Case Study of Adnan Syed: Innocent Until Proven Guilty

Introduction to the Case of Adnan Syed

Adnan Syed was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Hae Min Lee went missing on the 13th of January 1999. Her body was found less than a month later on February 9th. The cause of death was manual strangulation, meaning somebody choked her to death with their hands. Syed was Lee’s ex-boyfriend at the time of her disappearance, and Lee was dating Don Clinedinst. There were four main pieces of evidence that was used in the conviction of Syed, the phone call records, Jay Wild’s testimonies, Syed not having an alibi, and Syed having “a motive” to kill Hae. Syed’s case went to trial and was over within six weeks, and it only took the jurors three hours to decide if Syed was guilty or not. He was found guilty on February 25th, 2000, and he was sentenced to jail on the 6th of June later on that year. To this day, Syed still remains in prison. Jay Wild was the star eyewitness of this case, even though he admits to lying about certain things, he was still a “credible” witness. Syed’s lawyer did not bring in a witness that would help Syed. “Syed claimed that his attorney at the time, Cristina Gutierrez, did not look into an alibi witness, Asia McClain, who said she was with Syed at Woodlawn High School's library at the time of the murder” (Pak). The evidence that was used to convict Syed was questionable considering lots of it was purely based off of guessing and one person’s stories.

There have been hundreds of cases where people were found guilty, went to prison, served time, and after time they were found innocent. “During the last quarter-century, there have been 325 DNA exonerations in the United States (1989-2014)” (West 717). Since September of 2019, the Innocence Project documented 365 DNA exonerations in America. The Innocence Project is a non-profit group that helps people who have been wrongfully convicted because of DNA testing. These cases that they work on are sexual assault cases and murder cases. If there have been hundreds of cases that resulted in wrongful convictions, who knows how many more there are, they just haven’t been solved yet. Adnan Syed could potentially be one of these people who were wrongfully convicted. Adnan Syed was a young boy in high school, only 17 years old, and he was convicted of first-degree murder. Syed’s case seemed to be completed within a very short time, with very little evidence connecting him to the murder. A big part of this was Syed not having an alibi, and also not remembering much of that day. However, Adnan Syed’s case should be reopened due to the fact of the unreliable eyewitness testimonies and the questionable evidence used to prosecute Adnan.

Evidence Against Adnan Syed

There were four main pieces of evidence that was used to convict Adnan Syed, first was the cell phone evidence. 31 phone calls were made to or from Syed’s phone on January 13th, 1999, the day Hae Min Lee was murdered. The first call was made to Jay Wilds, at 10:45 am. Syed, Wilds, and the prosecution’s stories are all different about this call and how it went down. The call only lasted for about half a minute and it was made at the high school. “According to Adnan, he called Jay from school to make sure Jay remembered to get a birthday present for his girlfriend, Stephanie” (Simpson). Syed told Koenig, the Serial Podcast host, that he drove to Jay’s house and asked him if he had a present for his girlfriend. He then told Jay he could borrow his car and drop him off at school, go shopping, pick out a gift for Stephanie, and then pick up Syed after track practice. However, Wild’s said that Adnan went with him to go shopping and told him he planned on murdering Lee, and then he dropped him off at school after shopping.

Both Syed and Wilds said that Adnan lent him his car and cellphone and that he would call when he needed picked up. The fifth call made that day was at 2:36 pm and the prosecution’s story was that this call was Syed calling Wilds from a Best Buy payphone saying to come pick him up. But, “For various reasons, the prosecution’s theory of the 2:36 call is not likely to be correct. It is not based on the testimony of any witness, and cannot be squared by known timelines” (Simpson). However, the phone call records show that the call went through the Woodlawn tower and that Jay was not where Jenn and Jay said he was. The records show that he was in the same area as Hae around the time she disappeared, and if he wasn’t with Jenn, then he has no one to prove he was somewhere else. There were other phone calls made around and after the time of Hae’s disappearance, but Adnan states that he was at the high school or the library waiting for track practice to start at 3:30 pm. None of the phone calls that day point Adnan towards the murder, but they sure do make Wilds seem suspicious.

