| This article is about the off-screen original trial in which David Allen was found guilty and sentenced to death. For the David Allen court case that happens during the show, see Emergency hearing for David Allen. |
- "He had a look of terror in his eyes, like he had just done something awful. I froze as soon as I saw him, scared. That's when I saw the .38 in his hands."
- —Linda Morelli during her testimony[src]
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Allen took place prior to the events of the show. Annalise Keating states the trial took place 21 years prior, putting it somewhere in the year 1993. During the appeal, Annalise mentions Linda Morelli was facing eviction in July '93, so the trial took place either in that month or the months following.
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. Annalise says there was nothing but circumstantial evidence to support this theory but David was convicted of murder nonetheless and sentenced to death.
Case[]
A.D.A Vince Travers was the original prosecutor during the trial, but he withdrew because he received a tip about there being perjured testimony and Judge William Millstone did nothing about it.
George Gabler came on as David's defense attorney. He 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 had an alibi, Jason Watkins, but he was a drug addict. David was a volunteer and met Jason through the program. He had a job interview coming up and David offered one of his suits for Jason to wear. The two met at David's apartment, but no one else saw them to corroborate the claim. Furthermore, whenever George Gabler tried to make contact with him he was high on heroin so George decided against having him testify because he didn't want the jury to associate David with him. After David and Jason were done, he left his apartment and traveled to Trisha's and saw the police cars parked outside.
Linda Morelli was the eye witness who testified to seeing David leaving Trisha's apartment with the murder weapon. It was her testimony that was the main reason why David was convicted. Following his conviction, Judge William Millstone was promoted to a federal judge from a district judge after Art Trucco put in a good word for him.
21 years later, the Supreme Court granted Annalise's petition to develop new facts on his conviction. It was this appeal that vacated David's guilty verdict and sentence of death.
See also[]
Gallery[]
Mentioned[]
| 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" |