Jocelyn Donaldson4-28-15

Mrs. Pacitti English

Serial Podcast Multi-Genre Research Project

Adnan Syed:The Trial Side Of Things

Adnan Syed

This book is based off the podcast, Serial. Each episode investigated further into the mystery that is Adnan Syed’s case.

First off, a little background on the case against Adnan Syed. The place is Baltimore, Maryland. In the year 1999, a high school student was arrested for the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee. Hae was killed by strangulation and her body was found in Leakin Park. A friend of Adnan’s had come forward and told police that he had helped Adnan bury Hae. He told police where her missing car was, and once it was found, Adnan was arrested. At his first trial, his lawyer botched up and the judge ordered a retrial. The second trial ended with Adnan in jail without parole. A women by the name of Sarah Koenig started a serial podcast that investigated the murder of Hae. In the end, there was no real breakthrough other than the realization that there is not enough evidence. Last March, Adnan filed an appeal for another trial due to evidence that wasn’t looked over and his lawyer’s refusal of a plea deal without Adnan’s permission.

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Adnan’s first trial ended in a mistrial. When Adnan’s lawyer asked the jury what they thought of the case, they said the trial was moving toward an acquittal. His second trial ended with Adnan found guilty of murdering Hae Min Lee. How is it that the predicted outcome of the first trial was so different than the outcome of the second? Ad-nan has recently appealed his case due to evidence that should have been used and not receiving a plea deal he wanted. Looking into what happened in the first two trials may help decide the fate of Adnan at the second retrial. There were so many things that went wrong for Adnan in the first two trials, you have to wonder if one of the problems might have affected the outcome.

! I’ve heard what the case is about and watched all the episodes of the podcast, Serial. Now it’s time to find out what exactly hap-pened in the trials and how they might have affected the outcome. There were so many problems and a great amount of drama during the trial. This research project turned book will examine the lawyers, possible racism, and the evidence. Hopefully, looking into the main aspects of the case will give a better understanding of what hap-pened to drastically change the outcome the second time around. in regards to their belief of Adnan’s guilt or innocence and factors that might have influenced them. The research project will delve into the problems with Adnan’s This research project will hopefully prove that Adnan’s trial could have had a very different outcome than it did.

Preface

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There are two sides to every court case. There is the defendant, who in this case was Adnan with his defense attorney, Cris-

tina Gutierrez. The defense tried to prove Adnan’s innocence while on the other hand the prosecutor represented the state

and tried to prove Adnan’s guilt. The prosecutor for Adnan’s trial was Kevin Urick. Looking into Adnan’s defense is a great

way to determine whether he really get a fair trial or if Cristina might have botched the case. According to Kevin Urick, she

did her job the right way. (Cooper and Silverstein) Adnan’s appeal states that Cristina didn’t ask for a plea deal when Adnan

wanted one. This is one of the major reasons the court is even considering the appeal. The problem with this is that Cristina

is no longer around to state her side of things and defend herself. As you can see from the obituary linked below, Cristina

died January 30th from a heart attack. (Sentementes)

The Defense

TI: There are lot of fans of “Serial” who paint Adnan as the victim of ineffective counsel.

KU: She was not an inexperienced defense attorney. From the mid to late ’90s, she was one of the premiere defense attorneys in Baltimore City. She was very highly recommended by the defense bar. All the problems she had came later, when she had serious health problems that caused her to be a little bit fast and loose with some things, and she ended up getting disbarred. But that was after this. At this time, she was a premiere defense attorney, very aggressive, very hard-nosed.

But Ms. Gutierrez's ailing health began to affect her career. She had difficulty keeping up with her caseload. Clients complained; a state investigation was launched. Ms. Gutierrez agreed to be dis-barred in 2001.

"She just got to the point where she couldn't do it anymore. She was too weak," Mr. Dantes said.

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Asia?The second reason Adnan is able to file for an appeal is the letters that one of his classmates sent him contained an alibi that was never used in court. Asia wrote these letters to Ad-nan shortly after he was arrested for Hae’s murder. The letters said that he couldn’t have murdered Hae because he was at the library at the time of the murder. Asia was there and talked with him for a couple minutes while she waited for her boyfriend to pick her up. These letters made their way to Cristina, but she didn’t use them in the defense. In his appeal, Adnan is arguing that Cristina failed to do her job because she didn’t use this evidence in court. In the second trial, the letters were go-ing to be used, but Asia sided with the prose-cutor and said she lied. After the trial, Asia then wrote an affidavit to the court.

