In this file photo from Dec. 4, 2000, Terry McIntyre listens to opening statements in Douglas County District Court. McIntyre was on trial for the July 1999 robbery of Payless ShoeSource, 3231 Iowa, and the rape of an employee during the robbery.

Topeka ? The Kansas Supreme Court on Thursday heard arguments in the appeal of a man who was sentenced to 54 years in prison for robbing a Payless ShoeSource store in Lawrence in 1999, raping one of the store clerks and beating another.

In his latest appeal, Larry D. McIntyre claims he was denied the right to effective counsel both at his trial and in subsequent appeals.

The crime occurred in July 1999. McIntyre was captured two months later in the Kansas City area after the crime was highlighted on the TV program “America’s Most Wanted.”

The Kansas Court of Appeals upheld his conviction in 2002 and denied his request for a new trial. He also appealed his conviction in federal court but a U.S. District Court judge in Kansas City rejected that appeal in 2011.

According to information in the federal decision denying one appeal, McIntyre represented himself throughout much of his first round of appeals in state court.

Lisa Taylor, spokeswoman for the Kansas appellate courts, said a district court judge summarily rejected his latest appeal, saying there is no right to effective assistance of retained counsel in what the courts refer to as a “collateral” or second appeal of an underlying conviction.

When McIntyre appealed that decision, the state filed an objection and the Kansas Court of Appeals dismissed it saying he was procedurally barred from filing a second appeal more than a year after denial of his first petition.

The issue now before the Supreme Court is whether he should be barred from filing the second appeal after the deadline for filing such an appeal has passed, and whether there is a statutory right to effective assistance of counsel in a post-conviction collateral appeal.