TOPEKA ? The Kansas Supreme Court affirmed the conviction of Michael Wilkins, who was sentenced in the 1993 shooting death of David Shipley, whose remains were found in and around a rural Jefferson County pond.

Wilkins was the enforcer for a self-styled Ku Klux Klan group that had recruited members and some teenage girls in Lawrence, according to court documents.

The Supreme Court’s decision reversed a lower appellate court decision that would have granted Wilkins a new trial. The lower court had ruled that Wilkins received ineffective assistance of counsel, but the Supreme Court disagreed in a unanimous decision.