OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A federal appeals court ruled Monday that six people wrongly convicted in a 1985 slaying of a woman in southeast Nebraska should have a chance to argue that the officials who prosecuted them acted improperly.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revived the group’s complaint against Gage County and the officials who built the case against the six in the 1985 killing of Helen Wilson in Beatrice. The initial trial of the $14 million lawsuit ended in mistrial in January.

The wrongly convicted individuals — known as the Beatrice Six — served a combined 77 years in prison before DNA testing cleared them in 2008. It’s a crime that has since been linked to Bruce Allen Smith, who grew up in Beatrice and returned to town days before the slaying and then quickly went back to Oklahoma. He died in 1992.

James Dean, Kathleen Gonzalez, Debra Shelden, Ada JoAnn Taylor, Thomas Winslow and Joseph White were the wrongly convicted individuals. White died in 2011.

Lawyers representing county officials didn’t immediately respond to messages Monday.

Jeff Patterson, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs, said the appeals court sided with all the arguments they raised.

The individuals have argued that Gage County investigators recklessly strove to close the case despite contradictory evidence, rather than seek justice.

In its ruling, the court said there is substantial evidence to support the idea that Gage County officials conspired to convict the six individuals. Investigators suggested that Dean, Shelden and Gonzalez had repressed memories of the crime. They also conducted unreported interrogations and ignored verifiable alibis.

These six individuals were the first people in the state cleared by DNA evidence, which was made possible by a 2007 Nebraska Supreme Court ruling.

The case will likely move toward a new trial sometime next year, but the schedule won’t be set until both sides meet with the district court judge.