PORTLAND – An attorney for a Massachusetts man says three of the jurors who convicted her client of murder and rape should have been excluded from the panel because they read a newspaper article containing prejudicial information.

In asking the Supreme Judicial Court to throw out the convictions of Foster Bates, attorney Jane Lee said allowing the trial to proceed with the three jurors was an “obvious error.”

Bates, of Attleboro, Mass., is serving a life term for murder and 30 years for rape in the strangulation of Tammy Dickson, 22, whose body was found in her South Portland apartment on Feb. 20, 1994, three days after she was killed.

Lee said three people eventually picked to serve on the Bates jury had read a newspaper article about the slaying the morning they were selected. The story recounted that Dickson’s 18-month-old son also was found in the apartment.

Since that fact was kept from the trial jury, Lee argued, those jurors should not have been allowed to hear the case. “This particular kind of publicity is extremely prejudicial,” Lee said. “People responded viscerally that a baby was left in the apartment and this was upsetting.”

Assistant Attorney General Donald Macomber argued that the trial judge, Superior Court Justice Robert Crowley, committed no error.

Macomber said Crowley told jurors that they could consider only evidence presented in the trial when they determined if Bates was guilty, and each of the jurors who read the article said they could put their feelings aside and follow the instruction.

Macomber said that Bates was represented by two experienced trial lawyers who had the option of removing those jurors but did not.

Bates was arrested in 2001 after new DNA technology enabled detectives to analyze evidence collected in the case and genetically match semen found in Dickson’s body to a sample of Bates’ blood. At trial, Bates testified that he had consensual sex with Dickson, but was not guilty of her murder. The prosecution played a series of taped statements Bates gave to police -before his DNA was identified – in which he denied ever having that kind of relationship with her.