HALIFAX -- The lawyer for a man sentenced to 14 years for manslaughter in the "murder-for-lobster" death of a Cape Breton fisherman says his client's punishment is too harsh.

Defence lawyer Roger Burrill argued Friday in the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal that a 10-year sentence would be more appropriate for Joseph James Landry given his conviction.

Landry was sentenced in January 2015 after a jury found him guilty of manslaughter. He had been charged with second-degree murder.

"No one is diminishing this in any way or fashion," Burrill told the three-member appeal panel. "But it is not a second-degree conviction."

Burrill noted one of Landry's co-accused, Dwayne Matthew Samson, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was given a 10-year prison sentence.

Landry and Samson were among four people charged in the death of 43-year-old Phillip Boudreau, who disappeared near the mouth of the harbour near Petit-de-Grat on June 1, 2013. His body has yet to be found.

During Landry's trial, the Crown said Boudreau's death was the result of a sustained attack by a three-man lobster fishing crew.

The jury heard that Landry was a deckhand aboard a fishing vessel that rammed Boudreau's speedboat three times. It also heard Landry used a rifle to fire four shots at Boudreau, one of which hit him in the leg.

Landry then used a gaff to hook Boudreau and drag him out to sea, the trial heard.

The case attracted national attention when a Crown prosecutor told a Port Hawkesbury courtroom the case amounted to "murder for lobster." There were accusations that Boudreau tampered with lobster traps, but that was never proven in court.

Burrill said Friday that Landry's actions were the result of poor judgment from an otherwise law-abiding member of society. He also suggested the Crown's description of "murder for lobster" may have influenced the judge in his sentencing, which prosecutor Tim O'Leary refuted.

O'Leary said granting Landry a lighter sentence would be inappropriate given the severity of the crime.

"Anything less would ignore that this was a brutal, vicious, senseless attack," he told the court.

Burrill and O'Leary declined to comment further outside court.

The court has reserved its decision in the appeal.