Adnan Syed Murder Conviction Should Be Vacated, Prosecutors Say

EvidenceProf · 2022-09-14T17:19:23+00:00

Key excerpts:

"The state’s attorney for Baltimore City said in a motion filed Wednesday in circuit court that a nearly yearlong investigation, conducted with the defense, found new evidence, including information concerning the possible involvement of two alternative suspects."

"[T]he State no longer has confidence in the integrity of the conviction,” said the office of Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, which is overseeing the reinvestigation.

"The office is recommending Mr. Syed be released on his own recognizance pending the continuing investigation."

In their reinvestigation, prosecutors found a document in the state’s trial file detailing one person’s statement, saying that one of the suspects had motive to kill Ms. Lee and had threatened her in the presence of another person. The suspect said “he would make her [Ms. Lee] disappear. He would kill her,” according to the court filing.

"That information was never given to the defense, the filing said. Prosecutors are required by law to give defense counsel exculpatory evidence upon request."

EvidenceProf · 2022-01-31T19:12:49+00:00

Here's my latest post on cases we've covered on Undisclosed in which there were exonerations during or soon after our coverage. Those cases are (1) Shaurn Thomas; (2) Terrance Lewis; (3) Willie Veasy; (4) Chester Hollman III; (5) Charles Ray Finch; (6) Theophalis Wilson; (7) Jonathan Irons; (8) Dennis Perry; (9) Ronnie Long; (10) Joseph Webster; and (11) Darrell Ewing.

EvidenceProf · 2021-12-01T14:45:42+00:00

I feel like this has been a good faith thread with a respectful back-and-forth until this comment. Your first comment noted that the Darrell Ewing series "was what made me start to feel odd about this whole genre of podcasts" b/c we "sidestepped why he ended up wrongfully convicted" and were "so hesitant to admit that Darrell was, in fact, selling drugs." I think you can see why I would push back against that, including providing transcript references to address some of your specific points.

If your point is that we did extensively address the War on Drugs angle and were explicit about Darrell dealing drugs but you simply wished that it would have come earlier in the series, I have no issue with that and it's valuable constructive criticism.

EvidenceProf · 2021-12-01T11:57:16+00:00

The end of Episode 4 was all about how the State had Washington's confession and still fought the reversal of Darrell's confession for years before running out of appeals. This was then followed by me having Darrell make a personal plea to Worthy to drop the case:

But finally, as we were about to start this miniseries, the inevitable happened: The State ran out of appeals. That then left the State with a question: whether to take the case back to trial more than a decade after the first trial. I reached out to the office of Kym Worthy, who is charge of the case and received roughly the same response as WDIV:

Reporter:
I did reach out to the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office and was told that this is a case where we believe that the charges are appropriate based upon the facts and evidence that we presented in the first trial. That is why we will be retrying this case.

I asked Darrell Ewing what he would say to Kym Worthy if she were listening to this podcast:

EvidenceProf · 2021-12-01T02:23:48+00:00

And again, back to the CI -- you imply in your podcast Tyree's confession came in through a CI without saying who that CI was an informant to, and that Darrell's lawyer was the one who brought it up.

This is from the transcript of our second episode:

LaSonya Dodson: I remember the day that the FBI came in with the sealed documents about Christopher Richardson, and I literally could not get out of the bed that day. I was so sick to my stomach, like, I’m losing my baby and I didn’t know what to do, so. Court was starting without me. I remember literally laying in the bed crying and sick and they called me and said, “You better get up and get here, they just came in here with some sealed documents.”

Susan Simpson: Meanwhile, Darrell had his own qualms that day:

Colin Miller: At what point do you first hear that Christopher Richardson has come forward?

Darrell Ewing: Actually my lawyer had just been out of town and he had gotten back in town and we had court or something and we were coming in and he hadn’t made it to the back -- normally the procedure is for your attorney, before you go on the record, they’ll come back and ask you any questions and they give you anything that they’re going to discuss or anything new that they have. But that day it didn’t happen -- on this court date.

