The Delphi Murders: The State's Brief of Appellee: Part One

Summary

Podcast Summary: Murder Sheet – "The Delphi Murders: The State's Brief of Appellee: Part One"

Date: March 26, 2026
Hosts: Áine Cain (journalist) & Kevin Greenlee (attorney)
Theme: A detailed breakdown and analysis of the State of Indiana’s appellate brief in the Richard Allen/Delphi double murder case—what arguments the state is making in response to Allen’s appeal, the legal principles involved, the shortcomings of Allen’s trial defense, and the overall landscape of the case going forward.

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Episode Overview

This episode is a deep dive into Indiana’s appellee brief in the appeal process of Richard Allen, the man convicted in the infamous Delphi double homicide. Cain and Greenlee walk through the state’s counterarguments to the defense’s appeal, focusing on legal technicalities (e.g., probable cause, confession admissibility), while also critiquing both the trial and appellate defense teams' strategies and reflecting on the broader true crime media landscape and its impact on the case.

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Key Topics & Discussion Points

1. Introduction & Context

• [01:21] Kevin introduces the subject: the State of Indiana’s response to Richard Allen’s appeal, emphasizing that the defense is poised to lose:

  • “I don't want to ever be accused of burying the lead. And what's going to happen is that Richard Allen's team is going to lose. The state is going to win this appeal.” — Kevin Greenlee [03:29]

• [01:37] Áine names the attorneys behind the state brief and sets the scene for a multi-part analysis due to the document's length.

• [02:31] Hosts describe their podcast’s approach—original reporting, deep legal dives, and fairness in coverage.

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2. The State Brief & Social Media Intrigue

• [04:21] Kevin discusses how the brief’s early online leak (by YouTuber Bob Mata) highlights ongoing problematic alliances between Allen's team and true crime personalities.

  • “...that alliance really worked to the disservice of Mr. Allen. And the fact that some people affiliated with Mr. Allen's team apparently sent this document early to Mr. Mata is an indicator that perhaps that close relationship…is continuing. And I don't necessarily feel that is in the interests of Mr. Allen.” — Kevin [05:33]

• [06:20] Áine mocks the inefficacy of this defense-YouTube alliance, referencing pop culture:

  • “What's that line in No Country for Old Men—‘If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?’...Bob Mata is useless…The whole thing is just so, so sad at this point…These people are clowns.”

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3. True Crime Fandom & Accountability

• [08:04–13:56] The hosts call out online Richard Allen “fans” and the cult-like support for his trial defense (“defense daddies”), criticizing a lack of critical thought and calling for accountability from true crime content-makers:

  • “I think at some point, if you're a serious person, you need to evaluate the sources of information you are relying on. And if people are telling you things at the time that turn out not to be true, then perhaps you should not rely on them in the future.” — Kevin [09:47]

• Áine: “These are people who treat true crime like it's an opportunity to be told a bedtime story by mommy and daddy that makes them feel all warm and fuzzy inside…” [10:22]

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4. Critique of Trial Defense

• [14:34] Both hosts reflect on their own attempts at fairness—including having initially aired flattering defense attorney profiles—but now feel the team was both incompetent and dishonorable:

  • “Despite our criticism of this defense team…we have bent over backwards to give them the benefit of the doubt. That's over. I do not give these people the benefit of the doubt anymore. I think they're dishonest and I think they have, they're dishonorable people. I…think they're…incompetent and also extremely awful.” — Áine [14:51]

• [20:43] Kevin remembers even outside attorneys could quickly articulate better closing arguments than what the actual trial defense delivered:

  • “The closing argument delivered by Brad Rosie…I think at the time, I called it like something out of Saturday Night Live. It was really bad.”

• [21:25] Áine: “It was like AI invented a parody of the Delphi trial…when you saw [the evidence] all put together at trial, it was substantive…it overwhelmed him.”

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5. Breaking Down the State’s Legal Arguments

a. Issue Preservation/Waiver

• [23:34–27:38] Kevin details how the state argues that any objections to search warrant evidence or confession admissibility were “waived” because Allen’s trial attorneys did not properly object in court:

  • “A pretrial motion to suppress is insufficient…you must contemporaneously object to the evidence…By failing to reassert his Fourth Amendment challenge at trial and instead stating that he had no objection…the defendant has waived appellate review.”

• [28:41] Discussion of the difference between bad strategy (not grounds for reversal) and truly "ineffective counsel" (a very high bar).

b. Fruit of the Poisonous Tree & Confessions

• [29:34–33:43] The defense argues Allen’s confessions should be excluded as “fruit” of an allegedly illegal search. The state points out the lack of a causal link—declarations were made months later to doctors/family, not law enforcement:
  • “Allen does not explain how volunteered statements made to family doctors…more than five months after the search…could constitute a fruit of that search.” — State brief, quoted by Kevin [31:23]

c. Alleged Falsehoods/Omissions in Search Warrant Application

• [36:53–48:03] Debate over whether Detective Liggett omitted or fabricated material facts to obtain the search warrant:

  • [40:13] Áine reads the state’s assertion that witness Sarah Carbaugh’s statements about seeing a “muddy and bloody” man were not misrepresented.
  • [41:16] The state highlights multiple interviews corroborating Liggett’s affidavit was accurate.
  • [45:12] Áine: “Carbaugh was adamant on the stand that she said he was muddy and bloody...She feels like her words were transcribed incorrectly as a result of…mumbling…She’s certainly documented as doing so in the second and third [interviews].”

• [46:19–48:43] Omission claims about witness car description details (e.g., Blair’s differing descriptions) do not rise to “intent to mislead.”

  • “If they'd been trying to smooth things over…he would not be putting all [the inconsistencies] in there.” — Áine [50:12]

d. Probable Cause Recap

• [52:32–56:19] The state recaps why there was probable cause to search Allen’s home and arrest him, focusing on Allen placing himself (and his car) at the scene and confirming details matching Bridge Guy’s outfit and behavior; discrepancies in minor details from witnesses are unimportant.
  • “That is to a certain extent the heart of the case. Because then if you want to believe that Mr. Allen is innocent, you have to believe that there was another man dressed identically to Mr. Allen, who was there at the time…” — Kevin [55:06]

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6. Confession Admissibility & Conditions of Confinement

• [60:04–69:09] The appellate defense claims Allen’s many confessions should be excluded, arguing his mental state and poor jail conditions rendered them involuntary; the state says NO:
  • Key points:
    • Coercion requires overt state action (not mere psychological stress).
    • Allen’s statements were voluntary—many were made to family/doctors, not investigators.
    • Jail conditions were not barbaric—were actually more generous than normal (e.g., extra visit privileges, two tablets, regular recreation and healthcare).
  • “If you take Allen’s argument seriously, no statement made by anyone incarcerated can ever be admitted into court, which is…a pretty stupid outcome.” — Kevin [73:07]

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Notable Quotes & Interactions

• On true crime YouTubers and "defense daddies":

  • “These are people who treat true crime like it's an opportunity to be told a bedtime story by mommy and daddy that makes them feel all warm and fuzzy inside.” — Áine [10:22]
  • “I remember two separate occasions where people who did not know much about the case, in one case, it was a defense attorney. In the other case it was a prosecutor...they gave just off the top of their heads closing arguments that were in every way incredibly superior to what we heard in that courtroom.” — Kevin [20:43]

• On Allen’s self-implication:

  • “It was Allen himself who provided the reasonable ground for believing he was the man these witnesses saw and thus that he was Bridge Guy.” — State brief, read by Áine [52:32]

• On legal standards:

  • “If your team has an objection to something that happens during the trial, you need to say it so the trial judge has an opportunity to be aware of it and either respond to it or not respond to it. And if you don't make that objection, you waive it.” — Kevin [25:06]

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Key Timestamps

• [03:29] Bold prediction: the appeal will fail
• [04:21] Early social media leak; impact of YouTubers/true crime community
• [09:47] Analysis of true crime content creator responsibility
• [14:34] Final renunciation of the trial defense team
• [23:57] Start of detailed analysis of State’s legal arguments
• [25:06] Waiver of objections as a recurrent theme
• [31:23] Fruit of the Poisonous Tree explanation
• [40:13–45:12] Sarah Carbaugh testimony dissected
• [52:32] State’s summary of probable cause
• [60:51] Confessions and the issue of voluntariness
• [69:54] Jail conditions and why they were not “coercive”
• [73:07] Slippery slope if all jailhouse statements were excluded

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Episode Tone

The tone is direct, sometimes biting with gallows humor, unapologetic in critique, and committed to clarifying legal standards and evidence integrity. There’s a strong emphasis on critical thinking and source evaluation, plus a candid distaste for opportunism, incompetence, and unexamined true crime fandom.

