Understanding the Importance of Allen Hearings
What is an Allen hearing? Hi, my name is Carl Birkhead. I’m a Tulsa criminal attorney with Wirth Law Office in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I’ve been practicing family and criminal law for almost eight years now, and I want to help you make the law easy to understand by discussing what an Allen hearing is and what it means for you.
The Basics of an Allen Hearing
In criminal law, an Allen hearing is essentially a hearing to determine whether discovery is complete. What is discovery, you ask? That’s a great question. Discovery is the process by which we obtain evidence and information from the state. Basically, we file a motion with the court and we say, hey, state, you filed charges against our client. Show us the evidence that you have to justify those charges.
Now, in felony cases, discovery, and really in almost every case, discovery happens in two stages. First, there’s preliminary discovery, which is usually no more than the police reports and the affidavits. Sometimes you’ll get some pictures, sometimes you’ll get some videos, but more often than not, if you’re getting preliminary discovery early on, it’s going to be reports and affidavits, just kind of the paperwork explaining what happened, explaining the probable cause for the arrest, and things of that nature.
Stages of Discovery
Justifying why the arrest was made and why they think that the crime was committed. Now, just because you don’t get pictures or videos or body cam footage or anything like that during initial discovery, doesn’t mean that it’s not available, and you can ask for it to be supplemented with that stuff. Otherwise, the law only requires that things like that get turned over at least 10 days before trial.
More often than not, I’ll get a little bit ahead of that, but at the very minimum, you have to get discovery 10 days before trial in these situations in order for it to be admissible in court. So that’s the second stage of discovery, then, is making sure that everything has been turned over, everything has been swapped on both sides, so that you are ready to take the case to trial.
Preparing for an Allen Hearing
That’s what those Allen hearings are for. You’ll go to court with your attorney, the state will show up, and you’ll go before the judge, and you’ll either say, Hey judge, discovery is complete, we’ve swapped all of our information, we’re ready to go to blows and just knock the crap out of each other in trial. Or you’re going to say, hey judge, discovery isn’t complete, the state’s failed to provide blah blah blah, we need extra time for them to get that to us, and we’re asking the court to order the state to turn that stuff over.
So really, this is something where you’ve got to talk with your attorney about, you need to make sure that you’re on the same page as your attorney about what’s been provided and what is still missing. That way, you can make sure that you are as aware and as ready and as prepared as possible to help present your case and help defend yourself.
Schedule Your Initial Strategy Session
My name is Carl Birkhead. I’m a Tulsa felony attorney with Wirth Law Office, and I want to help make law easy. If you need assistance navigating your case or preparing for an Allen hearing, call us at 918-879-1681 to schedule a low-cost initial strategy session today.
