Anyone else following this closely? It's a big, big week for Adnan.
I know many of you followed the first season of Serial, focusing on the murder of Hae Min Lee - a high school student in Baltimore, and the subsequent arrest and conviction of her ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed.
Adnan has been in prison since 2000.
Whilst Serial was fantastic at bringing the story to the public's attention, and gaining interest due to the did-he-didn't-he aspect, the Undisclosed Podcast went much further. Funded by the Adnan Syed Trust, Undisclosed was formed of three attorneys: Rabia Chaudry (who initially brought the case to Sarah Koenig of Serial and who is also the sister of Adnan's best friend - both can be heard in the early episodes of Serial), Colin Miller and Susan Simpson. They delved straight into the case and uncovered some whopping evidence and missing pieces of the jigsaw. Another podcast - Truth & Justice with Bob (formerly the Serial Dynasty Podcast) did some great work too, unearthing some fascinating discoveries.
Thanks to this work being done, and new lawyers for Adnan, he was granted a post-conviction hearing which takes place this week - starting on Wednesday through to Friday.
This is what Adnan's lawyers will bring up at the hearing:
1. The cellphone evidence that was used to convict Adnan should not have been used at all. Undisclosed discovered amongst the case files and notes, a letter from AT&T claiming that the cell tower 'pings' are 'unreliable' and shouldn't be used for any degree of accuracy. The state used these records to place Adnan at the supposed crime/burial scene.
2. Adnan had an alibi and a witness, placing him in the school library at the time of the murder.Adnan's classmate, Asia McClean, came forward at the time to say she saw Adnan in the library, at the time Hae was supposed to have been killed - she was never contacted by Adnan's lawyer at the time - Cristina Guttierez. She will take the stand at the trial.
Guttierez made some absolute howlers in this case including these omissions above - not reading or misreading the cover sheet from AT&T and not calling Asia to testify. Adnan's lawyers will attempt to use her poor counsel as his constitutional right to fair counsel being violated.
Those are the facts with regards to what will be brought up at the hearing. The possible outcomes for Adnan:
- He wins and a re-trial is ordered
- He wins and the Court send the case up to a higher court to decide
- He loses
- Conviction gets thrown out
Away from the courtroom, here are some other interesting developments to come out of Undisclosed/Truth & Justice Pod
- Jay's Police Interview - TappingDuring the interviews between Jay and the Police, there was a tapping noise picked up throughout. It appears that when Jay is answering police questions, he is quite hesitant - he pauses a lot and comes across confused. When he starts to speak, he will pause and there is tapping noises heard, like a pen tapping on a table, and he suddenly remembers the 'correct answer'. Or if he is saying something the police don't like, they will interrupt him and you hear the tapping again and suddenly he remembers something very important. It's all there to hear in Undiclosed. Obviously Jay's story changed so much, from his first testimony to what he said in court - you can see this being nicely sewn up during the interviews, thanks to the Police interjections.
- The Reward/Anonymous Tip OffEW explain this much better than me, so I am going to copy and paste it:
First, the facts: there was a CrimeStoppers reward of $3,075 being offered in the case. An indictment typically triggers recovery of the reward. The lead detective on the case would usually report the indictment to CrimeStoppers by the first of the next month, leading to payment of the reward by the following month.
Now, the case: Undisclosed claims Wilds may have wanted the reward money to buy a motorcyle – something police may have known, too. To better understand this, we need to look back at Feb. 12, when someone supposedly made two anonymous calls to Detective Massey, telling him to look into Lee’s ex-boyfriend. This tip allegedly led cops to focus on Syed. On March 18, Wilds went on a ride-along with Detectives Ritz and MacGillivary, retracing his alleged movements on Jan. 13. According to Undisclosed, there are notations in the ride-along notes about a Mr. Brown and a particular type of Suzuki motorcycle that has 9,000 miles. At the end of the notes, the word “REWARD” is written in all caps. Mr. Brown turned out to be Karl Brown, the only person out of the nearly 20 school faculty and staff members interviewed by cops that had no connection to both Syed and Lee. Brown was Wilds’ soccer coach, and he was in the process of trying to sell his Suzuki RF600. In the detectives’ interview itinerary were two Kelley Blue Book printouts for two Suzuki motorcycle models, as they presumably did not know which model Brown had for sale. Based on standard depreciation calculations, its expected resale value was approximately $3,000. However when reached by Undisclosed, Brown said he had sold the motorcycle to someone else.