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Memorable Moments

• Áine’s snide summary of the true crime community’s “defense daddies” cult [10:22].
• The pair’s refusal to further “give the benefit of the doubt” to Allen’s trial defense [14:51].
• Mockery of Allen’s legal strategy as creating “novel”—i.e., bad—legal theories [73:34].

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Conclusion

This episode serves as both a legal explainer of the appellate process in a high-profile murder case and a meta-commentary on the responsibilities of those covering criminal justice in new and old media. Cain and Greenlee make clear that the state's case—factually and procedurally—is robust, that Allen’s trial defense failed to preserve key issues, and that much online outrage is a product of wishful thinking and poor legal literacy. Part two is promised to cover further details.

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For Listeners:
If you haven’t been following every legal filing or trial day, this episode clarifies both the evidence against Richard Allen and the legal hurdles his appeal now faces. Explanations are clear, assertive, and interspersed with critique of true crime as both entertainment and public education.

Transcript

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[Kevin Greenlee]

I'm Kevin and today we're going to take a look at the latest filing in the Delphi case, the case of Richard Allen. And that filing is a response by the state to the brief filed on behalf of Mr. Allen and the appellate courts.

[Anya Cain]

Content Warning this episode contains discussion of the murder of two girls. So today is March 26, 2026. This filing just came out yesterday and it is, as Kevin said, the state's brief of appellee. We're probably going to be doing two parts on this one because it's a pretty long document. Yes, and at the top I will say that the names of the lawyers on this brief are Indiana Attorney General Theodore Rakita, also known as Todd Rakita. Supervising Deputy Attorney General Ellen Milender, I'm sorry if I'm saying her name wrong. And Deputy Attorney General Jody Katherine Stein. So those are the attorneys who put this together. It's from the Attorney General's office and we're going to get into it now. My name is Anya Cain. I'm a journalist and I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney and this is the Murder Sheet.

[Kevin Greenlee]

We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases.

[Anya Cain]

We're the murder sheet and this is the Delphi murders. The state's brief of Appelli Part 1.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Okay. Before we get started on the brief itself, I think it'd be interesting and worthwhile to do a couple of higher levels, bigger picture things. And right off the bat, I want to say I don't want to ever be accused of burying the lead. And what's going to happen is that Richard Allen's team is going to lose. The state is going to win this appeal. With that said, I do think it is worthwhile to take the time to go through and understand the state's responses to the arguments made by Mr. Allen's team. Because certainly we all know that the defense arguments have gotten a lot of play in the media. I think it's worthwhile to hear those claims responded to.

[Anya Cain]

Agreed.

[Kevin Greenlee]

I also think it is worth noting how this document first came to the attention of us all, that this brief, usually when something is filed in an Indiana court, it will soon after show up on an online website or database called my case. And sometimes that may be several hours after the document is filed for a variety of reasons. In this instance, this document actually showed up for public consumption many hours before it showed up on my case. I think five or six hours before it showed up on my case through a tweet that included a link to the document. That tweet came from pro Richard Allen, YouTuber. I believe his name is Bob Mata. And I think this is interesting for a variety of reasons, one of which is, and I'm sure this topic will come up as we go through this document. I think throughout the original trial and the pre trial period, there was a level of closeness between Richard Allen, between his team and YouTubers and social media cranks. And I think that alliance really worked to the disservice of Mr. Allen. And the fact that some people affiliated with Mr. Allen's team apparently sent this document early to Mr. Mata is an indicator that perhaps that close relationship between this team and social media People like Mr. Mata, it's a sign that that's continuing. And I don't necessarily feel that is in the interests of Mr. Allen.

[Anya Cain]

Oh, really? Because I, you know, the outcomes have been so good for him so far. Right? You know, this, this need for the tri. I mean, listen, you're looking at it and you see the, you see the vision, right? You see the trial defense team trying to lean on yapping lap dogs like Mata to go out on Court TV and tell it, proclaim the good news. Of Richard Allen's innocence and all this stuff. I see the vision. It didn't work. First of all, he was not able to pollute the jury pool. He was not able to, you know, do anything. I don't think the reputations of these defense attorneys have done particularly well with more information coming up out about this case. I. I think, you know, at some point it just becomes insane because it didn't work and they're still doing it. Right? Like, what's, what's. What's that. What's that line in no country for old men where it's like, if the rule you followed brought you to this, what. Of what use was that? Rule? Yeah, right. If the YouTuber you followed brought you to this, of what was that? YouTuber. Bob Mata is useless. He's a useless person. He's a useless communicator. People find him off putting. I don't know what else to say. The fact that they're continuing to send him stuff and try to get him to, you know, cover it, it's like, guys, it's over. You know, I mean, I don't know, it might also be a personal thing where they feel like, oh, he did right by us, so we're gonna give him a little reward. But the whole thing is just so, so sad at this point. I don't know. These people are clowns.

[Kevin Greenlee]

The other thing, and this touches a little bit on something you were talking about. There is, I feel, in true crime in general and in coverage of this case in particular, there's no real accountability. There's no holding people by what they have said. I've seen online increasingly in the last several weeks and even increasingly, even more yesterday after this document came out. I've seen people who I would call Richard Allen fans. Richard Allen. Richard Allen cranks my.

[Anya Cain]

Maybe the blunder term would be creeps and freaks.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Well, I'm saying Richard Allen fans. I've seen a number of them say, gosh, his defense attorneys really did a bad job. And I've seen this come from people who earlier were criticizing us because we criticized the defense attorneys while the trial was happening during their pre trial phase. I remember coming to this microphone and saying more than once, and if you are a friend of Richard Allen, if you are a family member of Richard Allen, if you care about Richard Allen, you should be very concerned about the quality of legal representation he is getting. And many of the people who now realize that he did not get great legal representation are people who criticized us at the time for daring to criticize these defense attorneys. They call them the defense daddies.

[Anya Cain]

They shrieked about how mean we were to the daddies. And it's like we were right.

[Kevin Greenlee]

We were right. And the people who during the trial and during their pretrial periods were telling them, oh, these defense attorneys are brilliant. They're the reincarnation of Clarence Darrow. These people were wrong. They were lying to you. And I think at some point, if you're a serious person, you need to evaluate the sources of information you are relying on. And if people are telling you things at the time that turn out not to be true, then perhaps you should not rely on them in the future.

