perhaps they should have an attorney present, Joly said. And after Hanson discovered bodies in the back of the inn, Joly said the trooper told Nielsen: “I know you invoked your right to counsel. I know you want a lawyer.”

Nielsen later told detectives how he fatally shot and cut up three women and a man over Labor Day weekend in 2006. Those statements, Joly said, should be suppressed because Nielsen wasn’t given an attorney when he said he wanted one.

Assistant Attorney General Donald Macomber said the defense took Hanson’s statement out of context. The trooper wasn’t trying to interview Nielsen when he acknowledged Nielsen’s request for a lawyer; instead, he was simply trying to ascertain whether anybody else was still alive, Macomber said.

Later, after Maine State Police detectives arrived, Nielsen said he would freely tell them what happened – but he only wanted to say it once.

“Mr. Nielsen indicated not once but several times that he was willing to talk to detectives,” Macomber said.

Nielsen entered guilty pleas to the murders of James Whitehurst, 50, of Batesville, Ark.; Julie Bullard, 65, of Newry; Selby Bullard, 30, of Bethel; and Cindy Beatson, 43, of Bethel. They were killed over Labor Day weekend in 2006.

Nielsen, who is being held at Maine State Prison, was not present at the hearing.

Doug Beatson, the husband of Cindy Beatson, was in court for the hearing and left without comment.