Two attorneys who previously represented accused Delphi murderer Richard Allen before the presiding judge disqualified them are imploring the Indiana Supreme Court to reinstate them, arguing Special Judge Fran C. Gull unconstitutionally ousted them against Allen’s wishes.
Thursday’s filing seeking to reinstate the original defense team of attorneys Brad Rozzi and Andrew Baldwin comes amid a bitter legal battle with Gull that has taken several bizarre turns over the last few months.
The issue first went to the Indiana Supreme Court when attorneys representing Allen filed a writ of mandamus requesting that Rozzi and Baldwin be reinstated and that Gull be removed from the case for violating Allen’s right to a speedy trial and to choose his own counsel.
Brad Rozzi and Andrew Baldwin (WTHR: YouTube screenshot); Special Judge Fran C. Gull (Law&Crime: YouTube screenshot)
Gull and Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita filed responses to Allen’s writ, arguing that it was within the judge’s discretion to disqualify Rozzi and Baldwin. Additionally, Gull and the AG’s Office both argued that Allen filing a writ directly to the Indiana Supreme Court — as opposed to filing an interlocutory appeal — was procedurally improper.
In this week’s latest filing, Allen argued that his efforts to have his attorneys reinstated and Gull removed were not only properly filed as a writ, but further asserted that the writ was the “only remedy” available to Allen under the circumstances.
“This writ is the only remedy. Any trial without Baldwin and Rozzi, Rick’s counsel of choice, would be merely for show,” the document states. “Only two lawyers can be ready for a speedy trial and carry out Rick’s well-developed trial strategy. And only one court can grant that relief: this Court. If action is not taken now, Rick’s trial will be delayed longer and even more public resources will be spent. But more importantly, the public’s trust in the judiciary will be permanently undermined while the world watches. An appeal is inadequate.”
Allen emphasizes that his desire to go to trial in January 2024, as originally scheduled, is only possible with Rozzi and Baldwin. After replacing Allen’s defense team with new court-appointed attorneys, Gull moved the trial date back to October 2024.
Allen further argued that the only situations in which a judge can unilaterally remove a defendant’s attorney on the judge’s motion — as Gull did — is when that attorney is not a member of the state bar or when that attorney has a conflict of interest “that will obstruct his ability to provide effective representation.”
“Throughout their 8,000 words and nearly fifty pages of briefing the responding parties fail to present a single Indiana case tolerating this behavior from a trial judge,” the filing states.
The dispute over Allen’s legal representation began when Gull came out of chambers at the start of an Oct. 19 hearing and announced that Rozzi and Baldwin had withdrawn from the case, referring to their departure as an “unexpected turn of events.”
During that hearing — the first to allow broadcast cameras to film the proceeding — Gull said Baldwin had orally withdrawn from the case after sealed evidence was leaked from his office and provided to a true crime podcast. She then claimed that Rozzi was also withdrawing and planned to submit a written notification to the court.
However, the two attorneys later claimed they were “ambushed” by Gull during a meeting in her chambers only minutes before that hearing, which they said was designed to “coerce” their withdrawals with threats of being publicly shamed by Gull.
The duo sought to be reinstated as Allen’s counsel — a request that Gull denied, reasoning that Rozzi and Baldwin had been “grossly negligent” in their representation of the accused killer, primarily due to a sealed photograph of the crime scene being leaked. The leak came when a former colleague of Rozzi’s — who has since been arrested and charged — allegedly took photographs of evidence displayed on the table of a conference room in Rozzi’s law office.
It is unclear when the state supreme court will issue a ruling on Allen’s attempt to have his attorneys reinstated and Gull replaced.
Allen is facing two counts of murder in the 2017 slayings of Williams and German, whose bodies were discovered in a wooded area just off the Delphi Historic Trails system.
Williams and German vanished while walking the Monon High Bridge Trail near Delphi, Indiana, on Feb. 13, 2017. The trail traverses an abandoned stretch of what was once the Monon Railroad and crosses an old trestle over a small river or creek. The girls were found dead the next day in an area near the trestle, and their deaths were determined to be homicides.
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