[Anya Cain]

These are not serious people, Kevin. These are anything but serious people. These are people who treat true crime like it's an opportunity to be told a bedtime story by mommy and daddy that makes them feel all warm and fuzzy inside. And I mean that is what, that is what these people are about. And I think you and I were talking about this recently, but I, I'm very curious what our listeners think. I it's interesting to look back on the amount of flack we got for saying the emperor has no clothes in this case, I. E. The defense team is doing a terrible job, you know, and we got so much flack from these people. How dare you say that about the daddies? You know, we have their posters in our bedrooms. You know, this is, these are heroes amongst men. And now they're all kind of turning and I'm just curious, do we think that the kind of adulation was a cynical attempt by some of these online commentators and YouTubers to suck up to these people so that they would gain more access to the defense team? Do we think that that was just people being stupid but sincere? A mix of the two. Some people doing one, some people doing the other. Is the turn now? Is the turning on Andrew Baldwin and Brad Rosie, Is that cynical? Because they want it to keep going on so they're going to throw them under the bus in possibly like post conviction stuff around competence of counsel and things. Or is, or is this sincere now where they're saying we didn't get the outcome we wanted so now we're mad? I don't know. I honestly don't know and I frankly, it's interesting to think about but it doesn't really matter.

[Kevin Greenlee]

You raised some interesting questions. I do want to push back just a little bit on something you just said where you said maybe some of the people who idolized the so called defense daddies were stupid but sincere. And I don't know if I would agree that they had to be stupid. There was an old saying, garbage in, garbage out. You can be a smart person, but if you're getting bad information, you're going to come to bad conclusions. And if you're being fed a diet of, gosh, these attorneys are brilliant and you believe that, then you may be sincere and not necessarily stupid. Although I would say at some point, if you persist on this path and you are resistant to taking in new information and evaluating sources, at some point you may as well be stupid.

[Anya Cain]

That's fair.

[Kevin Greenlee]

But I think in the beginning, if you're just relying on the wrong sources of information, that doesn't make you stupid.

[Anya Cain]

I agree. I agree. I think, though it's at this point, nobody has to agree with our conclusions. You don't even have to agree with our strongly held conviction that Richard Allen is exactly where he belongs and is an evil pervert, you know, who should, who's, frankly, you know, I mean, just one of the most disgusting people, what he did to those kids. But you don't have to agree with that. But, you know, we've been pretty spot on about every other thing. Like, you know, we said, these defense people are a problem. We said, we, we've, we've consistently been prudent and frankly, conservative about some of the things we've been saying as far as, like, overall case analysis beyond guilt or innocence. But things that we say tend to bear out. And so at this point, it's like, would you rather have people just, like, coddling you and like, coddling your, your priors and treating you like a child? You know, oh, Santa Claus is real, folks. Or would you rather have people who have been consistently correct about things? I don't know. I, I know the answer for some people.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yeah, you need to evaluate your sources. And before we get into the brief, I, I, you know, wrapping up, during our coverage of this long, long case, I think we criticized pretty much everybody. We certainly criticized the prosecution at times.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah, we, we, we ripped into Judge Frances Gaul during trial to the point where some people were texting us, being like, lay off, stop complaining about not getting media access, which, you know, I think was a fair criticism, but I feel like we had a fair criticism of her. Maybe we, maybe we were too sleep deprived to be saying it. We've gone after everybody and we've also

[Kevin Greenlee]

bent over backwards to be fair. In retrospect, I'm not especially happy with these episodes, but early on, we did profile episodes of the defense attorneys, which were very flattering.

[Anya Cain]

That's an adir of the show. I'm embarrassed by those episodes.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yes.

[Anya Cain]

I'm embarrassed by those episodes. I, I'm just going to say from fool me once, right? Shame on you. Fool me twice. Shame on me at every opportunity. Despite our criticism of this defense team, this trial defense team, we have bent over backwards to give them the benefit of the doubt. That's over. I do not give these people the benefit of the doubt anymore. I think they're dishonest and I think they have, they're dishonorable people. I don't. I just think they're. And they're both, they're somehow both incompetent and also extremely awful. I, I just, I'm not, I'm never giving any of these people the benefit of the doubt on anything again after what I saw in this case, some of the disgusting behavior. Absolutely not. So that's over. I'll give other people in this. I'll give other people. I'll give the appellate team benefit of the doubt. They can have that. But this trial defense team. No. Enough with over complicating your wardrobe. Stop buying trendy cheap stuff that doesn't last. Curate your style with high quality pieces that you can mix and match. Our wonderful sponsor Quince can help you out with that.

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[Kevin Greenlee]

And yeah, we said at the time they're doing a bad job. People who were praising them were lying or didn't know what they were seeing. I do want to get to the brief, but I will say this. During the time we were covering this case extensively, we would regularly talk to basically everybody who would talk to us, including prosecutors and defense attorneys who had no involvement in the case. And I remember on more than one occasion we'd be talking to an attorney Be it a defense attorney or a prosecutor who may not even have been following the case that carefully. And we'd say, hey, tell us what you would do. Give us your opening or closing. And I remember two separate occasions where people who did not know much about the case, in one case, it was a defense attorney. In the other case it was a prosecutor. And in both cases, they gave just off the top of their heads, closing arguments that were in every way incredibly superior to what we heard in that courtroom. The. The. The closing argument delivered by Brad Rosie. I think at the time, I called it like something out of Saturday Night Live. It was really bad.

[Anya Cain]

Ooh, a snake. The state is a snake. Ooh, look out for the snake. What the. What. I mean, it was like. It was like AI invented a parody of the Delphi trial and. And, like, in law, and started hallucinating. That's what they did. I want to say one of those incidents. I'm not going to say who, obviously, but we're out eating. We got a meal with this person. We got a meal with this prosecutor, and they, across the table from us just kind of like, well, I think I'd do it something like this. And they hit us with this, like, kind of outline, bit of a pitch of a. Of a closing argument. And you and I, I feel like we're, like, leaned across the table like, oh, my gosh, that's brilliant. That was brilliant. And, you know, and this person was

[Kevin Greenlee]

just, like, just riffing.

[Anya Cain]

Was just riffing. I mean, they were just riffing, like, at a. At a meal with some random podcasters. I mean, it was. It was. I don't know. There was. To me. I'm just gonna say this before we get into it. To me, Richard Allen is a guilty man. The evidence against him was substantial. It was evidence that was not sexy or exciting. And therefore, everybody, including us, Kevin and I are in this boat. Discounted it too much in the beginning. But when you saw it all put together at trial, it was substantive. It was a. It was a. It was a wave. It was a tsunami. It overwhelmed him. I personally am of the belief at this point that there was no way he was going to get acquitted, that the most talented, brilliant defense attorney would not have been able to do it. I just. That's my belief. You can disagree with me, but that is my belief. I just think the evidence overwhelmed him. But there was certainly a way to get closer. There was certainly a way to lose with dignity and maybe preserving some more issues for appeal, as we're going to see Here. And all of that counts for something in my book. I think defense attorneys are extremely important. I think they safeguard all of our liberties by forcing the state to prove its case against guilty people and by fighting to get people acquitted or a better deal, or. I think all that is wonderful. And I salute the defense attorneys. I feel like most of our sources are defense attorneys. Us criticizing this particular defense team does not reflect our overall views on defense attorneys, but it does for me, almost highlight why we need good defense attorneys and not clowns who are seeking to soft launch a media career and seemed to be mostly caring about that based on their actions.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yeah, they did it. They did a remarkably poor job, as we tried to tell the world at the time.

[Anya Cain]

Fricking Cassandra. I mean, like, I mean, oh, you guys are so mean to the daddies. Yeah, you know what? We were probably overly nice to them. What I saw was just a disgrace. Yeah.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Are we ready to get to this?

