Nearly eight years after Detroit Police Officer Joseph Weekley shot and killed 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones during an early morning SWAT team raid, legal wranglings continue in multiple court cases.

Two criminal trials in 2013 and 2014 ended in hung juries and all charges against Weekley were ultimately dismissed, but wrongful death lawsuits filed by relatives of Aiyana are still pending in both state and federal court.

The Michigan Court of Appeals heard arguments Tuesday, Jan. 9 on an appeal filed more than a year ago.

Weekley's attorneys in September 2016 asked a Wayne County judge to dismiss claims under state law that the officer was grossly negligent when he shot Aiyana in the head on May 16, 2010.

Wayne Circuit Judge Daphne M. Curtis, who is no longer on the bench, declined that request. In response, Weekley's attorneys appealed and both the state and federal lawsuits were placed on hold.

Weekley led Detroit's SWAT team into a Lillibridge Street home on Detroit's east side about 2 a.m. the morning of the shooting in search of homicide suspect Chauncey Owens, who would later be arrested in the second-floor unit of the duplex.

Owens was later convicted of murdering 17-year-old Je'rean Blake, who was fatally shot outside a party store on May 10, 2010.

Aiyana's father, Charles Jones, was also arrested following his daughter's death and convicted of second-degree murder for providing the gun used to kill Blake.

Owens is serving life in prison and Charles Jones is serving a minimum of 40 years in prison.

Detroit police, with producers from an A&E reality show in tow, fired a flash-bang grenade through the bay window of the home the night of Aiyana's death and stormed in with Weekley leading the charge.

Weekley, carrying both a tactical shield and an MP5 sub-machine gun, turned left after entering the home and his gun discharged a bullet into the head of Aiyana, who was sleeping on the couch alongside her grandmother, Mertilla Jones, beneath a "Hanna Montana" blanket, testimony at Weekley's criminal trials revealed.

The officer claimed he didn't know his weapon fired until after he cleared an adjacent room and returned to see Aiyana bloody and in her grandmother's arms.

Weekley claims the gun fired because Aiyana's grandmother lunged at him and grabbed the firearm, causing his finger to move onto and pull the trigger. Experts testified it would require nine pounds of pressure to compress the trigger of Weekley's gun.

Police protocol, members from Weekley's team testified, calls for only placing your finger on the trigger when you have identified and intend to fire on a target.

Attorney Lawrence Garcia, arguing on behalf of Weekley in the Court of Appeals on Tuesday, told the three-judge panel that gross negligence claims weren't an option in the civil case and should be dismissed.

He rejected the possibility that Weekley violated policy and entered the home with his finger on the trigger.

Garcia said there are only two options to explain the shooting: "This is either an intentional execution or something caused by a struggle" with Aiyana's grandmother.

While Jones previously testified she believes Weekley executed Aiyana, even prosecutors said on record in court they didn't believe that to be the case.

Regardless, Jones remained adamant she never attacked Weekley.

"You killed my grandbaby," she said during an emotional moment from the witness stand during Weekley's first trial in 2013. "You know I never touched you."

Gross negligence was also at the core of the criminal case against Weekley, in which he was charged with involuntary manslaughter.

During the second trial -- the first in 2013 ended in a mistrial because jurors couldn't reach a unanimous verdict -- Wayne County Circuit Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway surprised assistant prosecutors when she dismissed the manslaughter charge based on similar arguments made by Garcia on Tuesday.

The appellate court at the time agreed Hathaway "erred" in that ruling, but said it didn't have the right to overturn it.

There is no deadline for the Court of Appeals panel to rule on arguments made in Weekley's case Tuesday, but until they do, both the federal and state lawsuits will remain unresolved.