On April 13, Syed was indicted. This should have triggered the recovery of the CrimeStoppers reward, but it didn’t. Fast forward to Sept. 7, when the lead prosecutor, Kevin Urick, allegedly set up a meeting between Wilds and attorney Anne Benaroya, who agreed to represent him pro bono, and hashed out a plea deal that same day that ultimately resulted in Wilds’ getting no prison time after testifying against Syed at trial. Undisclosed learned that the full $3,075 reward was paid out to the tipster on Nov. 1. Though nothing can be confirmed until the tipster’s identity is revealed, the podcast believes all signs point to Wilds being the person who made the CrimeStoppers tip. Anyone else could have presumably recovered the reward money by June since the indictment occurred two months prior. The hosts imply that the Nov. 1 payment on the tip could mean the detectives were waiting for Wilds’ plea deal before reporting the indictment to CrimeStoppers based on the fear of Wilds backing out of the case after getting the reward. They claim it could be possible that Wilds was interested in the reward money to buy Brown’s motorcycle, even though it was ultimately sold to someone else. If the tipster does turn out to be Wilds, the failure to disclose this information would be a Constitutional violation that would lead to a new trial.- Don... The BoyfriendDon was entirely brushed over in Serial. Don was Hae's current boyfriend, at the time she was murdered. He had an alibi for the time of her death/burial, which was confirmed by the store he worked in - Hae also worked here too. He was ruled out as a potential suspect.
Erm...
Don worked in the same store each week (lets call this Store A) but when Hae was killed, he said he was working at a different store - at another location (lets call this Store B). When the Police followed this up, it was confirmed by the Store Manager (Store B). The Store Manger confirmed the date and times he worked there, any lunch break he had etc... but the Store Manger wasn't actually working that day. The Store Manager (Store B) just happens to be Don's mother.
To muddy the waters further, when the Police asked for all records of Don working for the Company - the only files that could be produced showed that Don wasn't working at the store he said he was (Store B), the week Hae died. Following a conversation between Det. Urick and the legal department of the Company Don worked for, found a time sheet which showed Don working at the store he said he was (Store B), on the day Hae was killed. Some work by the Truth and Justice podcast showed that there was a good chance these time sheets were falsified, due to Don having two employee ID - every other employee had one, which they used no matter what store they worked at. The time sheet given to Urick contained an ID different to what Don would have used anywhere else.
Other suspicions that the time sheets were altered came from the manager at his normal store (Store A), who corroborated when he initially said he was working and what times. But this Store Manager (Store A) would have absolutely no access to the records in another store - unless they were told by someone at the other store, or Don himself. This Store Manager (Store A) just happens to be Don's mother's girlfriend - his Stepmother.
Read more here from Susan Simpson:
http://viewfromll2.com/2015/03/19/serial-the-question-of-dons-alibi/- Lividity in Hae's bodyThis is very complex and I'm not sure I can even explain it properly.
Here's what I understand: From Hae's autopsy, it was concluded that she had frontal lividity, meaning she was on her front for a long, long time after she died. Adnan was effectively convicted because the cell phone records put him in Leakin Park, where Hae's body was found, at about 7pm - matching Jay's testimony. The medical examiners records show that her body wasn't burried until at least 8 hours after she died - probably longer than that. If Hae left school at 2:15pm, this shows she couldn't have been killed until at least 10:15pm, throwing Jay's witness statements out the window.
It's a bit more complicated than that, but you can read more here:
http://viewfromll2.com/2015/02/12/serial-the-burial-in-leakin-park-did-not-take-place-at-700-p-m/ There are other inconsistencies and lies that crop up throughout - there was no wrestling match, the butt dial/Nisha call, the condition the car was in when it was discovered, DNA in the car etc... it's all very interesting and if a new trial is granted, it will be absurd to hear all of this evidence and inconsistencies come to trial, based off some excellent work by some podcasts.
I can't recommend Undisclosed enough. I found the first two/three episodes hard to listen to - the production wasn't great, it was a bit intense etc... but it picked up after that and the work they did was fantastic. It felt like every week there was something new or groundbreaking. Obviously, funded by the Adnan Trust, they are very much geared towards proving Adnan's innocence and having him released.
I personally don't think he did and I absolutely believe he shouldn't have been convicted on the evidence they had. Now their biggest piece of evidence has been shown to be unreliable, it's hard to see how he won't win a retrial at worst.
I don't know who did it but I have suspicions about Don and I'd like him to have been investigated further. I have no idea what Jay's involvement in all of this is or why/how he got in so deep. Hopefully that will come out and they can look to find Hae's real killer.
If anyone is interested in the trial - some accounts to follow on Twitter:
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https://twitter.com/Undisclosedpod/ (Undisclosed Podcast)
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https://twitter.com/rabiasquared (Rabia)
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https://twitter.com/TheViewFromLL2 (Susan)
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https://twitter.com/EvidenceProf (Colin)
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https://twitter.com/TruthJusticePod (Bob)
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https://twitter.com/CJBrownLaw (Adnan's Lawyer)
Rabia will be with Adnan's family in court this week, and I believe Susan and Colin will be there too. It was ruled that it won't be televised - they don't do that in Maryland, but there will be updates during the interval and Adnan will be there in court.
#FreeAdnan
