The state is asking the Virginia Supreme Court to set aside a jury's findings in favor of the families of two students who were slain in the April 2007 massacre on the Virginia Tech campus.
In a filing Thursday, attorneys representing the state are seeking to overturn the jury verdict one year ago that found the state negligent in the deaths of Julia Pryde and Erin Peterson. Their families argued that the two women might have survived the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history if the Blacksburg campus had been alerted sooner of a gunman's first shootings.
Peterson and Pryde were among 32 students and faculty killed by Seung-Hui Cho (sung-wee joh), who then killed himself.
The state alleges several trial errors in its appeal.