[Anya Cain]

Let's do it.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Okay. So there's a number of arguments that they are. They're raising a number of points, or rather I should say they are answering a number of points that were raised in the appellate brief filed by the

[Anya Cain]

defense team, Stacey Uliana and Mark Lehman, the appellate team for Richard Allen, not the trial defense team.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And one of the big issues raised by them as well, you know, there was this search of Mr. Allen's house. A search always takes place because there is a legally issued search warrant which establishes probable cause. And they're saying, gosh, we don't think it established probable cause for a variety of reasons. And so because of that, we don't think that the evidence that was discovered in the Allen residence should have been admitted into the trial. That evidence is Mr. Allen's gun, a gun which was later linked ballistically to a cartridge found at the crime scene. That evidence also includes a.40 caliber cartridge that was found in Mr. Allen's bedroom. That evidence also includes a blue Carhartt jacket which appears similar, if not identical to the one worn by Bridge Guy. And that evidence also includes a number of knives. And the defense said, no, that shouldn't be. That shouldn't have been admitted, so we should get a new trial. So what is the state's response? I'm going to read that. They make a variety of points here. I'm going to read the first one. Quote, allen did not preserve this issue for appeal. Allen's Fourth Amendment challenge to the admission of this evidence suffers from multiple issue preservation problems. First, Allen weighed this issue entirely by failing to object to the Evidence at trial. A pretrial motion to suppress is insufficient to preserve an evidence for appeal. To preserve a claim of error, the defendant must contemporaneously object to the evidence of the challenged evidence at trial. Allen did not object when the state elicited testimony pertaining to the search of his house and affirmatively stated he had no objection to the admission of the gun and cartridge and to the photographs of the Carhartt jacket and knives. By failing to reassert his Fourth Amendment challenge at trial and instead stating that he had no objection when the evidence was proffered, Allen has waived appellate review of his challenge to the warrant. End quote. So what they're saying there is. There are rules that need to be followed. And one of the rules is if your team has an objection to something that happens during the trial, you need to say it so the trial judge has an opportunity to be aware of it and either respond to it or not respond to it. And if you don't make that objection, you waive it. It's assumed, well, he has no objection, and you don't get to then make up objections months or years later at the appellate level. Does that make sense?

[Anya Cain]

It does. And, I mean, I'm just. If we can zoom out a little bit, why is that important? Why is that rule even exist? I think, you know, like, people who are laypeople might come in and be like, well, why can't you just, you know, like, oh, I thought of this now. I didn't think of it at the time. Why is that? Why do you want to have some restrictions on. On that at an appeal level?

[Kevin Greenlee]

Well, it's assumed that you have competent counsel who is going to be able to identify these issues as they come up. And also, it is assumed that perhaps your trial team might have strategic reasons to not object at certain times. And you don't get to redo strategical decisions if they don't work.

[Anya Cain]

So you can't. It's like a. It's like a. Maybe a game, a sports game, right? You can't. You can't go back and say, well, you know, okay, well, you made this call like, let's redo everything based on that and do the game over. Right? Like, it's, you know, I mean, it's a bad example because I can't imagine a situation where you'd like, replay a football game. But if that were. If that were a possibility, you would probably want to narrow that in to. I would imagine there's a bit of a deference to certain decisions that the trial judge is making and what the trial court is doing. And you know, you'd have to have something that's kind of egregious to, to undo that. But one thing I think we said last time we talked a little bit about the, you know, our feelings that the attorneys, the trial attorneys on the defense side were blunderers in this case. But this competent incompetent counsel is not an issue that's going to be coming up here. Our understanding is that that would come up at this point in post conviction relief, which is not the appeal. So that's not, that's not kind of at issue here at this point.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yes, and we can talk about that down the line. But just now we should say it's very hard to prove ineffectiveness a counsel. And as bad as these attorneys were, and they were quite bad, I would not expect an ineffective counsel to work here. What do you think?

[Anya Cain]

Yes, I, I agree. I think people need to understand that incompetent counsel usually is looking a lot less like, oh, bad strategic decisions and people being buffoons and a lot more like showing up to court high and not making any objections. Like, it's a pretty, it's, you have, it's a pretty high bar, I think.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yes.

[Anya Cain]

And oftentimes people like, well, maybe they're doing badly just to raise that issue later. It's not. Again, it's such a high bar that, that's difficult to imagine.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yeah. You don't want people going willy nilly and making up new things to object to after the trial is over. Because the point of an appellate review is to look at what happened in the trial. So the defense in their brief then went on to make an interesting claim. As you know, Anya, as I think all of us know, Richard Allen rather famously made 61 confessions or incriminating statements, I should say at least 61, because I wouldn't be surprised if he made far more and I wouldn't be surprised if he continued to make them after the trial was over. In fact, we know of at least one he did. So he made all of these statements and these statements were admitted into the trial. And the defense said, no, those shouldn't have been admitted. And here's one reason why is we feel that this search of his house was inadmissible. And if that search, they're trying to argue that the confessions only happened because of the search. You know, there's something called fruit of the poisonous tree. If I do something illegal, if I conduct an illegal search search of your house and I find Boxes of cereal that you've. That you've written on them. I stole this. I. I can't be allowed to admit that into any trial against you because the only reason I had that those boxes of cereal with the incriminating statement is because I broke the law, I broke the rules, and I did an illegal search. And so that. That would be considered inadmissible.

[Anya Cain]

Right.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And they're saying, well, the same principle applies with the confessions because we believe the confessions would not have happened without this search. I'm going to read what this brief says about that quote. Allen's bare assertion that his statements are a suppressible fruit of the search is unsupported by cogent argument. All arguments must be supported by cogent reasoning and citation to authorities. And the failure to make a cogent argument waives a claim for appellate reviews. To be a suppressible fruit of the search of the house, Allen's confessions must constitute evidence derivatively gained as a result of information learned during the search, rather than through a means sufficiently distinguishable as to be purged of any taint from the search. Allen does not explain how volunteered statements made to family doctors and correctional staff more than five months after the search of his house and after he'd been advised of his rights, appointed counsel, and a court found probable cause to support his arrest could constitute a fruit of that search. What do you think?

[Anya Cain]

I don't know. I mean, and I just. One thing I was hung up on. You said the defense argued something, but we're talking about the appellate team. That's. That's.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yeah. The defense said these confessions should have been thrown out.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah. But when we're saying the defense, what do we mean? Do we mean. We mean the appellate team of Juliana and Lehman.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yes.

[Anya Cain]

Versus the trial defense team? Yeah. I don't know what I mean. What do you think of this?

[Kevin Greenlee]

Well, they're saying that in order to be thrown out, there needs to be a link between the confessions and the search. And the confessions were months later, and they were voluntary statements made to people after he had been appointed counsel.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And advised of his rights. They're saying there doesn't really seem to be a connection there.

[Anya Cain]

Right.

[Kevin Greenlee]

What do you think?

[Anya Cain]

I mean. Yeah, I mean, that seems. Seems reasonable. I mean, I don't know. Like, a lot of this stuff is pretty straightforward to me. I guess I'm just like. Yeah, sometimes there's not that much more to say.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yeah. They're saying there's no connection, so it shouldn't be thrown out. And I think that's a compelling argument.

[Anya Cain]

I also just don't think it was an illegal search. You know, I mean, I don't like. I know, I know the appellate team is arguing that, but, I mean, I think that's a weak argument.

[Kevin Greenlee]

It's a weak argument. One thing to remember is we work through this. When an appellate team responds to a brief, they always will say, you know, we think the argument on the other side is wrong. But even if you think that argument is correct, here's why you shouldn't do what they think.

[Anya Cain]

Okay, that makes sense.

[Kevin Greenlee]

So they're saying. They're not saying here, yes, that was an illegal search. They're saying, we think it's a legal search. But even if you decide it's an illegal search, there's still no reason to throw out the confessions. Does that make sense?

[Anya Cain]

Yeah, it makes sense because you want to be convincing to the appellate court or the court of appeals and saying, you know, you don't want it to be like, no, that's not true. You know, you want to give it. Go into more depth about, okay, even if we. We don't think that's true, even if we accept that it's true, nothing should change because of X. I mean, that makes sense that they would be constructing it in that way.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yeah, you want to give the court as many avenues, as many ways as possible to get where you want them to go. And at the end of the day, what they want here is we don't want these things to be thrown out. So we want to give the court as many ways as possible to keep those things in.