Questioning the Conviction: Inconsistencies and Unreliable Testimonies

The second main piece of evidence was Jay Wilds's testimonies. Surprisingly, Jay Wilds was the main eyewitness, who put Syed behind bars. Wild's multiple testimonies have lots of inconsistencies between the different testimonies. Wilds admitted to lying during his interrogations and changes his story again. When Jay was first interrogated, he was asked why he would volunteer to help Syed bury Hae’s body, also asking if Syed had anything against him. Wilds said Syed knew he sold drugs and could’ve been locked up for that. In his second interview, he was asked why he lied about the location where Lee was killed and Jay responded with, “Uh, I figured there was cameras there or somebody had spotted him doing what he was doing” (Simpson 2). Why would he lie about the location of the murder if he wasn’t the one who did it? Wilds also told authorities that he is willing to lie that way he doesn’t get in trouble or go to jail. If he is willing to lie about selling marijuana, its highly likely that Wilds would be willing to cover himself up and lie about the murder and who did it.

In the blog written by Susan Simpson, there are pages of inconsistencies. Wilds said at the trial that the reason for Syed killing Hae was that Lee made him mad, but in an interview, he said that Syed was heartbroken, and when he was being interviewed for the Serial podcast he said that “Adnan confronted Hae about flirting with… a car salesman and when she called Adnan crazy, he snapped and strangled her” (Koenig 8). Wilds is asked if Syed talked about killing Hae and planning it, and during his second interview, he says that Syed planned on killing her and told Wilds a lot that he was going to do it, but during the trial, he said he only talked about it once. Within the same interview, Jay changes the number of days from one to four or five days before her disappearance, that Syed said he was going to kill her, but in his very first interview, he said the same day. These inconsistencies are minimal, but they did affect a lot.

The Broader Issue of Wrongful Convictions

The bigger inconsistencies occur when Jay is asked about the locations of where Syed killed Lee, where Wilds was shown the body, and many more factors. He switches from Hae being killed in her car in the Best Buy parking lot, to being at the Woodlawn library, to Patapsco State Park. When he is asked about where he was shown the body, he switched his story seven times about the location, seven times. In Jay’s third interview he talks about Hae being killed at Patapsco Park, and that Syed paid him to help get rid of her body after 2:15 pm. But in episode five of Serial, Wilds said they are there at 4:30 pm after they ditched Lee’s car, and they stay for about half an hour smoking and Syed is talking about what it was like killing Lee. But he also says in the same episode, that they are there after 6:30 pm after leaving Cathy’s apartment and going and getting Hae’s car. But at the trial, Wilds says he never went to the park. Those time differences are hours apart and every story is different as to what happened. There are many more little inconsistencies about certain things Jay is asked about, but almost every time he was asked a question, his story switched up into something different.

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Syed not having an alibi on the day Hae Min Lee disappeared was the third main piece of evidence used against him. Even though Asia McClain said she saw Syed in the library that day around the time the murder took place. Syed’s lawyer never called Asia up to the stand to give a testimony, no lawyer contacted her. But Syed’s story of how the day went was when he first called Jay, he said he was making sure that Wilds got a gift for Stephanie, Jay’s girlfriend because Syed and Stephanie were good friends. When Jay said no, Adnan drove over to his house and had Wilds take him back to the school, and he let him borrow his car and phone while he went shopping, and Jay would pick him up after Adnan’s track practice. Adnan said he was at the school until it let out at 2:15 pm, and he went to the library after school until track practice at 3:30 or 4:00 pm. However, Syed doesn’t know for sure, but he said he probably went to the library.

Adnan says he was at track practice that day, and around 4:58 pm Syed called Wilds to come pick him up from track practice. Jay picks him up around 5:15 pm, they smoke and head to Cathy’s apartment. At around 6:24 pm Adnan gets a call from an officer, they speak for a few minutes while Jay and Adnan head to the car to leave. Adnan takes Jay home after that and heads to the mosque. “Adnan’s father testified at trial that, on January 13, 1999, Adnan “attended religious services with him from 7:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.” (Brief of Appellant at 16). Adnan’s mosque was close to his home” (Simpson). After that Adnan is not sure what happened but most likely he went home. According to Syed, he was not involved in Hae’s disappearance and murder.

The fourth main piece of evidence that was used against his “motive”. When a small insert from Hae’s diary was examined, there was little writing about Adnan being controlling. “Those entries suggested that Syed could be “possessive” in a manner that could be considered typical of high school boys and that he was initially sad about their breakup” (McDonell-Parry). After awhile Lee was seeing Don, who was her boyfriend at the time she disappeared. Its believed that Syed’s motive was to kill her because he was jealous and she rejected him. However, Lee’s diary entries being used as evidence was not supported and there was no other evidence that Syed was possessive or abusive.

