Public defenders in Gainesville—home to one of the state’s largest Hispanic communities— have asked the Georgia Supreme Court to review a conviction they say was tainted by testimony presenting “gross ethnic stereotypes.”

“Respectfully, this Court should grant a writ of certiorari and hold that negative ethnic stereotypes are mere empty slanders, not signs of truth rationally based on perceptions of different ethnic groups in our society,” attorneys for Alejandro Martinez-Arias, who is Mexican American, said in a petition filed Tuesday.