[Anya Cain]

That makes total sense.

[Kevin Greenlee]

So you. You remember that Mr. Allen's team also argued that the. The search warrant, that the. The affidavit to get the search warrant should be thrown out because what they consider to be important facts were left out.

[Anya Cain]

Right.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And they said, we. We think that was done intentionally. So here's a point that this brief makes Mistakes and inaccuracies of facts stated in a warrant affidavit would not vitiate the reliability of the affidavit so long as such mistakes were innocently made. The burden to prove deliberate falsehoods or reckless disregard for the truth as opposed to innocent or negligent mistakes is a high bar. The presence of intentional or reckless inaccuracies alone is insufficient to invalidate the warrant. Probable cause must no longer exist after these inaccuracies are excised from the affidavit, end quote. So what that means is, again, I don't think there was anything Misleading or any mistakes put in the affidavit that Tony Liggett filed to get a search warrant of Richard Allen's home. But even if we believe that there were, what we are supposed to do then is say, well, if we take these things out that aren't true, do we lose probable cause? Or is there enough stuff in there that is definitely true? Does probable cause survive? Does that make sense?

[Anya Cain]

That does make sense.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Okay. I'm doing a lot of talking, so if you have any questions.

[Anya Cain]

I mean, this is a very legal heavy brief. You know, it's not. And this, I mean, that makes sense. Once we're at the appellate level, things go from fact, fact, fact, what the facts, what are the facts? That's what the trial is all about. The appeal is, is in. The response to this is, is predominantly going to be. My understanding is, you know, the law where this. Was this defendant's rights violated? If so, how. And if so, is. Is that kind of error enough to warrant a new trial? So the focus is a lot different and it's more, you know, it feels to me as an outsider, as a non lawyer, more academic, more theoretical, which is interesting. But. But certainly we're kind of at a different level of how we're talking about this case. Like we're almost, you know, looking at it from a bird's eye view more of than like being in the thick of like, the facts and trying to figure out what's factual, what's not factual, what witnesses should we believe, what witnesses are relevant? This is like, we're. We're getting into like, you know, if this, Okay, I don't think this was wrong, but if it was wrong, then here's why it doesn't matter.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yes.

[Anya Cain]

And that's normal. That's not. This is a, you know, this is a pretty regular right as far as how all this works. It's regular for the appellate team to be like, here are a bunch of mistakes. And this is why it violated his rights. And this is why we need a new trial. And then the response from the state's gonna be like, no. And here's why.

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[Anya Cain]

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[Kevin Greenlee]

So again, the appellate team for Richard Allen is saying the search should be worn out, thrown out, because there were things in the affidavit prepared by Tony Liggett that were untrue. So the first thing the state Sundays is, number one, the affidavit did not contain false statements.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah, I want to get into this because this is. This is where we kind of get back to the facts, right? Where. Where, frankly, I feel more comfortable, you know. Can I read this part?

[Kevin Greenlee]

Sure.

[Anya Cain]

So it says, quote, Liggett's representation that Sarah Carbaugh reported seeing a muddy and bloody man who is wearing a blue colored jacket and blue jeans was not a false statement, much less one made knowingly, intentionally, or with reckless disregard for its truth. Allen's claim of falsity rests on the video of Sarah car of Carbaugh's June 7, 2017, 2017 interview, where she is only heard describing the man as muddy, not bloody, and said he wore a tan or lighter color coat with a dark hoodie or sweater underneath it. But Carbaugh was interviewed three times, all before the warrant affidavit was prepared. And Aladdin ignores Carbaugh's description of the man in her second and third interviews, which show that neither representation was false. In those interviews, Carbaugh described the man as bloody as well as muddy. Allen acknowledged at trial that she described the man as bloody 16 times in her third interview and said he looked like he had slaughtered a pig. She even marked where she saw the blood splatter on a spatter on a picture of bridge guy during an interview. End quote.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And I'll quote a little bit more here. Lega's representation that Carball said the man was bloody was not false. Similarly, in Carbaugh's second interview, she corrected her Previous inaccurate statement that the coat was tan. In that interview, she said that the man wore a blue coat with a brown or tan sweater or hoodie under his underneath it. Carball also told police that the man in the bridge guy photo was the same man she saw on the road and bridge guy was wearing a blue coat. Leggett's representation that Carball said the man was wearing a blue coat was not false. Allen cannot prove falsity by cherry picking isolated statements and ignoring the totality of what Carbaugh said. Nor can Alan meet his high burden to show deliberate or reckless conduct merely by the fact that that Liggett's affidavit relayed the information from Carbaugh's most recent statements to police, which she had never repudiated, rather than her first statements, end quote.

[Anya Cain]

I want to quote one additional footnote that I think is important to know factually. Quote, Carbaugh believed that she used the term bloody once in the first interview, but that it could not be heard on the video because she was mumbling. She also explained that at least one hour of her second interview with police was not recorded, end quote. So you have Carbaugh and this was, okay, a couple of things about this and then you can talk about, you know, how that, how this dovetails into what the arguments the state is making here. But Carbaugh was adamant on the stand that she said he was muddy and bloody in the first interview. She indicated that she suffers from pretty intense anxiety and issues around that and that she was very upset, agitated, scared, talking to police about this, getting involved in a murder investigation. And she, Todd, talked about mumbling and being very quiet. She feels like her words were transcribed incorrectly as a result of, of that in the first interview. So she, the witness herself is adamant that she also mentioned the blood and bloody in the first one, and then she's certainly documented as doing so in the second and third ones. So, you know, the thing is, right, everyone always says, well, your first interview is best because that's the closest in time to the incident. So whatever. But the thing is, the defense had the opportunity to, you know, impeach her based on that on the stand in Cross. So, like, they had like that, that's, that's the remedy. It's not, it's not like, oh, she shouldn't be allowed in it. The remedy is, you know, she should be crossed and that discrepancy brought up and she can defend herself. And then the jury can say, well, do we believe her? Do we find her credible? Or, you Know, do we think she's, she's not credible. And so you have that and you have, when, when, when they're accusing Liggett of lying, you're having the witness herself say, no, he's not lying. And you're having the witness herself make this claim number of times. So I don't really know how we get to Liggett lying here. Again, like stuff about the tan jacket, that's stuff that the defense was very much able to bring up in trial and I believe they did. And they crossed her about it. And there was a big back and forth between her and Andrew Baldwin. I actually thought that that cross was one of Baldwin's better moments in the trial in terms of, you know, kind of being able to like lay out, you know, what, what the defense was trying to lay out, which was, hey, you know, you changed your story. I thought car boss seemed sincere though. I thought she seemed like, you know, I thought it was tan because it was all this dirt and stuff. And on second thought, I kind of thought about it more and it looked more blue. I mean, I don't know, I think, you know, I'm not saying you have to hang an entire case on one person's statement, but I, I didn't, to me, it didn't like set off red flags. And I believed her. I thought she was sincere. I, I. But you know, regardless, it's like this has already been played out in front of the jury. In front of the jury. And Tony Liggett wasn't lying. Like he was saying what the witness said.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Liggett was not lying. All the defense did was create a false impression that he was lying by cherry picking statements.

[Anya Cain]

And I feel like a normal, you know, like a regular situation. The defense attorney would be like, definitely hitting Carbaugh hard and, and definitely cross examining her heart and bringing up these discrepancies, which is appropriate, which is appropriate and you should do that. That's your job. But kind of like being like, but therefore he lied, you're just, I think cherry picking is the right word for it, you know. And again, if you're saying, well, I still, you know, I don't like that she changed her story, okay, but the jury heard that. Like, it, it, it's, it, we got it. You know, I mean, it's, it's sort of like, yeah, it got taken care of already. Like the jury heard both sides cross examine, impeachment, whatever. I don't know, it just seems like they're just kind of harping on stuff that doesn't really make any sense when you look into it a little bit more. They're able to kind of. They have enough where they're able to cobble together a narrative that sounds good or sounds like, whoa, I can't believe they did this. And then you look more into the facts and you're like, that's not what happened at all.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yeah, it falls apart under the slightest scrutiny.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah.

