An attorney for convicted killer James Biela says his client plans to request a new trial. A post-conviction hearing was held Thursday in Second Judicial District Court. 

Biela's attorney was expected to argue that he had ineffective assistance of counsel during his murder trial.

A separate evidentiary hearing is scheduled for July. 

Biela was convicted in May 2010 of killing college student Brianna Denison. Authorities say he abducted Denison while she slept on a friend’s couch near the University of Nevada campus in January 2008. Her body was found a month later in a south Reno field. 

Biela remains on death row in state prison in Ely.

He also was charged with and convicted of sexually assaulting two other women in the months before Denison's disappearance.

(The Associated Press also contributed to this report.)