Conclusion: Re-evaluating Adnan Syed's Case

The evidence that was used against Syed is quite questionable, with Jay being the star witness, all of the phone calls made from Adnan’s phone, and Syed’s lawyer not calling up Asia McClain to testify, there were many things that made it difficult for Adnan to prove his innocence. During his trial, Syed faced.

There are six different ways a wrongful conviction can happen. “Wrongful convictions often occur as a result of incentivized testimony from witnesses, like jailhouse informant or “snitch” testimony, false confessions, eyewitness identification error, bad lawyering, government misconduct, and faulty forensic science” (Judson 779). The first one is somewhat relatable to the case considering there was an anonymous phone call that police received saying to look into Syed for the murder of Lee. Whoever made this phone call could have been telling the truth, or maybe they were trying to lead the police to Syed and away from themselves, being the actual killer. The second way wrongful convictions can occur is false confessions, and Jay Wilds was their main witness, but he did lie many times and even admitted to lying. There were many different versions of what happened that day, meaning there were quite a few false confessions that Wilds made. Jennifer was also another person who was interviewed, and her stories change but not nearly as much as Wilds's testimonies. But those are the two people who made false statements, leading to Syed being in prison. The eyewitness identification error can tie into the false confessions in a way because if a witness can’t recall something properly, it is a false statement, but not intentional.

Bad lawyering can result in wrongful convictions because of the lawyer not doing their job to their fullest potential. Syed’s lawyer was Cristina Gutierrez, and she was no help to Syed during his trial. She failed to call an alibi to the stands and cross-examine the prosecution's expert on the cell phone towers and how the pinpointed Syed at certain locations. This is another main reason Syed didn’t receive a fair trial and was convicted. Government misconduct is another way a case can be affected. During one of Wild’s interviews, the police talked to him for about half an hour without recording anything. Jay had a few different versions of where the murder took place, and when the police looked at the cell phone records, only one story was a slight possibility of where the murder took place. With the police talking to Jay about the stories they could prove were false, this allowed Wild to alter his story to convince the jury that he had no involvement. Lastly was the faulty forensic evidence. “Documents obtained by The Baltimore Sun show prosecutors tested about a dozen items: fingernail clippings, blood samples, a liquor bottle, and condom wrapper. None tested positive for the convicted killer, Syed” (Prudente). Adnan’s current attorney, C. Justin Brown, said that the tested DNA evidence showed that Syed does not deserve to be in jail, but they still don’t know who killed Hae. Maryland’s Court of Appeals has not reopened Syed’s case even after the Serial podcast was released.

The criminal justice system has repeatedly failed the people of The United States. With over 300 exonerations since the 1980s, that’s over 300 people who have gone to jail even though they were innocent. Who knows how many more people are currently sitting in prison for a crime they didn’t commit. People have even faced the death penalty for a crime they didn’t do, they were wrongfully convicted for a serious crime such as murder, or rape. If people can be convicted over a serious crime, why should people trust the criminal justice system to convict the correct people? If they convict the wrong person then it means that the killer is still free and can possibly cause more deaths. “166 people have been exonerated and released from death row since 1973, and 1507 people have been executed in the U.S. since 1973” (EJI). Adnan Syed could be one of the many more innocent people sitting in prison.

With all of the research done looking into the evidence that put Adnan Syed into jail, it is perceived that Syed was wrongfully convicted almost 20 years ago, and is still in jail currently. The evidence that was used against Adnan is suspicious because the evidence does not prove that Syed had any connections to Hae’s murder. The phone call records from the day Lee disappeared are all questionable because it is not known who made/received the calls on Syed’s phone, and it's not known where the precise locations the cell phone was. Adnan said that he lent Jay his phone, and most likely would’ve had it by the time he went to the mosque. So if Jay had Adnan’s phone all day, that means he was the one making almost all of the calls on Syed’s phone. Also, Wild's testimonies had many inconsistencies all throughout, so it is difficult to know when Wild was telling the truth. It’s also known that Adnan technically had an alibi, Asia McClain said she saw Syed at the library, but she was never called up by a lawyer to testify. They said that Syed did not have an alibi, but they didn’t give him a chance. Lastly, when they tried to say that Adnan was a possessive and abusive boyfriend, the evidence was not supported by facts or proof. Syed deserves to be given another chance and to have his case be re-evaluated because of the unfairness and injustice he received over the past 20 years.

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