[Kevin Greenlee]

So another argument the appellate team basically made was Liggett also omitted information from this affidavit that if it had been included, probable cause would not have been found and this search would not have happened. And again, the test is, if this supposedly crucial information was included in the document, would it have defeated probable cause? And if there's information that would have defeated probable cause, then, yeah, that's an. You could lose the search warrant. So I want to read what the state said about that. Quote, material information defeating probable cause was not omitted from the affidavit. Allen also claims the affidavit admitted material information by failing to include details of witness Betsy Blair's description of the car she saw parked the old CPS building that were inconsistent with Allen's forward focus. And details of Blair's description of the man she saw on the bridge that were inconsistent with Allen's appearance. Allen did not show that these admissions were designed to mislead or made with reckless disregard about whether they would mislead. Nor did he show that the inclusion of this information would have defeated probable cause. The requisite intent to mislead cannot be established merely by showing the fact of the admission itself. But Allen points to nothing beyond the omissions themselves is proof that Liggett was being intentionally or recklessly misleading. End quote. So they're saying, well, maybe he should have included this. And the fact that he didn't include this means he was trying to mislead and trick the judge. And they're saying, you need more than that.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah, I mean, also, I don't. You know, I mean, is it fair to say that a probable cause affidavit doesn't have to include every, like, random deed? I mean, I think. Correct me if I'm misremembering it, but I. I think a big problem that the defense trial had with Liggett's PCA was that it essentially didn't include a lot of the Odinism or didn't include any of the odinism angle like it. He doesn't have to include that. I mean, they looked into that, and, you know, Brad Holder had an alibi and There wasn't a nexus there. So, like, they don't have to, like, just dump everything in there, right?

[Kevin Greenlee]

That's correct. So, you know, why don't you read this next section, which is about whether or not these facts were allegedly excluded to mislead.

[Anya Cain]

Starting with and other evidence refutes. And other evidence refutes the suggestion this was done to mislead. For example, Liggett included the information that a second witness, Terry Wilson, who saw a car parked there only minutes before Blair did describe the car as a purple PT Cruiser or small SUV type vehicle. Purple is not black and neither a PT Cruiser nor an SUV looks like a Ford Focus. Were Liget attempting to create an impression that the witnesses had given descriptions consistent with Allen's focus, he would not have included those inconsistent details from the second wind witness. Indeed, had Liggett included Blair's description, it would have only emphasized that the probative value of the information was not that the witnesses had given reliable description of the car's appearance. Their descriptions, after all, were not consistent with each other either. Rather, the information was probative because both witnesses had seen a single car parked in a suspicious manner at this location at a time when other evidence established a reason to believe it was Allen's car parked there. Similarly, Blair had told police that she recognized Bridge Guy as the man she saw primarily based on his clothing, which was a match, not on some characteristic of his physical appearance. It is therefore understandable, not suspiciously misleading, the Liggett's affect. David, focus on that aspect of her description. End quote. Can I just say something? I remember the stuff about the cars was the stuff that really, like, made me be like, what is this PCA like? You know, like it was like, what the purple cars and black cars and all these different kinds of. So, yeah, if he'd been trying to smooth things over and be like, hey guys, it was a Ford Focus. That is a very good point. He would not be putting all of that in there. Yeah, you know, like they would be doing. They would actually be massaging it, which wouldn't have been appropriate. Like, they, they weren't trying to dress up the witness statements to be better for their case. They were kind of putting it all down there, as messy as it was. And frankly, I think it kind of made a lot of us, including us, you know, be kind of like, what is this like? But then over time, it did become clear that, like, the important thing is that people saw a car. And the important thing that is that Alan's car was in the area at the time and that he puts his own car in the area at the time. Like, it's. It's a. It's a piece of the puzzle. It's not like the end all. Be all of everything, but it. It certainly doesn't. There's so many things with, like, corruption in this case where people are like, oh, the police were corrupt, the sheriff's office is corrupt. They're doing corruption. And it's like, guys, if they were really trying to be corrupt, there. There would have been so many easier things to do that wouldn't. Like, you know, like, like, oh, no, we, like, oh, we're. We're framing an innocent man because we can't figure out who did it. It's like there were suspects who died. They could have just pinned it all on that guy if they wanted to be corrupt. You know, I mean, that would have been easier because no one could. You know, he's dead, he can't fight back. There's no. There's no cost of a trial then, but, like, there's just so many things like that where it's like, they're lying. They're doing all this. And it's like, if they really were, I mean, it would. It would probably look a lot smoother on the surface than what we're actually seeing.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yeah, I agree. So, again, the test is if the supposedly inaccurate information was taken out, if information was included that wasn't included, would probable cause still exist? That is the question. And so to answer that, the state actually describes. Here's why we think there is probable cause in the case. Here's what it rests on. Here are the important facts. Do you want to read that, Anya? Yeah.

[Anya Cain]

Is that starting with probable cause to believe?

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yeah.

[Anya Cain]

Quote, probable cause to believe Allen was bridge guy rested on the following facts. Bridge guy encountered Abby Williams and Libby German on the high bridge at 2:13pm around or shortly after 1:30pm a group of girls passed a single man on the trail walking toward High Bridge. Brianne Wilbur identified the picture of Bridge guy as the man they passed. Anna Spath similarly identified the man as wearing a blue coat. And the girls said that the man said nothing to them, although Raley Voorhees said hi to him. Blair was walking the trail to High Bridge and back between 1:46 and 2:15pm when she reached High Bridge, she saw a man in the bridge guy photograph. She saw the man in the bridge guy photograph standing on the first platform of the bridge. And she passed Abby Williams and Libby German walking toward the High Bridge as she was walking back to the trail entrance. None of these witnesses saw any other male on the trail during this time frame who could have been Bridge Guy. And none of these witnesses were represented in the affidavit as having identified Allen as the man they saw. It was Allen himself who provided the reasonable ground for believing he was the man these witnesses saw and thus that he was Bridge Guy. Allen originally told police that he was on the trail between 1:30 and 3:30pm he said that he passed a group of girls without speaking to them as he walked toward Highbridge, that he went out onto the first platform of the bridge, and that he did not see Bridge Guy while he was there. Thus, Allen has placed himself on the trail and on the High Bridge platform at the same time the witnesses saw Bridge Guy there. Moreover, although he could not recall with certainty by the time he was interviewed in 2022, Allen told police that he was probably wearing blue jeans and a blue or black Carhartt jacket that day, which was consistent with the clothing Blair saw and Bridge Guy was wearing. This created a reasonable probability that Allen was Bridge Guy and therefore the murderer, regardless of any discrepancies between Blair's description of the man she saw and Allen. Blair's description of the man was not the foundation on which Allen's identification as Bridge Guy rested. And the affidavit did not need to remove all doubt or definitively establish that Allen was the man the witnesses saw and recognizes Bridge Guy for probable cause to exist. Probable cause is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt. It is not even proof by a preponderance of the evidence. Probable cause requires only a reasonable probability, not a prima facie showing of connection to the crime. Allen placed himself on the trail passing the girls and on the High Bridge platform at the time Blair saw a man there. And those witnesses identify Bridge Guy as the man they encountered. That creates a reasonable basis to believe Allen was Bridge Guy.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yes, I think that is an excellent summary of some of the damning evidence in this case. You have witnesses saying, we saw Bridge Guy. You have Richard Allen saying, I was dressed as Bridge Guy. And oh, by the way, you know those witnesses who said they saw Bridge Guy? I saw them. And here's where I was parked, here's where my car was, here's what I was doing. I was doing exactly what these witnesses said Bridge Guy was doing. That is to a certain extent the heart of the case. Because then if you want to believe that Mr. Allen is innocent, you have to believe that there was another man dressed identically to Mr. Allen, who was there at the time. And somehow that person eluded the view of everybody and that person committed the crime. And that. That's not a reasonable supposition.

