The Kansas Supreme Court upheld a Lenexa man’s rape and kidnapping convictions, reversing an appellate court that had thrown out his guilty verdict.
In a decision filed on June 5, a majority of Kansas Supreme Court justices affirmed Anthony D. Allen’s convictions on one count of aggravated kidnapping and two counts of rape after determining constitutional errors that occurred throughout his case were not harmful to the court’s overall decision.
Allen was originally sentenced in November 2019 in Johnson County District Court to 331 months, or 27 years and six months, to prison, following a three-day jury trial that resulted in a guilty verdict.
Allen was found guilty of kidnapping, rape
The crimes occurred in 2015 at Lenexa Pointe Apartments, where the victim moved to get away from Allen, according to Fox 4 News.
In 2015, Beth Galley, the apartment’s property manager, found an envelope from the victim.
“I found a four-page letter, just reaching out for help, telling me she was being held against her will, she gave me his name, his social security number, and also she outlined what we needed to do to get her out of the apartment,” Galley said to Fox 4.
At 8:30 p.m. on Aug. 1, 2015, Lenexa police responded to a welfare check call at her apartment. When they arrived, they found the victim, who said Allen had been holding her against her will for more than a month at her apartment and raping her, according to the Kansas City Star.
After the victim escaped, police had a standoff with Allen, where he attempted suicide by swallowing bug spray and laundry detergent, according to Kansas Supreme Court records.
Allen was arrested and charged with the two felony counts. His case then went through the court system for four years before he received a three-day jury trial in 2019 that resulted in the jury finding him guilty for both felonies.
Allen had his convictions overturned
Allen’s appeal centered around whether he had properly waived his right to an attorney before representing himself at two critical pretrial hearings, according to the Kansas Supreme Court.
While Allen’s case wound through the Johnson County court system, in May 2017, he was found competent by the court and was granted a request to represent himself. They also appointed standby counsel in case he wanted it.
- In March 2018, Allen appeared without a valid waiver of counsel at a second competency hearing, where the district court again found him competent.
- In May 2018, Allen represented himself at a hearing on two pending motions, including the State’s motion to introduce evidence of his prior acts of violence against the victim.
- In July 2018, the district court conducted a detailed colloquy, or a formal, on-the-record conversation between a judge, attorneys and the defendant in open court, and obtained a valid waiver of Allen’s right to counsel.
- During his jury trial in 2019, Allen represented himself on the first day of trial before turning the case over to standby counsel on day two, who represented him during the rest of the trial, where he was found guilty on both counts.
In his appeal, Allen stated that he did not knowingly and intelligently waive his right to counsel.
The Court of Appeals viewed his March 2018 competency hearing and the May 2018 motions hearing as “critical stages of the proceedings,” where the absence of an attorney could “cause substantial harm to a defendant.”
“Although the district court ultimately advised Allen of his rights—including the dangers of self-representation—prior to trial, we find that Allen represented himself during critical stages of this criminal case prior to making a knowing and intelligent waiver of his right to counsel,” the Kansas Court of Appeals stated.
Because of that, the Court of Appeals overturned the ruling.
Supreme Court disagreed with the Court of Appeals’ ruling
In its majority decision, the Kansas Supreme Court agreed with the Court of Appeals that both 2018 hearings were critical stages and that Allen lacked a valid waiver of counsel at each one.
Looking at it with harmless error analysis framework, or examining whether the constitutional failures affected the outcome of the trial, the court noted several factors that concluded it was harmless, including:
- Retroactive competency hearing: A new competency hearing for Allen in May 2025, where he was represented by an attorney, found he had been competent on March 23, 2018. Allen did not appeal that finding.
- His May 2018 motion hearing was found to favor Allen by excluding a prior conviction and deferring the court’s ruling on other evidence until trial, where Allen had a valid waiver of counsel in place.
- The court found no reasonable possibility that the pretrial errors contributed to the jury’s verdict, given the weight of evidence presented at trial.
Justice Larkin Walsh dissented from the majority’s opinion, stating that, among other reasons, Allen not having legal counsel at his March 2018 hearing could have a negative effect on every hearing and trial that followed.
“Despite the strength of the State’s case against him, we simply cannot know how Allen’s pretrial and trial strategy might have been different had this confluence of constitutional violations and questionable competency not occurred,” she wrote.