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There are two sides to every court case. As I mentioned before, there is Adnan with Cristina as his defense attorney. On the other hand, the prosecutor represented the state and tried to prove Adnan was guilty. The prosecutor for Adnan’s trial was Kevin Urick. Today, Adnan is trying for an appeal for another trial. In an interview, Kevin Urick says he believes Adnan received a fair trial and there is no need for a retrial. (Cooper and Silverstein) In the podcast, we heard that Cris-tina polled the jurors and they were leaning toward not guilty. According to Kevin Urick in the interview linked below, the jurors were biased based on who was asking. One of the biggest breaks for the defense was when Cristina found out Kevin provided defense for Jay. In this interview, Kevin explains what went down from his point of view. According to him, he was only asking a peer for a recommendation because no one wanted to represent Jay. (Cooper and Silver-stein)

The Prosecution

TI: In “Serial” Episode 10, when they’re going over the mistrial, we learned the jury was polled after hearing most of the state’s case from the first trial and was leaning toward not guilty. What is your reaction to that?

KU: If the jury was polled that way, it had to have been by the de-fense after the mistrial. My experience from my early days is not to poll the juries. I have found that a lot of times, if you try to talk to jurors, some of them are going to tell you what they think you want to hear. So you’re not getting a very good, accurate thing. The way I’ve learned to try a case is I do what I feel comfortable with, what I think is the best way to try it. I put it on—I feel good about myself. The jury comes back with its verdict; I go home, study for the next trial. A lot of people say you should talk to jurors to know why they’re acting the way they do. Some people find that effec-tive. I’ve never found that effective, because I tend to be some-what distrustful of what a juror tells me after the verdict.

TI: Let’s talk about Anne Benaroya, Jay Wilds’ attorney, for a moment. Can you walk us  through that situation? There was an implication of miscon-duct, because you recommended her to Jay to represent him in the plea deal?

KU: Jay had committed a crime, which he had not yet been charged for. Second, he was a very important witness in the case, and it would be nec-essary to work on some sort of plea agreement. I don’t know if the police suggested it or we suggested that he talk to a public defender. But he talked to some public defenders, and they wouldn’t represent him, be-cause he was not charged with a crime yet. He went to several attor-neys—they wouldn’t represent him unless he paid them a fee. Jay did not have the money to pay for a private attorney. At that time, I had a case with Anne Benaroya. I knew from talking with her throughout the course of the case that she had been a public defender. She had a keen interest in constitutional rights. I told her about Jay. I said, ‘Can you think of any place I can tell this guy to go, because he wants representation. He’s not comfort-able talking to the state without someone advising him about what’s best for him.’

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TimelineLink to this Time Line on the Serial Podcast Website

The order in which things happened is very important

to this case, therefore, a time line is definitely neces-sary. If the timing was just

a little different, things could have went very differ-ently for Adnan.This time-line shows the order in

which Adnan’s case hap-pened. (Koenig)

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The Real EvidenceIn the case against Adnan, There isn’t any forensic evidence to link anyone to hae’s murder. The prosecutor in Adnan’s case tells The Intercept that there

was no evidence that could have been used in the trials. (Cooper and Silverstein) . In the Podcast I watched, Sarah Koenig said there wasn’t enough evi-

dence for Adnan to be guilty. The only real evidence she found to make Adnan look guilty was the Neisha call. At the time the call was made, Adnan

claimed Jay had his phone, but Jay didn’t know Neisha and had only talked to her on one occasion. This Neisha call is the only evidence that Adnan might

have killed Hae. Adnan claims he must have pocket dialed her, but Neisha had an answering machine and was charged for the call Besides, the call,

there really isn’t really any solid evidence that could be used in a trial. (Koenig) The biggest impact on jurors like Stella Armstrong was Jay’s testimony.

Can we really decide the fate of a man on the hearsay of others and one star witness who’s only proof is he knew where the car was? (Koenig)

The Intercept: Why was the DNA collected at Hae’s murder site not all analyzed and submitted into evidence?

Kevin Urick: I don’t recall any DNA evidence in the case. The body was out in the field for, what, five weeks? I don’t know how well DNA stands up at that point. We had no DNA evidence at trial. That was 1999. DNA had been accepted in Mary-land as valid scientific evidence by that time.  If anything in evidence had shown promise for DNA testing, that is, there appeared to be biological matter that could have come from the crime, I am sure we would have asked for it to be tested.

TI: The University of Virginia’s Innocence Project has announced that they will be pushing for DNA from the crime scene to be tested.

KU: Like I said, I don’t recall there being any evidence being submitted for DNA testing by me or Cristina [Gutierrez, Ad-nan Syed’s lawyer]. In strangulation cases, where there is no murder weapon, no blood. [Ed. note: Blood was found on Hae’s shirt and was analyzed for DNA. The blood belonged to the victim, according to the medical examiner’s testimo-ny—likely due to a pulmonary edema, i.e. a buildup of fluid in the lungs that occurs when the heart fails to pump blood through the veins.] It is really hard to find DNA that can be linked to the crime. It’s possible that they are trying to pull DNA off evidence collected around the murder site, like empty bottles or some trash, and test that for DNA.

