WATERLOO, Ill. (AP) — A southern Illinois judge has granted a hearing to a man seeking a new trial after he was convicted for the 2009 killings of his wife and their two young sons.

The Belleville News-Democrat reports Christopher Coleman appeared in Monroe County court Tuesday in Waterloo. His attorney, Lloyd Cueto Jr., argues Coleman was convicted based on evidence that jurors weren’t supposed to see.

Judge Stephen McGlynn on Tuesday commended attorneys and the judge from Coleman’s original trial. But the judge said he was ordering the hearing because certain evidence and testimony wasn’t introduced.

Coleman is serving a life term in the strangulation deaths of his wife Sherri and their 9-year-old and 11-year-old sons in their Columbia home.

The evidentiary hearing the judge ordered Tuesday hasn’t been scheduled.