Convicted murderer Tony Roman Nose's quest for a reduced prison sentence because he was a juvenile at the time of the killing ended Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal.

The denial means that Roman Nose's first-degree murder conviction in 2001 for raping and killing Woodbury teen Jolene Stuedemann when he was 17 stands. He was sentenced to life without parole and is incarcerated at Oak Park Heights prison.

Roman Nose, now 32, was attempting to appeal an April ruling by the Minnesota Supreme Court that said he wasn't eligible for leniency. The Minnesota court also reversed an earlier ruling by a district court judge that would have freed him in 2031.

The Minnesota high court's decision struck at the heart of a complicated legal argument over prison sentences conferred nationwide on teenage killers. In June 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Miller vs. Alabama that sentencing juveniles to spend their entire lives in prison without consideration of age and age-related characteristics violated the 8th Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

The Minnesota high court, however, rejected the defense argument that the case applied retroactively to Roman Nose.

Unless the U.S. Supreme Court eventually clarifies retroactivity or the Minnesota Legislature changes the law, Roman Nose's case will remain closed, said Robin Wolpert, the Washington County prosecutor who argued before Minnesota's high court against his reduced sentence.

"We basically have a statute on the books that doesn't comply with the U.S. Supreme Court decision," she said.

Minnesota prosecutors are open to talking about amending the law as it pertains to youth who commit heinous crimes, but they oppose retroactivity for the seven or eight people imprisoned in Minnesota who were teenage murderers, said John Kingrey of the Minnesota County Attorneys Association. It's likely, he said, that the next Legislature will address the issue.

Stuedemann was killed in her family's Woodbury home in 2000. Her father, Jim Stuedemann, lobbied for a death penalty in Minnesota after her murder and said in recent Star Tribune interviews that Roman Nose had threatened to harm the family if he was released.

"The family is just grateful … that this case is closed," Wolpert said Tuesday.

Roman Nose and Stuedemann were fellow students and acquaintances at an alternative school in Cottage Grove when he broke into her house when her family was gone and stabbed her 29 times with a screwdriver after raping her.

At the time, Roman Nose was two months shy of 18, which the Minnesota Supreme Court distinguished in maturity from the 14-year-old represented in Miller vs. Alabama.