An Electorate in the Delphi Jury Box

I don’t write much about politics, because I hate it. I may opine on SCOTUS picks, vent my hatred toward certain particularly loathsome characters (looking at you, Patrick Morissey), and throw off an occasional hot take that reminds everyone that I am a Democrat and a lib, but I don’t write long insightful essays about the hows and whys and whats of the seedy underbellies of state houses or DC. I would rather write about fascinating (to me) cases of true crime or interesting criminal justice-related court opinions.

Imagine my chagrin when I was editing Andrew Donaldson’s recent piece about election post-mortems and the two worlds collided within my brain and gave forth the incredibly pithy (not really) thought that the electorate is like a jury. Groundbreaking, I know.

Let me explain, though.

Many of you are probably familiar with the Delphi girls, and the trial of their alleged killer in Indiana that just wrapped up last week. The longer version is here and updated here, but here’s the (still kinda lengthy) TL;DR:

In February 2017, two young teens, Abby Williams, 13 and Libby German, 14, took a walk on a nature trail in Delphi, Indiana. When one girl’s father came to pick them up at the appointed time, they were nowhere to be found. The next day, their bodies were found in the woods, victims of a horrific murder. Libby’s cell phone was at the scene, and held crucial evidence: a video the girls had taken on the Monon High Bridge, an old train trestle that had become part of the walking trail. The video showed a man in the background, barely visible without enhancement and whose features were not clearly recognizable. The video also contained the man’s voice, chillingly commanding “Girls… Down the hill.” Despite the widespread dissemination of a still-shot from the video and the voice clip, it was 5 years before a Delphi local, Richard Allen, was arrested and charged.

The trial began last month. Like any major murder case, Allen had his supporters, and not without cause; evidence was not as clear-cut as one would like in a case like this. They did not find his DNA at the scene, nor did they find the girls’ DNA in his vehicle or his home. They did find an unspent round between the girls’ bodies which, they say, had extraction marks that were a match to a gun found in Allen’s home (the girls were not shot, but it was theorized the gun was used for control and perhaps racked while already having a round in the chamber.) And they had Allen’s own admission, given just days after the murders, that he had been on the trails that day, dressed similarly to the man in the infamous video.

And then there were the confessions – 61 by the prosecution’s count – to just about everyone other than law enforcement. He confessed to his wife, his mother, other inmates, the warden, the guards, and a prison psychologist. Case closed, right?

Not so fast, say skeptics of the prosecution’s case. He confessed to shooting them, which did not happen. He confessed to killing his grandchildren, despite not having any. And at the time of these confessions, he was also banging his head on the wall, washing his face with toilet water, playing with and ingesting his own feces, and eating his court papers. Nevertheless, he did give some details that made sense when viewed in conjunction with the crime scene.

All this to say it was not a straight-forward case. That ballistics evidence, arguably their strongest piece? It’s worth pointing out that the examiner could not replicate the extraction marks simply by ejecting an unspent round; only after firing the gun – six times, which is apparently protocol – could she produce the markings she then determined were a match. The state argued that extraction marks are extraction marks, produced by the same mechanism whether the round is fired or simply ejected unspent, but it was an unsettling bit of information. There is, in my opinion, lots of unsettling aspects to the evidence, which I won’t get into here. But I will say I’m happy not to have been on that jury; I am not sure the state met their burden of beyond a reasonable doubt¹, but it would be really difficult to make the call to let him go, too. Just in case.

I belong to several groups on Facebook and Reddit that are dedicated to this case, and most of them are committed to the veracity of Allen’s guilt. One cannot speculate or even question whether they have the wrong guy without being shouted down as either evil or stupid. Conversely, those convinced of Allen’s innocence propose alternate theories that stretch the imagination, such as Pagan cult sacrifices, child sex trafficking rings, and, disgustingly in my opinion, the involvement of Libby’s older sister.

The jury deliberated for 19 hours, spread out over 4 days and skipping a Sunday. Those hoping for a conviction were so strongly convinced of Allen’s guilt that the jury’s failure to return within just a few hours was viewed with despair: “how can it take so long? It’s so obvious…” Never mind that they had something like three weeks of evidence and testimony to review.

Meanwhile, Allen’s supporters picketed the courthouse holding signs saying things like “the real crime scene is in that courtroom” and “Richard Allen is the victim here”. The ridiculousness of this boggles the mind.  Allen is the victim? Not the two little girls murdered in the woods?  While there are aspects of Allen’s treatment while incarcerated awaiting trial that I find repugnant, the “real” crime scene was in the woods near the Monon High Bridge. The “real” victims are Abigail Williams and Liberty German. These protestors illustrate a major distortion of perspective.

Ultimately, the jury found Allen guilty on all counts. But when I read Andrew’s piece about election post-mortems, I thought about what the reaction would have been if Allen had been acquitted. As a lawyer who has been through many a jury trial, I would not have been a bit surprised by a not guilty verdict, and neither was I a bit surprised by his conviction. Juries do weird things sometimes, and you never know what detail, sometimes one that seems insignificant to the lawyers trying a case, that they will latch onto².

Had the prosecution lost, I don’t think any of those convinced of Allen’s guilt would have admitted to seeing any weaknesses in the state’s case. They praised the prosecutor as “masterful” and “a legal genius”; an acquittal would have been attributable only to the defective character of the jury, or the “dirty tricks” of the defense team.

Indeed, to Allen’s supporters, the verdict is the product of a corrupt system in Delphi, from the police to the judge to the correctional system. While many would agree our criminal justice system is flawed in general, to say that Delphi is particularly corrupt is a different argument that requires one to show their work.³

Kamala Harris lost the election. Will her supporters blame a corrupt system, dirty tricks by the opposing campaign, or stupid voters? Of course, and they are. Just like Trumps supporters did when he lost in 2020. When your side loses, it’s because the electorate is just a bunch of stupid jurors, you see, who weren’t paying attention or just didn’t understand what is right before their eyes. They don’t admit to the weaknesses in the case their side presented, either to the 12 jurors in the box or the United States voting populace.

Ultimately, Richard Allen will appeal, and I personally believe he has plenty of fodder to do so (I could write another post on that, but I’ll save it for my true crime sideblog.) And Democrats will compete for the Oval Office again in 2028 (God willing). Learning from our mistakes is not historically our strong suit, but will we this time?

Jury is still out.

1. The presiding judge allowed no cameras, no audio, and no live tweeting, so all reporting from inside the courtroom came second hand through the written notes of reporters and other spectators; it’s possible the case was presented much more strongly than appears through the game of telephone.
2. I have it on good authority that a juror once voted against my side of a case because she didn’t like me or my outfit. Hopefully, that level of petty is an outlier.
3. There is a whole discussion to be had about the correctional system at play in Allen’s case, including the conditions of his confinement and an actual tie to Odinism, a Pagan practice, but this isn’t the place for that.