The innocents of Adnan Syed Academic Essay

Adnan Syed

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My essay is about adnan syed who got convicyed of killing his ex-girlfriend

Solution

Adnan Syed vs. The State Of Maryland

“For the last year, I’ve spent every working day trying to figure out where a high school kid was for an hour after school one day in 1999- or if you want to get technical about it, and apparently I do, where a high school kid was for 21 minutes after school one day in 1999.” (Koenig, 2014: Season 1 Ep.1)

It’s been a long journey for a Pakistani boy at the time, Adnan Syed, now 34 years old, held at the Maryland Correctional Facility, is prosecuted for killing his ex-Girlfriend Hae Min Lee, both students at Woodlawn High School. According to “The Baltimore Sun” webpage, Adnan has been granted a new trial, due to the fact that Christina Gutierrez, who was Adnan’s defense attorney at the time, failed to call the ONLY star witness to the case, Asia McClain who claims she saw Adnan at the school library the day that Hae was murdered. Adnan was wrongfully convicted because he was found guilty simply on the basis of reasonable doubt, and as stated by Adnan’s mother Shamim Syed, because he is Muslim, had been exploited by his defense lawyer, and was provided with ineffective counseling by Christina Gutierrez. I’m not saying that she was a bad at her job or at representing Adnan but at some point things started to go downhill.

This paper is going to be the reasons why I believe that Adnan Syed is innocent.   

First and foremost, before stating my findings and research on Adnan’s case, I would like to state my personal opinion, and why I have high beliefs that Adnan was wrongfully prosecuted for Hae’s murder. First of all, I was listening to the Podcast, I noticed that there was no presentation of forensic evidence and even if there was, it felt like they didn’t want to present anything during the trial except for the cellphone records, a full Toxicology report and DNA testing was not really done and even an accurate autopsy report. I have problem as to whom this mysterious third person caller is, who gave a tip to the Detectives as to look into the ex-boyfriend, and of course lastly my suspicions on Jay, Don and “Mr.S”. Let me make this clear for a second, because evidence is gone, it’s really hard to prove that Adnan is innocent, and people won’t change their minds.

Since Adnan didn’t kill Hae, of course that’s my opinion, it’s possible Jay did. Jay definitely had a motive to commit this crime, and it involves his girlfriend and Adnan. Jay’s girlfriend, Stephanie, and Adnan were both king and queen of a school dance at Woodlawn High School. Jay had already graduated, but Stephanie was in the same grade as Adnan. The fact those two were at the dance together and such could’ve easily made Jay jealous. Jay also has a shady background, working at an adult film store, which he lied about when he started and sold drugs.

      The first piece of evidence presented in court was that of Jay Wild’s testimony. As I remember from Serial, Jay was the “golden” witness to the case as he testified and was interviewed by the Baltimore Detectives. There are a couple of things that have to be pointed out here because they are important. When Jay was first interviewed he mentioned that they went to WestView Mall and then in his second interview he reported that they went Security Square Mall, where Adnan had stated to Jay that he was going to kill Hae. His stories never matched his testimonies. This is where, anyone who is listening to the serial podcast or reading this paper, would know that Jay is lying throughout this whole time. At a point in the trial, when Cristina was examining Jay on the stand, an important piece of information was brought up in relations to how Jay found a lawyer. Cristina asked Jay if anyone helped provide him a lawyer? Right away Jay answered, “Yes Mr. Urick.” Cristina’s reply was so heated, “Mr. Urick the prosecutor, helped provide you with a lawyer?!” “Yes Ma’am.” Answered Jay. Cristina barked out that it’s not lawful for a prosecutor to find an attorney for the witness of a case and it’s unethical. At one point, Jay was charged with accessory after the fact of first-degree murder. He was told to attend the trial so he didn’t have to get jail time. This is when the prosecution could have told him to make the story sound good for him and bad for Adnan. To this day, it’s still shocking to me that Jay got to walk, and Adnan is prosecuted for something he didn’t do.

