ATLANTA (AP) — The Supreme Court of Georgia has upheld the convictions and life prison sentence given to the stepmother of an 11-year-old girl who prosecutors say was starved and beaten to death in Henry County in 2003.

Charlott Lynett Reaves had appealed her case on grounds that police illegally interrogated her after she invoked her right to a lawyer.

In a unanimous opinion released Monday, the state Supreme Court rejected that argument, saying that she never clearly involved her right to have an attorney present during her interrogation by police.

Reaves had been charged with felony murder and child cruelty in the death of Joella Reaves, who was a sixth-grader at Eagle's Landing Middle School when she was found dead in her Stockbridge home on Dec. 1, 2003.