RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- An attorney for the parents of two Virginia Tech students killed in the April 16, 2007, massacre on campus is asking a judge to let stand a jury's negligence finding against the state.

The court filing is in response to the state's motion to set aside the March 14 verdict. Jurors concluded university officials waited too long to alert the Blacksburg campus of the first shootings in a rampage that ended with 33 dead, including the gunman.

It was the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

The wrongful death lawsuit was brought by the parents of Erin N. Peterson and Julia K. Pryde. They said their daughters and others might have survived if the campus had been alerted earlier of the first two shootings in a dorm.