PORTLAND – The Maine Supreme Judicial Court is refusing to allow a lawyer to back out of representing a man convicted for killing his grandmother’s companion.

Raymond Junkins wanted his appeal to be based on pretrial publicity that may have tainted the jury and on the exclusion of his testimony from his mother, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease.

His lawyer, Douglas Hendrick of Cornish, says his client’s appeal would be frivolous.

But the state supreme court reviewed the issues and directed Hendrick to support Junkins’ appeal to the best of his ability.

Junkins was convicted of fatally stabbing 63-year-old Howard Lafoe in September 1998.

Junkins maintains his innocence. He testified he was in New Hampshire, collecting money from a drug deal, on the night of the murder.

Junkins is serving concurrent sentences for murder, attempted murder, robbery, witness tampering and theft.