FARGO (AP) - Moe Gibbs' attorneys say their client should be granted a third murder trial because their $55,000 budget was too meager to hire the expert witnesses Gibbs needed for his second one.

Gibbs was convicted last month of murder in the September 2006 slaying of Mindy Morgenstern, a student at Valley City State University. Morgenstern, 22, was found in her off-campus apartment. The 35-year-old Gibbs lived in the same building.

Jurors in Bismarck deliberated 27 hours before they decided Gibbs was guilty. His first trial, held last summer in Minot, ended when jurors could not reach a verdict.

Gibbs' lawyers, Jeff Bredahl and Dennis Fisher, of Fargo, were hired at public expense for the second trial because Gibbs is indigent. Experts in DNA, video enhancement and computer analysis were hired to testify as defense witnesses.

Fisher, in a court filing, said budget restraints prevented defense lawyers from using three other experts, whom he described as pivotal to Gibbs' defense. One was a former New York City chief medical examiner who had agreed to testify for a reduced fee of $6,000, Fisher said.

In a motion filed Monday, Bredahl asked Southeast District Judge John Paulson to overturn the Nov. 16 guilty verdict and grant Gibbs another trial.

Paulson has not scheduled arguments on the motion, and prosecutors have not filed a response. A gag order in the case restricts what attorneys on both sides may say about it outside of court.

Gibbs is scheduled to be sentenced on the murder charge on Dec. 17. He faces a maximum penalty of life in prison without parole.

Since his murder conviction, he has agreed to plead guilty to a 2004 rape in Fargo. Under a plea agreement, he is to serve 12 years in prison for the rape, with his sentence to run concurrently with any time he serves for murder. Gibbs' sentencing on the rape charge is scheduled for Dec. 20.

Separately, a Dec. 14 plea hearing has been scheduled on charges that Gibbs sexually molested five female inmates at the Barnes County jail while he worked there as a jailer.