Florida Supreme Court justices appeared skeptical of arguments that a car should not be considered a weapon in helping determine the sentence of a man convicted of fatally driving into another man after an altercation at a Jacksonville Beach bar.

The court heard an appeal from Adam Lloyd Shepard, who was convicted on a charge of manslaughter with a weapon after fatally striking Spencer Schott in January 2011. Under state law, the use of a weapon bumped up the manslaughter charge from a second-degree felony to a first-degree felony, carrying a longer prison sentence.