Moe Gibbs' public defenders were hamstrung by a lack of money to hire needed experts to challenge the DNA evidence that helped convict Gibbs of murder, his appeals lawyer says.

Although one expert in genetic evidence analysis testified on Gibbs' behalf during his second trial, he was overmatched by prosecution specialists, Gibbs' attorney, Kent Morrow of Bismarck, said in a court filing.

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments from Morrow and Brad Cruff, the Barnes County state's attorney, late today in Gibbs' appeal. He is serving a life prison term, without the possibility of parole, for killing Valley City State University student Mindy Morgenstern in her off-campus apartment in September 2006.

Gibbs also has been sentenced to serve 15 years in prison for a 2004 Fargo rape, and for molesting five female inmates at the Barnes County jail where he once worked. Gibbs pleaded guilty to the sex crimes after jurors convicted him in November 2007 of Morgenstern's murder.

In his court filing, Morrow also argues that jurors lacked enough evidence to convict Gibbs, and that Cruff violated Gibbs' rights by suggesting he should testify on his own behalf. Jurors should have been allowed to view an edited video of police questioning of Gibbs rather than simply listening to testimony about it, Morrow contends.

Cruff and Jonathan Byers, an assistant attorney general who helped prosecuted the case, say in their own legal brief that Gibbs has not shown he needed additional experts for his defense.

Gibbs' attorneys did use one DNA expert, Marc Taylor, and hired a former NASA scientist to testify about his analysis of video images of Gibbs from the Barnes County jail, the two prosecutors said.

Morrow's brief says one nationally known forensic pathologist, Dr. Michael Baden, had agreed to be a defense witness, but that the Commission on Legal Counsel for Indigents - which supervises North Dakota's public defenders - agreed to provide only $3,000 of the reduced fee of $6,000 that Baden wanted.

Baden was prepared to testify that scratches on Gibbs' hand and wrist were not from a struggle with Morgenstern, Morrow wrote. The pathologist, who has hosted "Autopsy," an HBO series on forensic science, has taken part in investigations of the deaths of President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Gibbs' defense team also wanted to hire two North Dakota State University forensic DNA experts, who would have cast doubt on the significance of the case's genetic evidence, Morrow said.

"The facts of this case demonstrate that an effective defense in a high-profile, media-driven case, in which the main witnesses for the state are expert witnesses, must necessarily include adequate funding for opposing expert witnesses," Morrow wrote in a Supreme Court brief. "For a battle of the experts, the party without one is clearly at a disadvantage."

Witnesses who testified for the prosecution included Hope Olson, director of North Dakota's crime laboratory; Michael Bourke, a forensic scientist for the Connecticut Department of Public Safety; and Rick Straub, a laboratory director for Orchid Cellmark Inc., a private DNA testing lab.

Cruff and Byers said both the defense and prosecution had only one expert each to testify about how Gibbs' DNA got on Morgenstern's fingernails.

"Gibbs has not demonstrated that he was prevented from hiring another expert, any limitations (that) were unfairly prejudicial, or that he was denied basic defense tools," the attorneys wrote.