BATON ROUGE — Dale Craig was a week shy of his 18th birthday when he shot and killed an LSU freshman. Even though the U.S. Supreme Court has outlawed the executions of defendants who weren't yet 18 when they committed their crimes, Louisiana's attorney general says Craig was close enough to adulthood to justify the death penalty.

While a 19th Judicial District judge two years ago made Craig parole-eligible, Attorney General Liz Murrill seeks to reinstate Craig's death sentence. She said Wednesday she is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the decision that spared his life.

"The Supreme Court’s decision in Roper v. Simmons is egregiously wrong. It prohibits states like Louisiana from executing criminals like Dale Craig — who carjacked, kidnapped, terrorized, pistol-whipped and then shot to death Kip Earl Gullett, an unsuspecting LSU freshman — just because he was a week away from his 18th birthday when he committed this heinous crime," Murrill said Wednesday. "There is no basis in law or logic for that absurd result."

Kipp E. Gullet died Sept. 14, 1992. Prosecutors say Craig stole Kipp's Ford Bronco and subjected Gullet to psychological torture before shooting him three times in the head at a construction site. Jurors imposed the death penalty.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2005 ruled that defendants who committed their crimes prior to turning 18 cannot be executed, commuting Craig's sentence to life in prison. In its ruling, the court said that executing people who committed crimes as minors was cruel and unusual punishment barred by the Constitution.

After Craig served 28 years, Judge Eboni Johnson Rose vacated his life term and made him parole-eligible. The state Supreme Court took up different questions in Craig's case last month.