ALBANY - Joel Steinberg, who served 17 years in prison for killing his 6-year-old adopted daughter, said the $15 million he was ordered to pay the girl's birth mother is too much because the child endured “at most eight hours of pain and suffering.”

Steinberg, a disbarred lawyer convicted of killing Lisa Steinberg in November 1987, is representing himself in front of the Court of Appeals but did not attend Wednesday's session. Now 66, he's challenging a 2004 Manhattan Supreme Court ruling that ordered him to pay Lisa Steinberg's estate $15 million.

The penalty includes $5 million for the pain and suffering inflicted on the night of Lisa's death; $5 million for pain and suffering as a battered child; and $5 million in punitive damages.

Steinberg had gotten Lisa as a days-old infant from Michele Launders, then an unwed Long Island teen who paid him $500 in legal fees to arrange an adoption. Instead, Steinberg took the baby home to Hedda Nussbaum, his live-in companion.

Steinberg was convicted of hitting Lisa in the head with his hand around 6 p.m. on Nov. 5, 1987. Prosecutors said he then went out to dinner while Nussbaum tried to revive the girl. When he returned, he and Nussbaum free-based cocaine for a couple of hours while Lisa lay on the bathroom floor.

During a three-day trial, pathologist Dr. Michael Baden testified that Lisa received multiple injuries to her body and brain, with internal cranial bleeding, before her death. Baden said her brain swelled until it was compressed by her skull.

Testimony suggested Lisa was probably conscious for 8 to 10 hours after the initial blow. Medical experts also described older bruises and injuries consistent with abuse.

Steinberg was convicted of first-degree manslaughter and released from prison in 2004 after serving 15 years. He was originally sentenced to 8 1/3-to-25 years in prison.

Launders sued Steinberg, Nussbaum and several New York City agencies, claiming negligence. The city settled for $985,000.

Launders' lawyer, Wayne J. Schaefer, has said his client sued to make sure Steinberg was held accountable in civil and criminal courts and that he does not believe Steinberg has any significant assets. Schaefer could not be reached for comment Wednesday afternoon.

In his brief to the state's highest court, Steinberg said the penalty levied against him was unprecedented in New York.

An appellate court which, by a 3-2 vote, upheld the Manhattan ruling, said earlier this year, “There is no case that even remotely approaches this one on the facts, and so, there is no obligation on our part to make the awards comparable.” It also noted Steinberg was “devoid of any empathy or human emotion” about his daughter's death.

Dissenters on the court argued that while the manslaughter conviction determined that Steinberg had struck Lisa several times violently, it did not support a finding of chronic abuse.

The divided appellate ruling left Steinberg with the option of taking his appeals to the state's highest court.