DECATUR, GA -- A man twice convicted of murder will get a third chance to make his case to a jury. The state Supreme Court threw out the conviction of Dennis Allaben, who killed his wife in January 2010. The question is whether he did it intentionally or unintentionally.
In this case, critical mistakes occurred in the courtroom of Superior Court Judge Linda Hunter during two separate murder trials on the same case. The first mistake resulted in the second trial. Then another mistake in the second trial will likely result in a third.
In January 2010, investigators say Dennis Allaben killed his wife Maureen. According to the state supreme court, Allaben “admitted” to family members “that he had killed his wife” unintentionally. His attorneys later argued “he used a sleeper hold only to subdue the victim and did not intend to kill her.”
In 2011, a DeKalb county jury convicted Allaben of murder. But later that year, the Supreme Court reversed the conviction, faulting the jury for returning multiple verdicts it called “mutually exclusive” and therefore illegal.
So in August 2014, another DeKalb jury heard the case and again convicted Allaben of murder. Monday, the Supreme Court overturned the conviction again. This time, it was because Judge Hunter disallowed a witness to fully testify on behalf of the defendant, who had told the witness “that he didn’t mean for her death to happen.”
"It was not an intentional killing," said Public Defender Ryan Meck Monday, adding the testimony silenced by the judge could have spared his client from the life sentence he's currently serving.
The witness "would have corroborated the fact that there was some sort of struggle that led to Mrs Allaben’s death, not an intentional killing, not as the state portrayed," Meck said.
Allaben's attorney say the reversals were not "technicalities." Added public defender Gerard Kleinrock, "We're going to have a third trial because of fundamental fairness."
However, Allaben's defense team expects to try to avoid a third trial by entering into plea negotiations with the district attorney's office. The DA's office declined an interview request.
