The 2025 Appellate Brief - A Primer
Justice must not only be done; it must be seen to be done. On 17 December 2025, Richard Allen’s appellate counsel filed a 24,000-word submission that argues the State of Indiana failed this fundamental test.
The brief details a complete collapse of due process, not just simple error. It argues that the conviction of Richard Allen was secured through a "material failure of candour" regarding the foundational search warrant, the "unnecessary rigor" of his confinement, and a trial process that created a profound "inequality of arms."
The State engineered a reality to prosecute a case, argue the appellate attorneys. The following is a brief overview of why Richard Allen submits the conviction must be reversed.
The Warrant was Obtained via Material Fabrication
The sanctity of the home is violated only upon the strictest showing of probable cause (US Constitution, 4th Amendment: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.").
The Appellate Brief submits that the warrant for Richard Allen’s home - the source of the controversial gun evidence the State so heavily relied on - was obtained through reckless disregard for the truth, thus undermining this key protection against a State hungry for a perpetrator at all costs.
To secure the warrant, Detective Liggett presented an affidavit to the magistrate that contained assertions demonstrably at odds with the evidence in his possession.
The affidavit claimed witness Sarah Carbaugh saw a man covered in blood. In reality, her recorded statement described the man only as "muddy." The introduction of the word "bloody" was a prejudicial fabrication by the police, designed to manufacture probable cause where there was none.
The affidavit omitted the primary eyewitness description from Betsy Blair, who observed a 20-year-old with "poofy" hair, a physical impossibility for Richard Allen in 2017, who was then 45 and had a buzz cut.
The State relied on Allen’s possession of a specific Carhartt jacket, concealing from the magistrate the fact that his wife stated it was purchased years after the murders took place.
Stripped of these falsehoods, the affidavit collapses; any reasonable judge being asked to sign a search warrant would be forced to wrangle with, on the one hand the police asking to violate the fundamental sanctity of the home, and on the other the absence of a realistic connection between the actual evidence and Richard Allen.
There was no probable cause. The search was illegal. Everything that follows from that search must be disregarded.
The fruits of that search - including the gun - are inadmissible in law. This is an incurable problem for the State; if the Indiana Court of Appeals agrees that the warrant was unlawful, the State cannot go back in time and undo it. It produced the evidence the State leaned on the most at trial, and without that evidence and the probable cause it manufactured, there is arguably no justification for charging, let alone prosecuting Richard Allen for the murders.
The "Confessions" are the Fruit of Unconstitutional Rigor
A confession is only of value to a court if it is the product of a rational mind (Indiana Constitution, Article 1 §15: "No person arrested, or confined in jail, shall be treated with unnecessary rigor").
The Appellate Brief details conditions of detention amounting to "unnecessary rigor" under the Indiana Constitution, arguing the resulting statements were legally involuntary, and factual delusions.
For 13 months, Richard Allen was held in solitary confinement. The evidence paints a picture of catastrophic mental disintegration. Allen was psychotic, not a rational man confessing his guilt. The Appellant was observed eating his own excrement, drinking from the toilet, and battering his head against concrete walls.
The State wants to have it both ways. At the precise moment they were recording his "confessions," state physicians had also deemed him "gravely disabled" and were involuntarily administering antipsychotics.
Further, the State relied on Allen "confessing" to the murders but was content to ignore the part of his "confession" claiming to have shot the victims. The autopsy showed sharp-force trauma, and there is no evidence of gunshot wounds. These were the ramblings of a mad man - a man turned "mad" by treatment that induced delusions - yet the State pointed to those ramblings at trial as fair, normal, solid evidence of guilt.
The Appellant submits that the State cannot break a man’s mind through unconstitutional confinement and then present his chaotic ramblings as evidence of guilt. No legal system founded on due process can support the idea that the State can rely on evidence it produces via torture.
The Trial was a Display of Fundamentally Unequal 'Arms'
The integrity of any trial depends upon the defence being afforded a fair opportunity to challenge the State's case (US Constitution, 6th Amendment: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to [...] be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.").
The Appellate Brief contends that the trial court erred by systematically excluding defence evidence, blinding the jury to the full factual matrix.
The jury was inexplicably prevented from viewing the composite sketch derived from Betsy Blair, the witness who actually saw the man on the bridge. This sketch, which bore no resemblance to Allen, was critical exculpatory evidence.