Adnan’s first trial was not successful. The third miscarriage was during Adnan’s second trial. The first trial ending in a mistrial due to the judge believing that Adnan’s defense counsel was lying about seeing the phone records, which is mentioned in court and reported by Sarah in ‘Serial’. Jay Wilds told the jury the events for January 13th. He describes that Adnan had killed Hae at 2:36pm and called him from a payphone in the best buy parking lot. However, there was never a pay phone that existed in the Best Buy parking lot. When Sarah and her crew went out for investigation, she pointed out that:

“The Best Buy employees I talk to did not remember a payphone back then […] They dug up a photo of the store, from 2001, no phone booth or payphone, though lots of public phones did come down between ‘99 and 2001. They looked up the blueprints of when the store was built in 1995, nothing. The manager also said there is no record of a service agreement between Best Buy and any pay phone company at that store.” (Koeing, 2014).

Then after this comes the story of Asia McClain, who was a classmate of Adnan and Hae at Woodlawn High School in Baltimore; at a post-conviction relief hearing in 2016, testified that she saw and spoke with Adnan at the library during the time frame when prosecutors claimed the murder took place. She also sent Adnan two letters shortly after his arrest and contacted his family; Syed’s trial attorney, the late Cristina Gutierrez, made no effort to speak to McClain, let alone call her as a witness at his trial.

According to ‘Psychology Today’ it is stated “People who are lying will also sometimes start removing themselves from their story, and start directing the focus on other people. You will hear fewer me’s and I’s as liars try to psychologically distance themselves from the lie that they’re weaving. Remember: Everyone has different “lying behaviors” so there is no one guaranteed lie-detection method. It’s most important to be able to compare a liar’s baseline behavior to the body movement, facial expressions, eye movement, and verbal cues that they use when they are telling a lie.” (Jantz, 2015)

According to the testimonies, notes and Serial Podcast it was reported that at 2:36pm Adnan called Jay from a payphone in Best Buy parking lot and he instructed Jay to come and pick him up from Best Buy. When Jay arrived, he stated that Adnan showed him Hae’s body in the trunk of her car. Syed told Wilds to follow him as Adnan drove Hae’s car and parked it in the Interstate 70 Park n’ Ride. The weak part of this whole statement was the state’s lack of any direct evidence placing Adnan and Hae’s car at the Best Buy parking lot between 2:15pm and 2:35pm. After extensive research, I have concluded that in order to prove Adnan and Jay were in Best Buy parking, there must be proof that CCTV existed in that parking lot and there is footage of Adnan and Jay in the year 1999. The real question is, how is it that they never scanned the parking lot, or maybe they did and failed to report, and another great question to ask is, if let’s say that CCTV existed, and they found footage but completely ignored that idea, then how is it that this evidence was never brought up in court during the trial?

There were a lot of other evidence that were on file but yet they failed to be presented at court. For example; the evidence that was found at the crime scene near Hae’s body on the day of the investigation. The liquor bottle, for one. The liquor bottle that was a VSQ Brandy that was found right next to her body. A lab report tells us that they recovered epithelial cells from the mouth of the bottle and the cap. But that’s all. Then, came the report on the fibers. Two fibers, one, reddish, that was found near her head and one that was a blue, found underneath her, in the soil. These were never tested, even if they were, we don’t know. Finally, it is the confusion of the swabs that get me. The medical examiner on the case, tested Hae for evidence of sexual assault, but didn’t find anything. She listed “ Negative for spermatozoa.” But that’s about it, which seemed very narrow for a full DNA report. The question rises as to, why were they never tested for DNA? This also points out that they don’t have any evidence against Adnan and not enough to convict him.

