“On one hand, they lost, so their instinct is to appeal. “The state’s responsibility remains to pursue justice, and to defend what it believes is a valid conviction.”ĭefense attorney Brown has said that he expects the state’s Attorney’s Office to appeal, though he questions why they would want to “draw it out.” “It is the continued desire of the Attorney General to seek justice in the murder of Hae Min Lee,” the office said in a statement.
#Adnan syed phone log trial#
Last night, the state’s Attorney released a short statement about Welch’s decision, and indicated that they intend to appeal the ruling, potentially preventing the new trial from taking place. How True Is 'Respect'? Fact-Checking the Aretha Franklin Biopic
Judge Welch also agreed that Gutierrez acted unreasonably by failing to contact potential alibi Asia McClain, but said this wasn’t the reason he vacated the conviction, writing that Syed did not prove that calling McClain to the stand would have created a reasonable probability of a different verdict.
The short story is this: Welch found that Syed’s trial attorney, the late Cristina Gutierrez, didn’t challenge the reliability of some potentially faulty cell-phone tower evidence – what the judge called the “foundation” of the state’s case – a mistake so egregious that it violated Syed’s right to effective counsel. Judge Welch’s 59-page opinion breaks down his decisions on the issues raised by Syed’s defense attorneys, Justin Brown and Chris Nieto, in their appeal. Welch, who presided over Syed’s post-conviction relief hearing in February, vacated his conviction and granted him a new trial. We hope the court considers it.Yesterday, Adnan Syed, whose conviction and life sentence for the murder of his high-school girlfriend was the focus of the first season of the hit podcast Serial, got the news he had been waiting to hear for over 16 years – Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Martin P. Speaking to The Baltimore Sun, Brown said, "We feel that the fax cover sheet from AT&T is an extremely important piece of evidence, and we are bringing it to the court's attention as quickly as possible. But, perhaps more than anything, this rediscovered document may be the vital evidence that gets Syed's case back in court. Asia McClain came forward to reassert herself as an alibi, and Syed's family friend Rabia Chaudry continues to keep his case in the public eye with her own podcast, Undisclosed. Since the release of the podcast - and its conclusions that even if Syed is guilty, his trial was certainly riddled with errors and, more than likely, prejudice - there has been significant if incremental movement in the appeal process.
#Adnan syed phone log serial#
When Serial debuted, Syed was in the midst of seeking an appeal. "There is no imaginable way this could have been a strategic choice. "She failed to cross-examine the state’s expert about it and she failed to present the evidence to the jury," he writes in the motion. Justin Brown, Syed's current defense lawyer, noted in yesterday's motion that this was quite likely another oversight on her part. However, it was indeed incoming calls which the prosecution pointed to in order to show Syed's location at the time of the murder.īut, it seems this part of the fine print was overlooked by Syed's first attorney, Cristina Gutierrez (now deceased), whose missteps were often cited during the first season of Serial, the hit podcast which brought the case to national attention. The cell tower records were one of the central pieces of evidence used against Syed, along with the testimony of Jay Wilds. Any incoming calls will NOT be considered reliable information."Īdnan Syed has been in prison for the last 15 years, having been convicted of the murder of his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee - a crime for which he's always maintained his innocence. Under the instructions from AT&T, there is an explicit, underlined warning that, " Outgoing calls only are reliable for location status. The document in question is a fax cover sheet sent from AT&T, from back in 1999, when the company sent Syed's phone records for use as evidence in the trial. Adnan Syed's defense attorney filed a motion yesterday, citing a major piece of new evidence that could overturn the conviction against Syed.
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