Given that the Supreme Court issued its order months ago for the prosecutors to immediately return or destroy all of the materials they confiscated in their illegal crusade, why do they still even have them?

Milwaukee County prosecutors want a federal court to order them to preserve evidence from a John Doe probe that the state Supreme Court has said must be destroyed.

Milwaukee County DA John Chisholm and two of his top deputies argued in yesterday’s filing the materials the state Supreme Court wants returned to witnesses or destroyed may be essential to their defense in a lawsuit filed against them by former Walker aide Cynthia Archer.

Archer’s lawsuit claims she was targeted in John Doe I for her work helping Gov. Scott Walker advance Act 10.

The prosecutors said the Supreme Court order, which shut down John Doe II, does not make specific reference from the first secret probe, which resulted in the convictions of six aides or associates of then-Milwaukee County Exec Walker. But the evidence compiled in John Doe II, which focused on coordination between Walker and conservative groups in the recall elections, includes some evidence from the first probe, according to the filing.

The order from the state Supreme Court requires prosecutors to “return all property seized in the investigation from any individual or organization, and permanently destroy all the copies of information and other materials obtained through the investigation.”