A landlord ordered to pay more than $110,000 for denying housing to an unmarried, interracial couple has filed an appeal alleging he didn’t get a fair trial.

Rex Youngquist argues in his brief with the Kansas Court of Appeals that one of the applicants’ criminal record was “improperly hidden from the jury” during trial last year in District Court.

Among other issues cited in his 33-page brief is that people with religious convictions weren’t allowed on the jury.

But Max Kautsch, an attorney representing the couple on behalf of the city’s Human Relations Commission, argues in his brief that Wayne Jackson’s criminal record was irrelevant. The management didn’t learn of it until a month after denying his application.

Kautsch said one potential juror was dismissed after saying that unmarried cohabitation was a sin.

But Kautsch argues the statement called the juror’s fairness into question because religion was a key issue in the case.

Youngquist and his family said they denied Jackson and his girlfriend housing because they believed it was against God’s will to rent to unmarried couples.