Attorneys for an Idaho woman convicted of killing her parents when she was just 16 years old told the state Supreme Court on Friday that the verdicts should be overturned, because the judge gave the jury instructions that didn’t match the charging document.

Sarah Johnson was convicted in 2005 of using a .264-caliber rifle to kill her parents at their Bellevue home on Sept. 3, 2003. She was sentenced to two life terms for the murders, plus 15 years for using a rifle.

Her state-appointed appeals attorney told the justices they should vacate Johnson’s convictions partly because prosecutors didn’t include aiding and abetting a murder in their charging document, but jurors were instructed they could find her guilty of the charge.

Under Idaho law, aiding and abetting a murder carries the same penalty as actually committing a murder, and it can be an included charge in a murder case. But Johnson’s attorney said that because her trial lawyers weren’t given notice of aiding and abetting in the formal charging documents, they didn’t know they needed to prepare a defense to the charge.

An Idaho deputy attorney general said the charges of murder and aiding and abetting were interchangeable under Idaho law and that charging a defendant with both for the same crime could violate double jeopardy rules.

The state’s highest court took the matter under advisement. It is not clear when they will issue a ruling on the case.

(AP)