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A serial child rapist who asked a Flathead District Court judge to send him to prison for 100 years in April has since changed his mind and has asked the Montana Supreme Court to again overturn his conviction for raping an 11-year-old girl in March 2007 at her father’s home.

Jason Dean Franks, 46, of Kalispell, was found guilty in April of sexual intercourse without consent in the case, after the state Supreme Court ordered a second jury hear the case. He appealed the case on Dec. 27.

Franks originally had been convicted of the assault in 2012, but the high court ruled that the trial had been tainted by testimony that referred to the fact that Franks had been charged with molesting a young boy in 2011. Franks was acquitted in that case. Prosecutors had mentioned the case involving the boy in their explanation of how the victim of the 2007 assault had reported the incident to police. She only came forward about the assault after seeing in the newspaper that Franks was facing similar charges involving boys.

In the re-trial, prosecutors referred to Franks’ testimony from the previous trial, but carefully avoided the prejudicial content that the high court had said was inappropriate.

Flathead District Court Judge Robert Allison denied Franks’ request for a mistrial because of the admission of the prior testimony. Franks testified in his first trial, but he did not in the second, and invoked his Fifth and 14th Amendment rights that allow him to not have to testify against himself.

In the second trial, prosecutors had a person who had witnessed the first trial read verbatim what Franks had said in those proceedings about where he was the day of the incident. Franks testified at the first trial that he did not know where he was the day of the incident.

At the second trial, a friend was able to produce evidence indicating that he was at a birthday party the day of the assault, providing him with an alibi defense.

“Franks was denied these constitutional rights when the district court denied his motion for a mistrial and allowed the state to present evidence of his testimony from his first trial to refute an alibi defense referenced in his opening statement,” Franks’ defense attorney Robin Meguire wrote in the appeal to the high court. “Franks’ testimony from the first trial should not have been permitted for any purpose in his retrial. Even if only amounting to an evidentiary error, the error was not harmless and prejudiced Franks’ defense. As such, this court must reverse the district court and vacate the jury’s verdict.”

The state has not yet responded to the appeal.

At his sentencing, Franks asked Judge Allison to give him the maximum sentence for the crime, but swore to God he did not commit it. He also said that he did not want a chance of parole because he would not participate in the admission part of sex-offender treatment that would be mandatory for his parole. Allison also assigned a condition that would require Franks to be chemically castrated if he were to be paroled.

“There is no responsibility I will take for this crime,” Franks said. “I’m not asking to be paroled... I have no need to be accused of this ever again.”

In addition to the latest conviction, Franks also was convicted of having sex twice with a 12-year-old girl in 1993.

According to prosecutors, Franks was convicted of failure to register as a sex offender in 2006, and also had a conviction for unlawful transactions with children for providing an underage girl with alcohol.

In the process of investigating Franks, another woman allegedly came forward and told prosecutors that he had assaulted her when she was 12 and he was 20, but that case was not charged.