UPDATED! The Fight For Justice: An Appeal for Adnan Syed

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There is major news in the case of Adnan Syed.

Adnan Appeal

 

Update 2/7/2015:

ADNAN HAS BEEN GRANTED AN APPEAL!

Judge Peter B. Krauser ruled in favor of a new appeal for Adnan.  The deadline for Adnan’s appeal to be filed is in one month, on March 16th. The prosecution will then have until April 16th to file a response, and the Courts will reach a decision in June.

This could be a game changer for Adnan! Have an opinion? Let us know what you think!

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Today was the deadline for prosecutors to answer the latest appeal in the case for Adnan Syed in the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee. Check out this report from the Associated Press.

BALTIMORE (AP) — A court should uphold the conviction of a man accused of strangling his high school sweetheart after they broke up in a case at the center of the wildly popular “Serial” podcast, Baltimore prosecutors said Wednesday.

Adnan Syed, now 34, has appealed the conviction and argues he received ineffective counsel because his attorney ignored his requests to negotiate a plea deal. He was accused of killing Hae Min Lee in 1999 after becoming inconsolably jealous when she began dating someone else.

Prosecutors said in their response to the appeal Wednesday that Syed was never offered a plea deal, and that there was no evidence aside from his own “self-serving post-conviction testimony” that attorney Cristina Gutierrez failed him. Gutierrez was disbarred in 2001 after client funds went missing from a trust account. She died in 2004 of a heart attack.

“What the record shows is that Petitioner was totally satisfied with Gutierrez’s services until the jury returned an adverse verdict,” prosecutors said in their 23-page filing. Furthermore, going to trial was the only option Syed wanted to pursue at the time.

Syed’s current attorney, Justin Brown, declined to comment because the case is still active.

Syed also claims Gutierrez failed to interview a witness who could have provided him with an alibi, though the Court of Special Appeals of Maryland asked prosecutors to focus only on the claims about a plea deal in their response.

Lee’s slaying became the focus of “Serial,” a podcast hosted by former Baltimore Sun reporter and longtime radio producer Sarah Koenig that exhumed the 15-year-old case and raised serious questions about whether Syed received a fair trial, and whether or not the man now serving a life sentence is guilty of the crime.

Meet Brian Frosh.

What does all this mean? Basically, it means that the courts have no time table in which to answer the appeal, and that we (as listeners and supporters) will wait – along with Adnan – for another answer, and ideally some hope.

In the meantime, if you should want to do some grassroots outreach, we can help you out.

Brian Frosh is the Attorney General of Maryland, and the man who helped make this decision for the State of Maryland. His contact info:

Twitter:@BrianFrosh

Telephone: (410) 576-6311

brian@brianfrosh.com

In case you missed our recent piece on the interview with Jay Wilds – the prosecution’s key witness in its case against Adnan – here it is!

Image from www.theintercept.com

An editorial about Jay Wilds’ interview with The Intercept.

 

***This article will be updated as more information becomes available.

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About author

Emily Steen

Mom, wife, sometime blogger. Reader of comics and horror.

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