JONESBORO, Ark.—A judge said Wednesday he is not sure whether he’ll need to hold hearings for next month for three men seeking to overturn their convictions in the brutal 1993 slayings of three boys in West Memphis.

Craighead County Circuit Court Judge David Burnett said he would likely hold the hearing, but left open the possibility he would rule from the bench that new DNA evidence shouldn’t be heard, as prosecutors argue it isn’t enough to grant new trials for Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley.

“If I adopt your theories ... there won’t be any need for a hearing, period,” Burnett told prosecutors.

Lawyers will make additional court filings over the case in the coming 10 days. Burnett, who oversaw Baldwin and Echols’ joint 1994 trial, said he planned to rule a week later whether to hold the hearings scheduled to begin Sept. 8.

Both Baldwin and Misskelley claim their lawyers failed to adequately represent them during their separate trials. Their lawyers also say DNA evidence provided by Echols’ defense team shows the men—known to supporters as the “West Memphis Three”—did not kill Steven Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore.

Police found the three boys’ water-soaked bodies in a drainage ditch a day after their May 5, 1993, disappearance. A month passed before police arrested the three teens. Misskelley told investigators how he watched Baldwin and Echols sexually assault and beat two of the boys as he ran down another trying to escape.

A separate jury gave Misskelley a life-plus-40-year sentence for the killings. Baldwin received a life sentence without parole. Echols, who preened at times during the trial and quoted Shakespeare to reporters, was sentenced to die.

The Arkansas Supreme Court unanimously affirmed Baldwin and Echols’ convictions in 1996, citing what it called substantial evidence of guilt.

The new hearing comes after a federal judge ordered the original trial court to examine Echols’ wide-ranging appeal, including DNA testing done on Echols’ behalf that showed no trace of the three convicted in the killings. However, much of the DNA evidence examined by a private laboratory in Virginia yielded no reportable results.

Testimony from forensic experts in the appeal also claim the mutilation of one of the boys likely came from an animal after their deaths—rather than prosecutors’ claims about satanic rituals.

Prosecutors argue Echols’ claims are meritless, saying they don’t “demonstrate that he would be acquitted.”

“Whether or not the court considers his animal-predation theory alongside his DNA-testing results, those unremarkable results do not (and cannot) demonstrate his actual innocence,” prosecutors wrote in a response to Echols’ appeal. “Even accepting them as true, his chief results merely exclude him as the source of three insignificant pieces of biological material.”

Defense lawyers also question whether a confession by Misskelley, who they described as having the mental grasp of a child, tainted jurors in Baldwin and Echols’ trial. Misskelley refused to testify against the two and Burnett prohibited prosecutors from mentioning his confession.