The court permitted the jury to view video footage of Allen in his cell but ordered it be played on mute. Judge Gull acted very quickly to suppress the sound when the videos started to play unmuted at trial, and the public were led to believe, up until that point, that the recordings couldn't have contained sound because "the camcorders used at the prison can't record sound." The jury saw a man moving his lips but were denied the right to hear the auditory proof that what he was saying was complete nonsense.
In a staggering departure from evidentiary standards, a police officer was permitted to rebut forensic expert testimony regarding the victim's phone by citing a "Google search" he conducted during the trial. The court allowed an unverified, non-expert internet forum post to displace expert analysis from a highly-respected digital forensics expert.
Exculpatory Evidence was Suppressed
One of the most disturbing submissions in the Appellate Brief is that the jury was barred from hearing forensic evidence that pointed away from Allen and toward a ritualistic killing by third parties.
Despite massive blood loss from throat injuries, Abby Williams was found with no blood on her hands. This forensic anomaly suggests she was passive, restrained, or unconscious; evidence consistent with a controlled ritual, and wholly inconsistent with the State's theory of a frenzied, rushed, lone attack in the woods.
The bodies were posed, dressed in each other's clothing, and adorned with branches arranged in the shape of Norse runes.
The State failed to record - or "accidentally" deleted - interviews with suspects who had admitted to involvement in Odinist groups and who had posted images mimicking the crime scene on Facebook at a time when details of the crime scene were not known to the public. The jury were denied the right to weigh this failure of investigation, and a desperate police force's over-focus on Richard Allen as a convenient suspect.
Fundamental Dishonesty - A Napue Violation
Finally, the Brief submits that the State knowingly relied on false information, which is known as a Napue violation (citing Glossip v. Oklahoma and Napue v. Illinois: "The Fourteenth Amendment is violated when the prosecution knowingly solicits false testimony or knowingly allows it to go uncorrected.").
The prosecution argued that Allen knew a "killer-only detail," namely the white van that the State argued at trial "disturbed" the killer. They called a witness - Brad Weber - to testify that he drove his van past the scene at the relevant time. However, digital evidence in the State's possession proved Weber arrived 25 minutes later than was asserted at trial. In any case, information about the van had been circulating online for years prior to Richard Allen's arrest.
To allow a conviction to rest upon a timeline known to be flawed is an egregious but bare-faced violation of due process, that no rational person could support as the basis for sending someone to prison for the rest of their life.
What next?
The filing of this 24,000-word appellate brief marks a serious turn in the proceedings. It is the Appellant’s submission that the cumulative effect of these errors - the defective warrant, the unconstitutional rigor of confinement, the suppression of exculpatory evidence, and the admitted use of false timelines - renders the verdict "historically unsafe".
The burden now shifts to the State of Indiana. The State has 30 days to file the Appellee's Brief, though they can request an extension, and would likely be granted one. In that filing, the State must attempt to justify the alteration of witness statements in a sworn warrant affidavit. They must explain to the Court of Appeals why a jury was denied the right to see the face of the man Betsy Blair - their star witness - saw on the bridge. They must defend the constitutionality of holding a man in solitary confinement until he loses his grip on reality, and then using that man's madness as proof of his guilt.
Following the State’s response, Richard Allen’s defense team will have 15 days to file a final reply brief to that response, and that will bring written arguments to a close. The Court of Appeals may or may not require oral arguments, if they wish to clarify or challenge either side. Oral arguments in appeals are uncommon and it's at the discretion of the Court to decide if they need them. If there are oral arguments, they will be public, and if they are not required, the next the parties or public will hear will be the written opinion of the Court, which could take anywhere from 2-6 months following the conclusion of written arguments, given recent trends in the same court.
If the Court of Appeals agrees that the trial was fundamentally flawed, they will order a new one. This would generally go back to the same judge, but, as the search warrant issue is reviewed de novo (meaning they review it "afresh" without any regard for the trial court's opinion on the matter), that is one flaw that cannot be cured and if there is a retrial the State will not be able to use any of the evidence it gained from that search warrant. There is simply no way around that. The State would also have to consider if it can justify spending millions more to hold a second trial that would likely result in a not guilty verdict.
The remedy requested is unambiguous. Richard Allen requests the Court of Appeals reverse his convictions and order a new trial. The Court now has to decide between ratifying proceedings defined by secrecy, distortion, and constitutional violation, or restoring the integrity of the adversarial process.