- "Well, white folks could afford the higher rents. Trisha was leading the charge against the development but she had no power."
- —David Allen to Annalise Keating during her visit[src]
David Allen is a minor character on How to Get Away with Murder. Trisha Stanley was shot dead in her apartment and David Allen was arrested and charged with her murder. The prosecution argued that David entered Trisha's apartment and murdered her because he thought she fell in love with her boss. There was nothing but circumstantial evidence to support this theory but David was convicted of murder nonetheless and sentenced to death.
Biography[]
Original trial[]
David Allen was dating Trisha Stanley in 1993 but they lived separate to each other. David volunteered at a youth program and it can be assumed that Trisha was an attorney of some kind. She filed an injunction against Art Trucco's housing project, advocating for the thousands of low-income citizens who would be displaced by the project. David believed it was rooted in racism as the white people in the area could afford higher rents and therefore be unaffected by the project.
David had suspected that Trisha had fallen in love with her boss so they were having relationship issues. The night before her murder, she and David were arguing in her apartment, presumably about their relationship. The next day, David invited Jason Watkins from his volunteer program back to his apartment to get him a suit for a job interview. The two stayed together until the night, when David then left his apartment and headed for Trisha's, only to be stopped by police as he approached. Inside, Trisha Stanley had been shot dead.
In the time following, David was arrested and charged with her murder. George Gabler came on as his attorney but found the case difficult because of the amount of evidence against David. A witness saw him with the murder weapon and the neighbours heard a fight he had with Trisha the previous night. David told George about his alibi, but whenever George tried to meet with him to discuss the case he was high on heroin so George decided against having Jason testify because it would have been no use to David's case. Linda Morelli testified to seeing David carrying the murder weapon outside Trisha's apartment after the fact. It was her testimony that was the driving force behind David being found guilty of murder and sentenced to death.
Season 1[]
21 years on death-row later, David was less than 2 weeks away from his scheduled death when Annalise's petition to develop new facts of his conviction was granted with 3 days notice. She informed him of this when she visited him in jail. During her visit they only discussed what his last meal would be and that she was working on an appeal to get him out. He started crying and thanked her, but she said not to be thankful until he was free.
The Keating 5 started out by going over the trial transcripts, all picking a person and reading out everything they said in order. Michaela was Linda Morelli, Connor was George Gabler and Laurel was Judge William Millstone. It was during this that the group realised Asher's dad presided over the original trial. That evening, Annalise tasked everybody with different aspects of the case. Wes and Laurel were sent to speak with David's original attorney, George Gabler, to find out if there was any ineffective assistance of council. Michaela and Connor were sent to find out why the original prosecutor, Vince Travers, left mid-trial. Bonnie and Asher were sent to speak with the eye witness, Linda Morelli, to find out if she saw anyone else at the time she saw David.
Wes and Laurel found out that David had an alibi. Jason Watkins was apart of a volunteer program that David was in. He had a job interview coming up and David offered him one of his suits because he had nothing to wear. The two met at David's apartment and hung out for a few hours before parting ways and David traveling to Trisha's apartment, where he saw the police cars. Annalise asked Bonnie to find Jason, and she did, but he had died 18 months prior by overdose.
Michaela and Connor found out that Vince Travers left mid-trial because he received a tip about there being perjured testimony and the Judge did nothing after he brought it to him. This prompted Asher to look into his father. He found out that there was in fact perjury in the trial to satisfy state Senator Art Trucco. He needed David Allen to go down for the murder and successfully convinced somebody to lie on the stand as a result.
There was a brief struggle period where everybody was looking through files and coming up nothing, then Asher attempted to fight Connor and knocked over a box of files. He recognised a logo on one of the files and put together that the witness who lied lived in a building owned by Art Trucco.
Court[]
In court, Annalise called Linda Morelli to the stand and questioned her about why she was being evicted and pointed out that her eviction suit was suddenly dropped shortly after she testified to seeing David with the murder weapon. Linda never paid the rent she was owed and Annalise proffered it was because her payment was her testimony against David. Annalise then asked Linda if anybody connected to Art Trucco told her that the issues with rent would disappear if she testified to seeing David with the gun on the day of the murder. Clark Byers objects, saying that Linda cannot speak to the intentions of somebody else, causing Annalise to demand the court subpoena Art Trucco, to which they agreed.
When Art Trucco takes the stand, Annalise brings up the injunction that Trisha Stanley brought against Art Trucco's housing project. She was advocating for the thousands of citizens in low-income housing who would be displaced by the project. Annalise continued that 10 days after Trisha's death, Art Trucco's attorney struck down her injunction and the housing project went forward unopposed. She plainly asked if Art Trucco had Trisha Stanley murdered. Clark Byers objected and Chief Justice tried to silence Annalise as she began a dramatic monologue directed at Art Trucco. The court went into recess.
When court was back in session, Chief Justice reprimanded Annalise for her conduct, before saying that he no longer had faith in the eye witness testimony and had no choice but to vacate the judgement, conviction and sentence of death and prohibit a re-trial.
See also[]
Appearances[]
| Season 1 | |||||||||||
| "Pilot" | "It's All Her Fault" | "Smile, or Go to Jail" | "Let's Get to Scooping" | ||||||||
| "We're Not Friends" | "Freakin' Whack-a-Mole" | "He Deserved to Die" | "He Has a Wife" | ||||||||
| "Kill Me, Kill Me, Kill Me" | "Hello Raskolnikov" | "Best Christmas Ever" | "She's a Murderer" | ||||||||
| "Mama's Here Now" | "The Night Lila Died" | "It's All My Fault" |