On Wednesday, Montgomery attorney Julian McPhillips filed yet another motion on behalf of Selma Police Department (SPD) officers Jeffrey Hardy, Toriano Neely and Kendall Thomas, all three of which were placed on administrative leave last year.

The motion calls for the court to deny the state’s motion to continue the trial and demands a “speedy trial,” as is guaranteed under the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Additionally, the motion calls on the court to reconsider its earlier decision to reschedule hearings until May.

The motion states that the three officers were placed on administrative leave last November and have “languished without pay for 132 days and that absence is causing extreme harm and anguish” to the defendants.

On Feb. 6, the document states, the defendants filed a motion to dismiss the charges against them “due to the state’s conflict of interest and undue prejudice caused by the state before the grand jury” and hearings were postponed until March 5.

The state again delayed the hearing due to an illness and rescheduled the hearing on whether or not to dismiss the case to April 11.

On March 8, the state filed another motion asking that the hearing be “continued indefinitely” and moved to May 13 because “the state attorneys need yet more time to prepare for another case” slated to begin a week later.

The motion states that the defendants are claiming the state is violating their right to a speedy trial and that the state’s case against them has “absolutely no merit.”

“After developing its case for well over a year, the State indicted each Defendant

on November 1, 2018, but now seeks to continue their trial on the specious basis it must

‘prepare’ for another trial in another county a whole another week later,” the motion states. “The State further asserts in its motion that the ‘parties expect the case to take more than a month to try, based on

the number of witnesses.’ The Defendants strongly disagree with the State’s assertion. The case

could be tried in two days or less.”

The motion goes on to say that the officers “have suffered and will continue to suffer much undue and unfair prejudice due to the state’s negligent and intentional delay.”