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Jason A. Jensen, one of four teenagers convicted in the brutal 1996 killing of 20-year-old Adrian Pilkington, is expected to go before Frederick County Circuit Court Judge Theresa Adams today, to once again ask for a new trial.

In the decade since his conviction and life sentence, Jensen, now 30, has been unsuccessful in several attempts to win a new trial.

Jensen is expected to again argue that his attorneys during the trial and sentencing were ineffective, according to court records. Among many complaints, Jensen argues that he was prevented from testifying on his own behalf.

His new attorney, Roland Patterson of Owings Mills, knows convincing the judge to order a new trial will be an uphill battle.

"There is a chance, but it's always difficult to reverse a conviction of a high profile case like this," Patterson said in an interview this week. "But there is a chance."

Jensen is expected to appear in the courtroom today, Patterson said.

On Feb. 10, 1997, Jensen was convicted of stabbing Pilkington twice on a gravel road in Virginia, in the company of Jean-Louis Arnaud Nance, Rachel Whitman and Brian Wooldridge.

Pilkington, who lived with his parents in Knoxville, was then stuffed in the trunk of his own car, driven to the Md. Route 17 bridge in Brunswick and thrown over, falling 65 feet to his death in the Potomac River.

Jensen admitted to stabbing Pilkington but said it was in self-defense and that he became enraged about a comment he believed Pilkington made about a girl.

Jensen, 18 at the time of the murder, was convicted of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and assault with intent to commit murder.

On April 30, 1997, Jensen was sentenced to life in prison and ordered to pay $4,970 in damages to the Pilkington family. He is serving his sentence at the Maryland Correctional Institution in Hagerstown. Nance, Whitman and Wooldridge have all served time in prison in connection with Pilkington's murder and have since been released.

Dino Flores, who was assistant state's attorney at the time and co-prosecutor on the case, said he believes it is unlikely that Jensen will get a new trial.

"This is going to be the end of the road for him," said Flores, now a private attorney.