According to Kate Dailey of the ‘BBC News Magazine’, who published an article in 2013 called ‘The rise of CCTV surveillance in the US’, it is reported, “In the 1980s, video technology became cheap enough for individual businesses and citizens to install their own home security systems. By the ‘90s, that technology improved, leading to more digital footage with better quality. So this means that by 1999 there should have been CCTV footage coverage in that parking lot, especially in a store like Best Buy that sell computers and high-end products. (Dailey, 2013)

Of course our ultimate question is who committed this crime and why? If it was Adnan, why did he kill Hae Min Lee, what reason did he have for committing such a crime that put him in prison for life? Or let’s say that it was Jay, what reason did he have to go after Hae and kill her then have Adnan go to prison for something he didn’t do? Was it “Mr. S?” I remember at a point in serial, two or three episodes before the season finished, there was a mention of Adnan’s bail in which the judge didn’t grant. The prosecution had brought up a story as to how Adnan, if set on bail, will have many resources to flee the country and go back to Pakistan. They had mentioned that the people he went to the mosque with could be a source of help for him to get out of the country. On the other hand, Cristina [Adnan’s former lawyer], had educated everyone in regards to what is Islam, what is Pakistan and Adnan’s whole family story and the whole how and why they came to the US. The police proceeded with their investigation, with no evidence of Adnan committing the crime. They believed he was the suspect because of motive.

            Let’s go into the details about the so-called “ Mr. S” and why his story is so hard to believe about discovering Hae’s burial site. Let’s start with the fact that Sarah had mentioned Mr. S has a record with the C.J system. First of all according to the D.As office and the pictures locating Hae’s burial site at Leakin Park, it’s very hard to see her body due to the surrounding environment and the huge log that was there in the front. Second, it seems a bit odd that he had to urinate so badly to stop on the long six-mile trip between his home and his work. He found her dead body and calls the police. The police call Phillip Buddemeyer, a surveyor, to get measurements of the body. He found Hae’s body buried under a log and is very hard to see for Buddemeyer. He recalled saying” I get down really close and I’m looking and I say that doesn’t look like an ankle to me” (Buddemeyer) three days after Hae’s body was found the police receive an anonymous phone call which said “look at the ex-boyfriend”. But here is something that I need to mention; Adnan and Hae had broken up a few weeks before she had gone missing. Lastly, there is the whole notion that someone who has a history of exposure [streaking] would be worried so much about his privacy as to walk 127 feet from the road and across a 40-foot long log to do his business.

There is a certain information that has always bothered me about Don, Hae’s new boyfriend after Adnan. Sarah had interviewed Don, and he didn’t want to talk to her for this story, which seems a bit odd. Don’s version of the story was totally different from what has been previously mentioned in the testimonies and trial. Don had said that on the night of January 12th, the night before she was missing, Don and Hae were together at his house in a town North of Baltimore. She wanted to be with Don the whole day, and wanted Don to call the school and call her in sick. She had written a note to Don the day she went missing. The note read, “Hey cutie, sorry I couldn’t stay. I have to go to a wrestling match at Randelstown High, but I promise to page you as soon as I get home, ok?” It is interesting that when Hae went missing, Don was the first person to call the cops. He says he knew he’d be a suspect to the case. The strange part is if he had nothing to do with the death of Hae, why would he even call the police in the first place, and how did he even find out that Hae was dead? Was that just to buy himself an alibi?

At this point, hopefully we are going to be given the change to find out finally, as the Maryland Court of Special Appeals agreed to hear arguments from Adnan’s legal team, who are requesting a new trial on his behalf. The cell tower expert had not been cross-examined at the time so the information that would link Adnan to the cell phone towers is not proven to be true. A few other documents of evidence were not presented in court when Adnan was convicted in 2000. Rabia Chaudry, along with her teammates, Simpson and Miller are shredding another piece of evidence that might be vital to the prosecution’s case against Syed- What actually went down on January 13th of 1999. Retired Court judge Martin Welch overturned Syed’s conviction in June 2016, but the Attorney General’s Office quickly appealed the ruling for Adnan. 

Thank to Sarah and the Serial podcast, everyone around the globe has listened to the story and it has drawn the attention of many other around.

References:

  1. Koening, S. (2014, October). Season One, Episode 1. Retrieved from: https://serialpodcast.org/season-one
  • Jantz, G. (2015, July 15). 6 Ways to Detect a Liar in Just Seconds. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hope-relationships/201507/6-ways-detect-liar-in-just-seconds

Author- Gregory L. Jantz Ph.D

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