OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – A federal appeals panel has rejected Nebraska death-row inmate John Lotter’s attempt to appeal his conviction in the triple murder that inspired the 1999 film “Boys Don’t Cry.” In a judgment released Tuesday, two members of a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the appeal. The third, U.S. Judge Kermit Bye, disagreed, saying he would have allowed the appeal based on five claims by Lotter. Lotter was convicted in the 1993 slayings of Teena Brandon and two others in a farmhouse near Humboldt. Lotter has maintained he is innocent. He claims that, among other things, the state used a threat of torture to coerce accomplice Thomas Nissen into lying about the killings. Earlier this year, a federal judge denied Lotter’s appeal.