Supreme Court justices question decision to remove attorneys in Delphi murder case

Anxious to get Richard Allen’s trial back on track, justices ask whether a judge was simply exasperated by attorney's tactics or if there really was 'incompetence' worth kicking them off the case

Faced with a demand from Richard Allen, accused in the 2017 murders of Delphi teens Abby Williams and Libby German, to have his initial court-appointed attorneys reinstated for his defense, Indiana Supreme Court justices said during arguments Thursday that they wanted to get the trial back on track.

The justices questioned often during a one-hour session about how Judge Fran Gull, an Allen County judge appointed to the case in 2022, handled the exit of Allen’s initial attorneys Brad Rozzi and Andrew Baldwin in October, nearly one year into the case.

And justices circled this question from several angles: Would the case have a built-in reason for retrial if Allen was denied the attorneys he wanted and was comfortable with, but who had been deemed by Gull as unfit because of a pattern of moves marked by “gross negligence and incompetence?”

Indiana Supreme Court (Photo via livestream)

“My concern is getting this case back on track,” Chief Justice Loretta Rush said. “We’re spinning and spinning and spinning and delaying, and he wants these attorneys. …  I’m really struggling with why he can’t make that decision that that’s in his best interest and get this case moving, again.”