A man convicted of helping his millionaire father plan the kidnapping and brutal murder of their Derry handyman in 2005 wants his sentence reduced by five years.

An attorney for Jesse Brooks argued Friday in Concord that his 15-year minimum sentence was excessive given his minimal role in the killing and his drug dependency at the time.

“That the sentencing court failed to properly consider the dependence of opioids as a mitigating factor, as opposed to an aggravating factor, is reason enough to amend the sentence,” attorney Donna Brown told a panel of three judges.

The request is the latest from Brooks and his family, which continues to deny his involvement in the attack. 

Brooks was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder in the 2005 slaying of Jack Reid. Prosecutors argued that his father hired three hitmen to help kidnap and kill Reid, because he was convinced Reid had stolen motorcycles and other items from him. Brooks was believed to have recruited one of the men and helped plan the attack. He also helped stalk Reid before it happened and helped pay off one of the hitmen afterward, prosecutors said.

The state Supreme Court affirmed Brooks’s conviction in 2011, and he has since lost an attempt to get his conviction overturned.

On Friday, Brown argued that the sentencing judge, Tina Nadeau, had not adequately factored in the influence Brooks’s opioid addiction played in his conduct before the murder. 

Senior Assistant Attorney General Jeff Strelzin said Nadeau had considered his drug use and had found that it didn’t play a part.

“You can’t point to drugs and say it accounted for two years of bad decisions all across the country,” he said, citing the duration and scope of the planning. 

Strelzin reminded the panel that the attack on Reid was especially violent, and for that, Brooks deserved “every year” of his sentence.

“This was a conspiracy to commit murder,” he said. “A man was beaten to death.”

Brooks took part in the hearing by phone from Arizona, where he is being held through an interstate compact. He declined to make a statement.

Brooks’s father, John Brooks, was charged with capital murder because under New Hampshire law, murder for hire and murder during a kidnapping are capital offenses. Jurors chose a life sentence rather than the death penalty.

Family members have launched an aggressive campaign in recent years to free the younger Brooks, insisting he was a victim of ineffective defense attorneys and an overzealous attorney general with political ambitions. The attorney general at the time, Kelly Ayotte, is now a U.S. Senator. She dismissed the claims when they were first made, in 2013.

Sentence reviews are not uncommon in New Hampshire. The panel that heard the petition Friday has the ability to reduce or otherwise amend Brooks’s sentence, but they can’t extend it. They usually issue a decision within a month.

Relatives from both sides were in the court Friday, but only Reid’s gave verbal statements to the judges. Brown said several letters had been submitted on Brooks’s behalf.

(Jeremy Blackman can be reached at 369-3319, jblackman@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @JBlackmanCM.)