LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Lawyers for Gage County deputies being sued by six people wrongly convicted of the 1985 murder of a Beatrice woman are seeking to keep the jury from hearing that the six were innocent of the crime.

The attorneys filed a motion this week saying that the information the deputies had as they were conducting the investigation is the real issue, not the guilt or innocence of the six.

The deputies’ lawyers say that suggesting the six were innocent would unnecessarily confuse the jury.

The six — James Dean, Kathleen Gonzalez, Debra Shelden, Ada JoAnn Taylor, Joseph White and Thomas Winslow — spent years in prison for the death of 68-year-old Helen Wilson before being exonerated in 2008. DNA testing implicated another man.