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DENVER — An attorney for a New Mexico man convicted of a drunken-driving crash that killed a mother and her three young girls has told a federal appeals court that his client was convicted because prosecutors based some of their decisions on racial discrimination.

Gordon House, a Navajo, was convicted in 1995 on four counts of vehicular homicide and other charges in a head-on collision while he was driving the wrong way on I-40 near Albuquerque on Christmas Eve 1992.

Killed were Melanie Cravens, 31, and her daughters Kandyce, 9, Erin, 8, and Kacee, 5. Cravens' husband, Paul Cravens, was driving. He survived with five broken ribs, a perforated lung, a broken elbow, a broken wrist and a brain injury.

In May, Cravens, now 50, completed his master's degree in electrical engineering from the University of New Mexico.

House admitted drinking more than seven beers that day but argued a migraine caused him to become disoriented.

In his first trial, in Taos County in northern New Mexico, jurors convicted House of drunk driving but deadlocked 9-3 on other charges, and the judge declared a mistrial. Jurors in a second trial in Taos County also deadlocked, and the judge granted the state's motion for a change of venue to Do¤a Ana County.

A jury there returned a conviction. House is serving a 22-year sentence.

House's attorney, William Friedman, told a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday that up to 7 percent of Taos County's population was American Indian, while no more than 1 percent of Do¤a Ana County residents were.

"The state was actively engaged in trying to obtain a venue to eliminate Native Americans (from the jury pool)," Friedman said. "The state may not purposefully seek to dislodge a defendant from a venue for the purpose of eliminating members of a defendant's race from the . . . jury."

New Mexico Assistant Attorney General Steven Suttle said the appeals court should uphold earlier rulings by New Mexico's courts and by a federal trial judge that House received a fair trial.

"Nobody in this country is entitled to a jury of particular racial representation," Suttle said.

He said more than 4 percent of members of the jury pool in Do¤a Ana County were American Indian, and said House's attorneys excused two self-identified American Indians during jury selection and never objected to the jury after it was seated.

Suttle argued that prosecutors sought to move the case because intense media coverage had influenced potential jurors in much of New Mexico. Prosecutors chose Do¤a Ana County because residents there were served largely by media from El Paso, rather than New Mexico news organizations, he said.