Jefferson County Attorney Mike O'Connell's office is asking for permission to file a friend-of-the-court brief defending his office's honor in a Courier Journal's open records suit.

In a May 5 motion, the County Attorney's office says lawyers for The Courier Journal have misstated the record in their fight to get hundreds of thousands of documents from the disbanded Louisville Metro Police Explorer program for youths interested in law enforcement.

In a May 13 response, The Courier objects, arguing that the purpose of such briefs is to provide "impartial information on matters of law" while the county attorney's proposed brief offers a "highly partisan account of the facts."

In a lawsuit filed in December, The Courier Journal alleged Louisville Metro Government and the police department concealed and deleted as many as 750,000 documents in the Explorer investigation, and the department lied about it.

The Courier Journal is asking the Court of Appeals to enforce an attorney general's opinion that it is entitled to the records and for attorney's fees. Fewer than 1500 responsive records have since been released.