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Discrimination?Another major factor might have been the supposed racial discrimination against muslims in this case. During the mock trial, the prose-

cutor argued that Adnan couldn’t be let out on bail because he was a flight risk. She claimed one of Adnan’s teachers told her that Ad-

nan had a scary uncle who lived in Pakistan.(Koenig) She also tried to make the support of the mosque look like a bad thing. She said

that their money could go towards getting Adnan out of the country. All of the negative things said against muslins was discrimination,

and although it wasn’t used in the real trial, it may have still been a factor based on the prejudice against muslins after 9/11. (Koenig)

According to the editorial below, muslim prejudice does have a large part in the case.(Friedersdorf) One of the writers believes that Ad-

nan’s culture being used as a motive for murder is also prejudice against muslims.(Basu)

Episode 10 of Serial begins by addressing the question of anti-Muslim prejudice. Did it play a role in putting Adnan in prison? Adnan's mother declares that when she explains to herself what happened, discrimination against Muslims is the only rationale she can come up with. She believes her son is innocent, that anti-Muslim prejudice is the reason he was arrested, and that everyone in the local Muslim commu-nity feels the same way. "Because it was a Muslim child, that's why they took him," she said. "It was easier to take him than other people."

In particular, the fact that honor killings are brought up as a potential motive for Adnan entails a not-so-subtle vein of a xenophobic stereotype that is in some ways shocking and yet also (sadly) expected. Honor kill-ings, briefly, are murders of women who have some-how hurt their families’ reputations. Here, the prosecu-tion implies that Adnan killed Hae to protect his own honor in the face of Islam and his family's disapproval of his relationship with a woman outside the faith and Pakistani culture.

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Jury InstructionsA jury is another one of the main aspects of a case. The jury is the group of people who listened to Jay’s testimony and decided he was the one telling the

truth and that his story was the most believable. They were the ones who decided what evidence was important and what should be dismissed, but how

does one make this type of decision, a decision that will affect the rest of a man’s life. Adnan is in jail on a life sentence, plus 30 years for something that

is only backed up by the hearsay of others and one phone call. According to one jury member, Stella Armstrong, Jay came off as streetwise, and believ-

able, but what if he lied? According to Cristina, the jury of the first trial was moving toward an acquittal.(Koenig) Did the muslim prejudice make people in

the second trial choose differently then the first would have? The only real evidence the jury saw was the was the Neisha call, but what does that prove

except that Adnan had his phone at that time? The prosecution believes he’s guilty, the defense believes he’s innocent, and the two juries had opposite

opinions. Considering they were both given the same rules or instructions, and the same evidence to judge, how did they come up with such different opin-

ions?

How did they decide Jay’s character differently the sec-ond time around?

Did they consider his religion/Culture?

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EpilogueIn the end, can one really decide the fate of a man based on hearsay and one star witness? Can the possible discrimination and poor

defense be looked over just to make things easier on ourselves. To not have more work, but let a man sit in jail for a crime he may not

have committed just so we don’t have to inconvenience the court and a few people needed for a jury is immoral. Every person de-

serves the right to a fair trial and their innocence until proven guilty. Can we really say he’s guilty with what little evidence we have to

go on? Asia’s letter’s could have have made a drastic change in Adnan’s case, but Cristina overlooked them. Why should Adnan sit in

jail for the rest of his life because he asked his lawyer to ask for a plea deal she never did? With a plea deal, he might at least be able

to live a little bit of his life in the freedom an innocent man would deserve. I am in no way saying Adnan is innocent, but I am not saying

he is guilty either. I believe he is not guilty, which is right in the middle of the two. Adnan can’t be found guilty because there is not

enough evidence, but I do believe that he had something to do with Hae’s murder because no one is that unlucky. At the end of the

day, I don’t think anything can add up to the importance of a trial going right and in favor of the defendant. This is why I decided to

base my book on the trials and time spent in court, because up until the findings are read, Adnan is innocent until proven otherwise. I

don’t think that his first trial or the second one really gave him a fair chance because I don’t think Cristina conveyed to the jury that Ad-

nan claimed he was innocent. Cristina was more on the offense than the defense, and I think this really messed up Adnan’s chance of

an acquittal. Because of the lack of evidence, the overlooked evidence, drama with the lawyers, and the possible discrimination by the

jury, I believe Adnan deserves a third chance at a trial and hopefully, this one will go more in his favor.