FARGO (AP) - Attorneys for Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. say he deserves life in prison because jurors failed to properly weigh the evidence in unanimously voting for a death sentence.

Defense attorney Richard Ney, a Wichita, Kan., lawyer who specializes in death penalty cases, filed a motion late Monday asking U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson to sentence Rodriguez to life in prison without parole. Erickson did not immediately rule on the motion.

A federal jury of seven women and five men convicted Rodriguez, 53, of Crookston, Minn., of a charge of kidnapping resulting in the death of University of North Dakota student Dru Sjodin, and then voted to sentence him to death.

A sentencing hearing has been set for Jan. 5. Ney said after the death penalty verdict that he would file a motion asking for a new trial.

In his motion this week, Ney said the death sentence was not appropriate because the jury found more than 20 factors that favored life in prison.