MEMPHIS, TN- (WMC-TV) – For 18 years the West Memphis Three appealed their case and every time Judge David Burnett denied those appeals and he refused to speak about the case or the men. outside of the courtroom.

"Frankly, everything I did was affirmed by the Arkansas Supreme Court," Burnett said.

In 1993, Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore were found murdered near their West Memphis homes.

Three teenagers - Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jesse Misskelley - were found guilty of those murders.

Baldwin and Misskelley were sentenced to life in prison. Echols was sentenced to death.

Last August, after weeks of negotiations with prosecutors, Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley were released from prison without a retrial.

Now a state senator, Burnett said that was a mistake.

"I'm not real happy with the outcome," he said. "I would have preferred to see them have a new trial."

Deadline.com is reporting that Johnny Depp and his producing parter Christi Dembrowski, under their production company Infinitum Nihil, have optioned the film rights to the currently untitled yet-to-be-published memoirs of Damien Echols.  Echols was eighteen when he was arrested, along with 2 others, for the 1993 murders of three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas.

Deadline says Depp and Dembrowski have been waiting for an opportunity to explore the story, and plan to focus on the conviction and imprisonment of Echols, and "present his life before conviction as well as its twists and turns leading to release."

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