Richard Allen's Cell Was 'Protection' Until a Judge Said This

Mark Leeman held a police sketch up in front of three appeals judges on September 21, 2026. It shows a young man with curly brown hair, drawn from the description of the eyewitness the state relied on to put Richard Allen on the Monon High Bridge. The jury that convicted Allen in the Delphi murders never saw it. Prosecutors had moved to keep both sketches out as irrelevant and hearsay, and Judge Fran Gull agreed on the morning of opening statements.

The jury also watched videos of Allen in his Westville cell with the sound off. Gull ruled the audio was hearsay because it was his own voice and he wasn't testifying. On it, according to the appeal record, Allen calls himself a king and says he started World War III. A metallurgist hired to challenge the bullet match was kept out because Gull ruled he wasn't a firearms expert.

The state's written brief concedes Allen had a "period of psychosis" and argues he confessed before and after it. Its lawyer told the court he was held in solitary longer than policy allows because he wasn't safe anywhere else, and that under Indiana case law those conditions aren't coercion.

Allen's side wants a new trial because it says the state broke him first and then built a case on what he said. The state's side wants the 130 years upheld because it says any mistake at trial was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. It says Allen's own words to police, placing him on the trail that afternoon, carry the case on their own.

The judges asked the state more than once whether the jury would have convicted anyway. The answer to that question is the whole appeal. There's no deadline, and Gull retires at the end of 2026 either way.

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This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

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