On Monday, attorney Julian McPhillips filed a motion to strike the state’s response to a discovery and inspection request filed by his defendants, Toriano “Tory” Neely, Jeffrey Hardy and Kendall Thomas.

The three defendants are former Selma Police officers charged with “knowingly falsifying, concealing or covering up material or making a false statement in a matter under investigation by the Attorney General’s office.”

According to McPhillips, the motion to strike comes after the state, through Alabama Assistant Attorney General Andrew Arrington, provided over 30,000 documents downloaded to an external hard drive in response to his clients’ request for information “allegedly relevant” to the state’s case against them.

According to filings, the external hard drive contained 21,109 “unidentified documents” and an additional 9,876 “forensic data files which cannot be readily opened, and which can only be expensively copied and/or reproduced.”

The cost of reproducing the entirety of the unidentified documents would be more than $3,000 and the cost of opening the additional forensic files would exceed $5,000.

The motion calls the state’s response “obstructionist” and a “blatant attempt by the State to impair the Defendants’ defense.”

“It’s really a great abuse of power,” McPhillips said. “It’s ludicrous. It’s designed to keep us from getting the information we need and it’s just wrong.”

McPhillips believes the state’s action revolved around “improper ties between the mayor’s office, the attorney general’s office and the [Selma] Chief of Police.”

The filing references the defendants’ earlier discovery requests and claims that the state did not properly adhere to those requests, which called for a list of names and addresses of all witnesses the state intends to call to testify, as well as any criminal records they might have.

Further, the requests asked for any police reports or witness statements relevant to the case, the exact date, time and location of the defendants’ alleged offense and other such details and documents.

However, the main portion of the request that McPhillips said has been ignored is the request that the defense be “allowed to inspect and/or copy all books, papers, documents, photographs, tangible objects, buildings or places, or copies or portions thereof, which are within the possession, control or custody of the State and which are intended for use by the State as evidence in chief in the trial,” as well as similar items designated for use in preparation of the trial or that were “obtained from or belong to” the defendants.

For those reasons, McPhillips motion calls on the court to order the state to identify and list all of the documents relevant to the state’s case and provide hard copies of each document.

Further, it demands that the defendants be provided a written response that “adequately complies” with their original requests and to pay for the cost incurred by producing the 30,000 documents.

If the state refuses to comply with these demands, the filing says, the state should pay the defendants’ costs and provide them with “any other necessary relief,” including the dismissal of the case against them.

McPhillips is optimistic that the court will rule in his favor and laments the negative impact the case is having on the Selma Police Department, noting that the three officers at the center of the case are “three of the best in the department.”

“The morale of the Selma Police Department is at an all-time low,” McPhillips said. “It’s really having a damaging effect on the department.”