Attorneys for Damien Echols want a judge to force the West Memphis Police Department to respond to a request under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.
It's been over two months since Patrick Benca of Little Rock requested evidence from a 1993 triple homicide, and the police department still hasn't responded, according to the complaint filed Friday in Crittenden County Circuit Court by Benca and Stephen Braga of Washington, D.C.
The state's Freedom of Information Act is codified under Arkansas Code Section 25-19-105.
"The statute requires, among other things, that government agencies respond to FOIA requests within three days of receipt," according to the complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief. "Here, the relevant agency has wholly failed to do so."
The attorneys are asking the court to declare that the police department "has violated its statutory obligations" to respond to Benca's open-records request and direct the department to do so within three days.
Echols was one of three men known as the West Memphis Three.
Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley were convicted in 1994 for the brutal murder of three 8-year-old boys — Christopher Byers, Stevie Branch and Michael Moore — whose bodies were discovered the previous year in a drainage ditch near West Memphis.
Investigators initially thought the murders were part of a Satanic ritual. The case drew national attention.
While no DNA evidence connected Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley to the murders, the three were convicted and sent to prison for nearly 20 years. In 2011, they were released from prison as part of an agreement known as an Alford Plea. Under the plea, Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley maintained their innocence but pleaded guilty in exchange for an 18-year sentence, plus time served.
The three men are still seeking evidence in hopes it will clear their names. Attorneys representing Echols have expressed interest in using a new DNA testing method on evidence from the case but have been told that the evidence is missing or has been destroyed.