Twenty-three years after the brutal slayings of a Bowling Green mother and son, the man convicted of killing them stood handcuffed and shackled in a Warren County courtroom to argue what he called unfairness and bias in his case. Sherill Dewayne Harston, 51, is serving a 124-year sentence at Green River Correctional Complex in Central City. He appeared at the Warren County Justice Center on Friday to argue his appeal and a civil case. Harston filed the civil suit, which seeks $17 million in damages on the grounds a fraudulent psychologist was allowed to testify at his trial, with the help of a prisoner, but is representing himself. Circuit Judge Kelly Mark Easton of Elizabethtown presided over the hearing. Harston argued his counsel during the 1980 trial was ineffective and that the jurys verdict was inconsistent. He was convicted of first-degree manslaughter in the death of his girlfriend, Diane Marcum, 25, and convicted of murder in the death of her son, Anthony, 3. Harston does not dispute killing the two. The jury found Harston was temporarily disturbed during Diane Marcums slaying, but found him not disturbed and guilty of the Anthonys murder, which occurred several hours later a verdict Easton ruled was not inconsistent. Harston argued that testimony from Elya Bresler, who was later unveiled as a fraudulent psychologist, tainted the jury and contributed to the sentence. Bresler was the source of controversy last year that resulted in the overturning of the death sentence of David L. Skaggs, who was on death row since 1982 for killing Herman and Mae Matthews, an elderly Barren County couple. Your honor, sir, this man destroyed me, Harston said. He compared me to Charles Manson and John Wayne Gacy. My rights were violated to the umpteenth degree. Easton said the Kentucky Court of Appeals already ruled that Bresler who presented one of many psychological opinions at the trial would not have affected the outcome of Harstons trial.