New Evidence In The Serial Case Could Help Adnan Get A New Trial
Gawker – On Monday, a lawyer filed a court motion that, if approved, could undermine the cellphone data used by prosecutors to convict Adnan Syed, the subject of of last year’s Serial podcast, over 15 years ago. The motion focuses on the fact that, according to Syed’s attorney C. Justin Brown, the Baltimore police ignored the cell phone data’s cover sheet, which clearly stated that incoming call data is not reliable for pinning down the call’s location. And the cellphone data used in Syed’s case was, of course, from an incoming call. From the appeal:
It is now known, however, that when AT&T provided the cellular tower data to the State, AT&T explicitly warned the State that: “Outgoing cals only are reliable for location status. Any incoming calls will NOT be considered reliable information for location.”… Despite this unambiguous warning, the State presented at trial evidence of incoming calls to determine location and used this to convict Syed. The State then relied on this supposed proof in arguments to the Post-Conviction Court.
The incoming call data was used by prosecutors to argue that Syed was clearly in the Leakin Park area the night police believe murder victim (and Syed’s ex-girlfriend) Hae Min Lee’s body was buried. According to The Baltimore Sun, “the fax cover sheet from AT&T was included in [original defense lawyer Cristina] Gutierrez’s file.” But the attorney simply “failed to act on it.” Just another misstep in a long line of ineffective counsel by Gutierrez, who died in 2004. The calls originally corroborated Jay Wilds story, who confessed to allegedly helping Syed bury Lee’s body at Leakin park. But if that call data is successfully thrown out, it would mean that Asia McClain, who might provide an alibi for Syed at the reopened hearings, could offer a successful counter argument. As Brown wrote in the motion, ““If AT&T, the architect and operator of the cell tower network, did not think incoming calls were ‘reliable information for location,’ it is unfathomable that a Baltimore City Circuit Court judge would have allowed an expert opinion … under this method.”
Been a while since we talked about Serial. Primarily because people dont actually care about this kid or the case and were more interested on just being in on the latest viral entertainment craze. But nonetheless theres some news today that Adnan supporters seem to be really excited about. When AT&T faxed over their information regarding the location and times of the cell phone calls, they also sent over a cover sheet saying that the incoming call information was not reliable. Adnan’s lawyer failed to act on this info – like the other 50,000 things she screwed up in this case – the prosecution built their entire story around when and where these phone calls pinged a tower, and the rest is history.
Obviously this can’t hurt Adnan’s case. But if you think a fax cover sheet is gonna be enough to overturn this case you’re outside of your mind. I dont think there was anybody out there alive that actually still believed the cell phone story. I think everyone involved and everyone who followed and listened to Serial would admit the cell phone info was complete trash. Its not like this is breaking news. I dont think a random piece of paper is going to overturn any life sentence and declare a closed murder case unsolved.
However, thats not what Adnan supporters should be pumped about. A fax cover sheet aint gonna do shit. But there was apparently a “MASSIVE Brady Violation” regarding the initial anonymous tips that point police at Adnan that should actually be a huge piece for this appeal. You can read all the details there in that link but to sum it up as quickly as I can:
Police said there was an anonymous tip 4 days after they found Hae’s body (Feb 12) which implicated Adnan. However that wasnt actually the first tip they received. Turns out there was a tip received on Feb 1. They never told the defense about this tip. Also, they paid the anonymous informant $3,000, despite the fact that informants should only be paid when a conviction is made.
All the law people are freaking out over this, saying that not disclosing this info and paying out the informant are both huge violations of Adnan’s rights. Basically saying the defense never had a chance to build their case correctly because they didnt even know the correct point in time when the police started crafting their case. Also paying out the informant before any sort of conviction completely undermines the anonymous tip reward system. And, if you listen to the Undisclosed podcast (You dont, because its boring, and like I said to start this blog nobody actually cares about Adnan, they just loved Serial for entertainment) there are tons of recordings of the police specifically coaching Jay in his statement to say certain things and avoid others in order to get their conviction of Adnan. Long story short the crafted this entire story and suppressed anything and everything that pointed away from Adnan, which was a lot of shit. Apparently any sort of proven Brady Rights violations usually results in at least a re-trial. So if you’re pro Adnan, this is probably pretty big.
PS – The parallels between this case and Deflategate continue to be incredible. Like if you actually take the time to listen to and read all the facts of the case, you realize there is absolutely no case at all. Like the way Feitelberg will go through every word of the Patriots case and know each and every fact to dispute whats popular opinion on Deflategate. If you actually take the time to know all the facts in Hae’s murder, you can plainly see theres nothing there. But most people only know the surface with a few things look fishy and they just decide right then and there on who did what. Pretty fascinating that two of the biggest stories in sports and entertainment in recent memory mirror each other perfectly. And the fact that its called a “Brady Violation” to boot. Weird.