[Anya Cain]

Nope.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And the other obvious point to make is that that's damning evidence. And the fact that, oh, maybe someone described a car wrong or what have you. That doesn't touch. That doesn't touch it. No probable cause still remains.

[Anya Cain]

Doesn't touch it. And it's, as they said, it's not what the basis is. They didn't arrest Allen based on, oh, he matches Betsy Blair's description. They. That was based on Allen saying, oh, yeah, I was on the platform. And her saying, I saw bridge guy on the platform. Him saying, yeah, I was. I was probably wearing those clothes. I mean, like, you know, he locked himself into this.

[Kevin Greenlee]

He did.

[Anya Cain]

He, he, like, as, as with everything in this case, he is the author of his own destruction, you know, and, and, you know, to be, to be. Oh, well, you know, well, somebody saw a purple car and this person saw a black car. I get that as laypeople, we're all like, immediately like, oh, no, what does that mean? We were like that. You know, I mean, we're not, we're not prosecutors, we're not defense attorneys. We were immediately like, whoa, how, what's that? What are they doing? But when you look at this, when you actually like break down the PCA to its kind of like barest components, what you find is none of that matters. What matters is the aspects of the witnesses stories that touch upon bridge guy's movements for the most part and his appearance and how Richard Allen's own statements correspond to those and match with them.

[Kevin Greenlee]

I'm skipping a little bit here, but I'm going to read this quote. Similarly, it was Allen himself who provided probable cause to believe it was his car parked at the old CPS building between 1:30 and 3:30pm because he told police that was where he had parked and that no other car was parked there. This was corroborated by the Hoosier Harvester video, which showed a car matching Allen's focus driving towards the CPS building at 1:27pm and was consistent with his wife's information. They usually parked at that location when they walked the trail. That reasonable probability remains even if every witness who drove past gave an inconsistent of the car they briefly saw, because the pertinent question is not whether the information excludes all doubt that the car was Allen's. So again, we know there was only one car parked there. Allen said it was his car. There's video of a car matching the description of his car heading there at the time Allen said he was there. Again, this is, this is probable cause.

[Anya Cain]

Also, again, when we're talking about, okay, like, should the conviction be overturned, should he get a new trial? Defense had the opportunity and did call witnesses who said they saw a car or said they saw a car that looked different. They were able to cross examine Betsy Blair. They were able to do all of this with, with putting all of this before the jury and saying, hey, guys, are we, are we sure with this car stuff, they all saw something different. The jury heard this. The jury had the opportunity to put that into their reasoning and their decision making. One, one big thing to note is that, like, if a, if information that should get to a jury is improperly put out, like, like, like blocked out, I would imagine that's probably then becomes more of a severe issue for the appellate court to look out because it's like, wow, maybe if they known about this, they would have done something different. Right? You know, that's why they make a big deal about Odinism. Although in my view, that doesn't begin to qualify. But, but in cases where, okay, yeah, we heard both sides of it, but we still believe the prosecution. I mean, it's, it, it's a different. It's like, okay, like, they already heard it. You know, what, like, what are we doing here?

[Kevin Greenlee]

Well, unless you have something more to say on those issues, I'm going to jump down to the issue of whether or not Richard Allen's confessions were properly admitted into trial.

[Anya Cain]

Okay, do you want me to read any of this or.

[Kevin Greenlee]

I will in a second. I just want to frame it a little bit. The, the, the appellate team for Richard Allen again said the court made a mistake in allowing the confessions to be admitted, in allowing his many, many confessions to be admitted. Why don't you read that first paragraph?

[Anya Cain]

Quote. Although Allen did not preserve this issue, the trial court properly admitted confessions Allen made to his family, Dr. Walla and correctional staff. The confessions were voluntary and not the product of state coercion and therefore did not violate his due process right after self incrimination under either the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments or Article 1, Section 14 of the Indiana Constitution.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Why don't you read the next paragraph, too?

[Anya Cain]

This issue is unpreserved. Although Allen renewed his pretrial objections to the confessions before the correctional officers and Dr. Walla testified, he did not request a continuing objection or contemporaneously object to testimony about the confessions. More importantly, he affirmatively stated he had no objection to the documents memorializing his confession to correctional staff and Dr. Walla. And he objected only on a different basis to recordings of his confessions to family.

[Kevin Greenlee]

End quote.

[Anya Cain]

End quote. So what the heck does this mean?

[Kevin Greenlee]

So this, again, is what we were talking about earlier that you need. You're only allowed to raise issues at this stage that were properly preserved or objected to by the trial counsel. The trial counsel did not make the objections they should have made in order to raise this issue now. And again, at one point, as they mentioned, the trial counsel even said, well, we have no objections to admitting certain documents that contained information about his confessions. So basically, they're saying, you don't even need to consider this, because the trial counsel, Baldwin, Rosie and Auger, they blew it. They screwed up. They didn't do what they were supposed to do and preserve these objections. So therefore, it's not even something that should be on our radar. And that's similar to the argument they made about the sewage warrant is a whole. And, yeah, I just think it's worth noting again that this trial counsel team, Andrew Baldwin, Brad, Rosie, and Jennifer, O.J. did not cover themselves in glory in this case.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah, I mean, we tried to tell people. We tried to tell them one of

[Kevin Greenlee]

the issues they had, the appellate team for Richard Allen, one of the issues they had was the confessions where they tried to argue that they were involuntary. Anya, why don't you start with a. Allen's confessions were voluntary.

[Anya Cain]

Would that be the course of state action, quote, curse. Course of state action, quote.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Allen's confessions were voluntary.

[Anya Cain]

Voluntary, quote. Course of state action is a prerequisite to involuntariness under both constitutions. Coercive state action is a necessary predicate to finding of involuntariness under the federal Constitution. The Constitution is not concerned with moral and psychological pressures to confess emanating from sources other than official coercion, end quote.

[Kevin Greenlee]

So they're saying, if you want to find that these confessions were involuntary, the state needs to have been doing something officially to coerce them. It can't just be, oh, I feel bad, therefore, it's involuntary.

[Anya Cain]

So, like, if I steal a bunch of cereal, to use our perennial example, if I steal a bunch of cereal and then I get jailed under suspicion of stealing that cereal, and then my Catholic guilt starts eating away at me, and maybe I confess to the prison chaplain, who's a priest, and they're like, you know, maybe you should. You know, I don't know. Like, that's not very nice of you. To do. And then I go and I'm like, I feel really bad about this, and I'm gonna tell you exactly what I did. And then later on, my. You know, my appellate team's like, well, it's the worst.

[Kevin Greenlee]

It was Anya's Catholicism that did it.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah.

[Kevin Greenlee]

The.

[Anya Cain]

The Catholics are collaborating with the jail officials in order to make her compete. I mean, is that an. Like. Would that be like. It's like, I'm not. Like, a detective's not grilling me and being like, confess. You know, you did this. We're gonna send you to prison.

[Kevin Greenlee]

They're not saying, if you don't confess, we're going to kill Kevin.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah. Yeah. So it's like. It's. It's. I mean, here's the thing. Like, wrongful confessions exist. Some of those confessions are coerced. Others are not. Some wrongful confessions emanate from a disturbed person's mind, and things just kind of go from there. And it's not like the state is trying to bully or force them to do it. They're just. There's something wrong with them, and they are going and they're saying things that are not true. But maybe there's enough for the state to build a case and things, you know, roll down the hill from there. And it's very unfortunate. Other cases, you have overly aggressive investigators, potentially, like, grilling somebody, maybe a young person, maybe someone who's developmentally disabled on some capacity, maybe someone who is being, like, kept awake and being grilled for hours, that we've seen this in history, that this does happen. People think, how could anyone confess with, you know, even though they didn't do it, it does happen. But those are subsets. Those are situations where what I'm describing don't seem to match the circumstances at all. Because Richard Allen was confessing to people who did not want to hear what he was saying. If there was any coercion, it was his wife and mother telling him to shut up.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Okay, we'll get more of that a little bit later.

