Is he appealing the conviction, or the sentence? I’m not sure you can appeal a sentence but maybe you can.
He might be trying ineffective counsel, seems like everyone thinks they did a bad job. But since the original lawyer is filing it, that sems unlikely.
It wasn’t a bad lawyer, it was a bad client who admitted he killed a person after goading and harassing that person into a slight shove and then the bad client shivved that person in the heart.
The crime was on video and this client was guilty as charged.