(AP) -- Georgia prosecutors are challenging a 29-year-old decision that bans the state from pursuing murder charges against some crime suspects. 

Cobb County prosecutors asked the Georgia Supreme Court Tuesday to overturn a ruling that barred authorities from pressing murder charges against a crime accomplice when the would-be felon was killed by the crime's victim. 

The case stems from a 2007 foiled robbery of suspected drug dealer Arthur Hogan, who shot and killed one of the three would-be thieves. Prosecutors charged the other two suspects with felony murder, contending that state law allowed it.  But a Cobb County judge threw out the charges in June based on the 1981 precedent-setting decision that prosecutors are now challenging.

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