[Anya Cain]

Okay.

[Kevin Greenlee]

The issue of coercion. Well, I'm going to read some more from this document. The issue of coercion, quote, remains true even when a defendant suffers from mental illness. A defendant's mental state is not enough to render a confession involuntary. In the absence of coercive police activity, even an actively psychotic or delusional defendant can give a voluntary confession. A defendant's mental condition is relevant to the voluntariness inquiry only in as far as it renders the defendant more susceptible to Police coercion. Although Allen asserts coercive state action is not a prerequisite under the Indiana Constitution, he provides no analysis to support this assertion. And the Indiana Supreme Court has never held this, end quote. So even if you're mentally ill, that's not a get out of jail free card. That means anything you say is therefore involuntary. And I think it's very interesting that this brief, the authors of this brief say, you know what they're arguing something that has never been held by the Indiana Supreme Court.

[Anya Cain]

Yes.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And when you're arguing something that has never been held by the Supreme Court of the State that you are arguing in, that's not a good sign that you have a winning hand.

[Anya Cain]

That's a good point.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Do you want to read this next paragraph that starts? Allen identifies.

[Anya Cain]

Sure.

[Wix Harmony User]

Let's see.

[Anya Cain]

Allen identifies nothing in history, text or precedent that suggests section 14 protects against a compulsion to confess that is independent of any state action or that it applies to volunteered statements not made in response to police interrogation or state compelled questioning. Without coercive state action, there can be no compelled Testimony under section 14. Basically, like this is a you problem,

[Kevin Greenlee]

Richard, why don't you keep reading?

[Anya Cain]

Sure. 2. Coercive state action is absence in this case. None of the usual hallmarks of police coercion are present in this case. Allen's confessions were entirely volunteered statements. They were not made in response to any law enforcement interrogation. Allen was not subjected to torture, beatings, or physical abuse by law enforcement. He was not threatened with harm or offered any promises to exchange for his confessions. And he was not held incommunicado and denied requested access to his family or legal counsel until he confessed.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Keep reading.

[Anya Cain]

The alleged coercive state action in this case rests solely on the conditions of Allen's confinement in restricted housing unit. But the conditions of Allen's confinement did not rise to the level of course of state action rendering. Isn't confessions involuntary? While the conditions of an individual's confinement prior to confession may bear on the question of whether government conduct was coercive, the mere fact that a defendant was held in disciplinary segregation or solitary confinement prior to making a statement is not sufficient to constitute the requisite coercion. Conditions of confinement rise to the level of psychological coercion or compulsive compulsion, rendering statements involuntary only when they are so severe as to be intolerable circumstances that constitute outrageous conduct by the authorities.

[Kevin Greenlee]

So what they're saying there is a person, the way a person is being held is basically irrelevant to the question of whether or not Statements that person made are. It's irrelevant to determining whether or not the statements made are voluntary or involuntary. And unless the conditions are really, really barbaric. You know, if you strip a prisoner to their underwear and you store them in a nice house, that's obviously barbaric. And I would argue that any statements made by a defendant in that situation should be thrown out. Anya, why don't you keep reading about the actual conditions Mr. Allen was confined in?

[Anya Cain]

Quote, Allen's confinement conditions were not outrageous or barbaric. Although small, his cell was the same size as other restricted housing cells and was furnished with a mattress and a bed frame, a toilet and a sink. It had a window to the outside. When Allen complained the window was scratched, the doc replaced it. He could dim the light in his cell. And he has never claimed that the temperature in his cell was oppressively hot or cold. It is undisputed that Alan was offered regular, nutritionally sufficient food and drink and was given all prescribed medications. He also had access to commissary. He was provided with laundry service and clean sets of clothes every week, even when on constant suicide watch. He was provided with a suicide smock to wear. He could shower three times per week, except when precluded by suicide watch status. He received one hour of recreation time five days a week in indoor and outdoor exercise areas. He was allowed to have a Bible, other books and reading material, and crossword puzzles in his cell. He was offered a television for his cell, but declined the offer. Allen was never held incommunicado. He was appointed legal counsel and received both in person visits and private phone conversations with his attorneys. He received at least two in person visits with his wife, a privilege afforded no other inmate. In restricted housing. He could receive weekly visits from a chaplain upon request. Allen had a tablet in his cell that he could use to make phone calls to family members, to family and others. When he broke his first tablet, he was given a second one, free of charge, also a privilege afforded to no other inmate. Alan could listen to music, watch movies, play games, and send written messages on a tablet. Ellen also received regular medical and mental health health care. Mental health, medical and mental health care. He was checked regularly by medical staff, including daily checks while on suicide watch. He also received daily checks by Dr. Walla or other mental health professionals while on constant suicide watch and weekly checks otherwise. And he was offered at least one out of cell session with Dr. Walla every week. Thus, all of Allen's basic needs were met. End quote.

[Kevin Greenlee]

End quote. So, again, I think that makes it pretty Clear that despite the exaggerations and outright lies by Alan's trial counsel, the conditions he was held in were not barbaric. Would you agree with that?

[Anya Cain]

I completely agree with that.

[Kevin Greenlee]

We talked earlier about how one strategy for appellate teams to use is to say, well, they're wrong about this, but even if they were right about this, you still shouldn't give them what they want. Another fun strategy they use is, well, if you give the other side what they want, it's going to create a situation with a really crazy outcome that nobody wants. Anya, can you read the paragraph that starts with moreover?

[Anya Cain]

Moreover, except for the several ways in which he received more favorable treatment and the video only camera in his cell, Allen's confinement conditions were identical to any inmate in restricted housing. Under the logic of Allen's argument, then, no statements made by inmates in restricted housing, such as their jail phone calls or Mirandized interviews, could ever be admissible. But he cites no authority, and the state is aware of none, that supports such a novel proposition. That is because the conditions of restricted housing, while undesirable, are a far cry from what is necessary to create an involuntary confession, in quote.

[Kevin Greenlee]

So what they're saying is, if you take Alan's argument seriously, no statement made by anyone incarcerated can ever be admitted into court, which is. Would be a pretty stupid outcome. Would you agree with that?

[Anya Cain]

Yeah, I completely agree with that. That would be a stupid outcome.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And also, lawyer language, when they say something is novel, means it's. This means it's stupid.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah, a novel argument. I think it can mean also, like, that's kind of interesting. That's kind of a. That's kind of a quirky way to see the world is interesting. But. But no, like, that's. It's definitely a little bit pejorative, I think. Usually.

[Kevin Greenlee]

I think that's a good place to stop for a minute. So when we wrap up this episode.

[Anya Cain]

Sure.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Perhaps we can both enjoy a cool, refreshing Mr. Pibb.

[Anya Cain]

What?

[Kevin Greenlee]

Which is not a sponsor, but, boy, what a cool, refreshing drink. And then we'll come back and record part two.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah, sounds good.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Thanks so much for listening to the Murder Sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email [e-mail]. if you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.

[Anya Cain]

If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com murdersheet. If you want to tip us a bit of money for records, requests you can do so at www. Buymeacoffee.com murdersheet we very much appreciate any support.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for the Murder Sheet and who you can find on the [e-mail] if you're looking to talk with

[Anya Cain]

other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join the Murder Sheet discussion group on Facebook. We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much. We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages. Thanks again for listening.