N.W.T. appeal court judges are now reviewing an Alberta man's appeal for a new first-degree murder trial.
Two years ago a Yellowknife jury found Emrah Bulatci guilty of murdering Hay River RCMP Const. Christopher Worden in 2007.
On Tuesday, the 27-year-old's lawyer spent two hours in a Yellowknife courtroom telling a panel of judges how that trial was flawed.
Bulatci's lawyer Charles Davison argued that police acted unlawfully when they secretly recorded Bulatci at the North Slave Correctional Centre.
In the recordings, Bulatci urges his girlfriend and his father to help him intimidate and harm two witnesses in the case.
Davison argued that the law doesn't allow that kind of evidence to be used, and it cast Bulatci in a bad light in the eyes of the jury without helping them determine if he intended to kill the mountie.
The prosecutor said the jury already had a dim view of Bulatci, saying that at the start of the trial, Bulatci's own lawyer said he was a drug dealer and not a person of good character.
The crown said Bulatci got a fair shake during his trial and should continue serving his life sentence with no parole for 25 years.
Sitting in the prisoner's box, Bulatci didn't show any emotion during the hours of technical legal arguments.
His parents sat just a few feet away. They had driven up from High Level, Alta., where Bulatci grew up and first started getting into trouble with the law.
As it was during the trial, security was ratcheted up a notch for the appeal with court sheriffs using metal detectors and searching the bags of people as they entered.
The three judges who heard the appeal said they would give a written decision and didn't give any indication of when that might come.
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