A Georgia county facing allegations that its police department framed a then-teenager for the murder of his friend almost 30 years ago has asked a federal judge to be let out of the suit, arguing the plaintiff's Civil Rights Act claims failed to plead that his prosecution was the result of systemic failures.

Floyd County argued in a dismissal bid Friday that Cain Storey — who, alongside his friend Darrell Clark, spent decades behind bars for the murder of 15-year-old Brian Bowling — "only alleges in a conclusory manner" that Storey's wrongful imprisonment arose from "persistent and wide-spread practice[s]" in departmental policy.

Storey was freed in 2022 with the help of two true crime podcasters. He alleged in a suit filed last month that county detectives fabricated evidence, coerced false testimony from witnesses and hid sexual liaisons with key figures in the case in order to pin him for Bowling's accidental death playing Russian roulette.

But the county said Storey's claim that those abuses resulted from training failures had dubious support.

"Plaintiff has failed to allege any details with the training program in place at the FCPD, and has alleged in only a conclusory manner the ways in which the county allegedly failed to train and supervise the individual defendants," it argued. "That is insufficient."

According to Storey's suit, Bowling died on the night of Oct. 18, 1996, as a result of an accidental gunshot wound. Storey, who was 17 at the time, said he brought his father's revolver to Bowling's house and that the two boys began playing with it.

Bowling was on the phone with his girlfriend at the time, according to the Friday brief. Bowling loaded the gun, spun the chamber, pointed the gun at his head and fired, killing himself.

After police arrived, Detective Dallas Battle, the investigation lead, questioned Storey and Bowling's girlfriend. After conducting what Storey called an "inept and incompetent" crime scene investigation, Battle and his partner David Stewart allegedly began concocting a narrative that Storey had deliberately murdered Bowling.

Battle and Stewart's theory, according to the suit, was that Storey and Clark had been members of a gang called the Free Birds and planned Bowling's execution for snitching on the gang about a supposed earlier crime.

Battle is accused of planting evidence in Bowling's casket after ordering him exhumed, threatening a single mother that she could lose her children if she refused to testify against the boys, and securing further false testimony from a hearing-impaired and nearly illiterate man implicating Storey and Clark.

The two men were convicted in 1998 of Bowling's murder and stayed in prison on life sentences until podcasters Susan Simpson and Jacinda Davis of the investigative true-crime podcast "Proof" uncovered evidence suggesting the men were innocent. Storey and Clark were freed in December 2022 after their murder convictions were tossed, according to the Georgia Innocence Project, which worked on the case on the men's behalf.

Floyd County Police Chief Mark Wallace, who was a sergeant at the time of Bowling's death, has already filed his own bid to get out of Storey's suit, arguing he "played no substantive role" in the allegedly crooked investigation.

The county, meanwhile, said Friday that in addition to the problems with Storey's Civil Rights Act claims, the county is also protected by sovereign immunity. Storey had argued that the county's purchase of insurance was an effective waiver of immunity, but the county said "that is wrong" under Georgia law.

Storey is represented by Sam Starks of the Starks Law Firm and Wolfgang Mueller of the Mueller Law Firm.

Floyd County is represented by Ronald R. Womack and Steven M. Rodham of Womack Rodham & Ray PC.

Wallace is represented by Derrick L. Bingham and Julie R. Comer of Stites & Harbison PLLC.

The case is Storey v. Floyd County et al., case number 4:24-cv-00288, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

--Editing by Lakshna Mehta.