Jason Servil, 20, seen April 12, 2024, during his sentence hearing for the murder of Alice Abbott in Skowhegan, is appealing his sentence to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. Anna Chadwick/Morning Sentinel file

PORTLAND — The man whose sentencing hearing last year for a Skowhegan murder erupted into a courtroom melee when the victim’s brother tried to attack him is appealing his 45-year sentence to Maine’s highest court.

Lawyers for Jason Servil, now 21, are asking the Maine Supreme Judicial Court to throw out his sentence — 45 years in prison for murder, with 10 years concurrent for aggravated assault — and send the matter back to the trial court for a new sentence.

They are also asking for the high court to order that a different judge resentence Servil.

The court heard oral arguments in the appeal Wednesday morning at the Cumberland County Courthouse.

Servil is not appealing his conviction for the July 2022 murder of Alice Abbott and the assault of Nick Rice, both in Skowhegan, as he pleaded guilty to both counts in January 2024. Servil stabbed Abbott, who was 20, 99 times and attacked Rice with a crowbar, according to prosecutors.

Servil was sentenced in April 2024 in Skowhegan as part of a plea agreement in which prosecutors agreed to cap their requested sentence at 45 years, to which Abbott’s family objected. At the end of the sentencing hearing, Abbott’s brother, Clifford Warren, tried to attack Servil and was charged with assault; prosecutors later declined the charge.

Servil’s lawyers asked for Servil to be resentenced on the grounds that the sentencing judge, Superior Court Chief Justice Robert E. Mullen, read the victim’s obituary into the record; that Mullen recited a psalm after handing down the sentence; and that Mullen improperly determined that a consecutive sentence was not permissible for an associated assault charge, which would have allowed Servil the possibility of probation after serving the murder sentence.

Robert Mullen imposed a 45 year sentence to Jason Servil on the murder of Alice Abbott on April 12, 2024, in Skowhegan. Servile is appealing the sentence. Anna Chadwick/Morning Sentinel file

The state, through the office of Maine Attorney General Aaron M. Frey, argued that any possible mistake on Mullen’s part at the time of sentencing was ultimately harmless.

The six justices of the Supreme Judicial Court peppered Servil’s attorney, Jeremy Pratt, and an assistant attorney general representing the state, Katie Sibley, with a variety of questions.

The justices, though, seemed most focused on Mullen’s decision to read Abbott’s obituary into the record while delivering Servil’s sentence.

Mullen, when discussing the three-step analysis used to determine a sentence, had asked Abbott’s family to read her obituary into the record to reflect the aggravating factor of victim impact. Mullen said he obtained the obituary and found it “very moving.”

Pratt, Servil’s attorney, called that unacceptable, independent research for a judge to do.

“It gives the appearance of bias, which is just as important as bias itself,” Pratt told the supreme court. “The sentencing judge did not choose to independently investigate for the benefit of both sides. He only independently investigated for the benefit of one side.”

Associate Justice Catherine Connors shot back at that claim.

“There is no actual evidence of any kind of leaning towards a particular side,” she said to Pratt. “Was there?”

Pratt, when questioned, was not able to point to specific facts in the obituary that Mullen would not have known from statements made by Abbott’s family members.

Sibley, representing the state, agreed that Mullen searching for the obituary himself was not a “best practice.” But she maintained it introduced no new facts and was part of the explanation of the aggravating factors in determining the sentence.

“Could it have been articulated better, more clearly, for our purposes? Of course,” Sibley argued before the court. “But this was all done considering subjective victim impact.”

“This isn’t just an articulation,” Chief Justice Valerie Stanfill interjected. “This is, ‘I went and got the obituary,’” she said with a laugh.

“Which again, is not best practice,” Sibley said.

As for the psalm — Psalm 97, verse 10 — that Mullen read, Pratt argued it also showed Mullen was not impartial and it violated Servil’s First Amendment rights. Mullen read the psalm to close his remarks, after sentencing Servil.

In Mullen’s chambers, after the scuffle that ended the sentencing hearing, Pratt had objected to the reading of the psalm, as well as the obituary.

“Both of those were on me,” Mullen then said, according to a court transcript. “… Obviously it did not have the intent that I had to calm things down, but I don’t think anything I could have done could have calmed things down other than give a life sentence plus.”

Sibley argued the reading of the psalm was harmless. It was in line with belief system expressed by Abbott’s family during the sentencing hearing, to help them through the grieving process and intended to calm the tense atmosphere in the courtroom, she said.

Pratt’s third argument regarding the ruling out of consecutive sentences drew only a few questions from the justices.

During Servil’s sentencing, Mullen ruled out the possibility of consecutive sentences because statute only permits consecutive sentences for separate criminal conduct or episodes.

Pratt asked Mullen to impose a 30-year sentence for the murder charge followed by a 10-year sentence for the aggravated assault, with probation allowed on the 10-year sentence. In Maine, sentences for murder, which range from 25 years to life, are not allowed to include probation.

“I’ve always struggled with the idea that … probation is not allowed for someone who receives a murder sentence,” Pratt told the high court. “In this case, Mr. Servil suffered from extreme mental health issues. He had been found incompetent over the course of the trial. And I was afraid of what life would look like for Mr. Servil if he served 25, 35, 40 years with profound, profound mental illness and is just released on to the street without any level of supervision.”

Sibley said that the court had the discretion to determine whether consecutive sentences were appropriate. Even if Mullen determined a consecutive sentence was appropriate, it may have resulted in a longer sentence than 45 years for Servil, so the concurrent sentences were ultimately a benefit to him, the state argued.

Stanfill, the chief justice, questioned how a judge would determine a new sentence for Servil, given that it could not be greater than the original 45 years. Pratt said he would hope that the new murder sentence would be lower than 45 years, so that the consecutive sentence could be factored in.

Servil, of Boston, Massachusetts, was arrested July 16, 2022, after Skowhegan police responded to a report of an assault at 912 Canaan Road.

When police located Servil, he admitted to the murder of Abbott and the assault of Rice.

Servil and Abbott had a brief romantic relationship, and prosecutors said Abbott told him she wanted to end it. Servil later found Abbott and Rice together and attacked them.

At his sentencing, Servil read a statement to the courtroom in which he apologized for his actions and their impact on Abbott’s family, the community, and law enforcement.

He is incarcerated at the Maine State Prison in Warren, according to Department of Corrections records online.