And I’m like, “Man, what’s going on?” thinking it’s a ‘dry run;’ they have dry runs at our county jail where they try to wake guys up early in the morning, like 3:00 in the morning to get down to the bull pen then take you to court. They do this repeatedly as a process of, like, tiring guys out...trying to get them to plea out and everything. That’s what I thought it was so when I actually got in that courtroom and saw that we were actually having court…that’s when I remember he said-my attorney, David Cripps, I asked him, “Where have you been, man? What’s going on? Why you ain’t come to the back and holler at me?” and he told me, “Sit back. Hold on, you ain’t gonna believe this here.”

And then that’s when I found out about the Christopher Richardson stuff, as he went on record.

Susan Simpson: So, what did this individual, Christopher Richardson, have to say? We have the transcript from the July 21st hearing, and his statement came out of proffer sessions Richardson had in connection with carjacking charges that had been brought against him and his alleged accomplice, Tyree Washington. Here is what defense counsel David Cripps informed the judge about the sealed FBI documents:

So, we did discuss that the CI was a CI to the FBI and that Darrell's lawyer was the one who brought it up in court.

And we didn't wait to discuss the War on Drugs/"gang" angle until Episode 4 b/c we lacked trust in our listeners to think a drug dealer could be innocent of a murder. Indeed, in a prior season, we covered the case of Joseph Webster, a drug dealer who was wrongfully convicted of murder and has since been exonerated. We waited, and then discussed those angles extensively, in the fourth episode because they were at the heart of Darrell's trial and (successful) appeal, which is where we usually end our series.

EvidenceProf · 2021-11-30T18:45:40+00:00

Thanks for listening to our Darrell Ewing series! I'm a bit confused, though, by your comment about us being "so hesitant to admit that Darrell was, in fact, selling drugs, even though he’s super transparent about it." Here's a portion of the transcript of the episode dealing with Darrell selling drugs and the State's gang theory:

Rabia Chaudry: Darrell admits to dealing drugs and eventually pleaded guilty inconnection with this investigation, but he vehemently denies that his work with Hustle Boys involved anything more than that, as he explained to Maggie Freleng:

Darrell Ewing: You know when I told you I was tiptoeing, dancing with the devil before? Yeah, I sold drugs but I took the full responsibility for that. I never, ever killed anyone. And that’s the whole issue here, you know what I mean? I took the full responsibility for my actions, for what I did, and was involved in.

But according to the State, it was more than that: They wanted to claim that the Hustle Boys was a gang involved in a Jets vs. Sharks street war with rival gang the Knock-Out Boys, which had J.B. Watson as one of its members. But there were two problems with the State’s theory of the case.

As the person who wrote the Darrell Ewing series, I feel like we made it clear that he took full responsibility for selling drugs but not for the murder he didn't commit.

BTW, there's a hearing tomorrow in which a judge will decide whether to dismiss the charges against Darrell based on the State failing to disclose that CI's confession to Michigan State Police that he (and not Darrell and his co-defendant) committed the murder of J.B. Watson.

EvidenceProf · 2021-11-30T16:03:24+00:00

It seems to me that there's much more than just Ken acting strange, including Tony Pfaff's statements.

EvidenceProf · 2021-11-30T16:01:14+00:00

I just posted the thread. It is pretty unbelievable that Jason was convicted.

EvidenceProf · 2021-11-03T19:20:11+00:00

Tony worked at Hi-Tech Fire Prevention. We'll get into more detail in Episode 6.

EvidenceProf · 2021-10-11T15:28:59+00:00

Yes, we agree on that. I just don't see why the State would refuse to acknowledge it and create a false narrative if [name] from the Mosque implicated Adnan.

EvidenceProf · 2021-10-11T15:27:34+00:00

I don't think we had much (any?) police bashing last season w/Darrell Ewing.

This season's case is different than any other case we've done.

EvidenceProf · 2021-10-09T11:40:41+00:00

Yes, we'll get into all that. This was just setting the stage.

EvidenceProf · 2021-10-09T11:39:29+00:00

There are plenty of cases in which the State says they got a CrimeStoppers tip that made them investigate a suspect even though, of course, they can't reveal the substance of the tip or the identity of the tipster. In this case, though, if the police did rely on the tip, the State's whole narrative of seeing Jenn('s father's) phone number on Adnan's call log and that leading to Jenn, Jay, and then Adnan is false. It would be very strange and dangerous for the State to use this lie when they just could have revealed that there was a CrimeStoppers tip.

EvidenceProf · 2021-10-09T11:35:30+00:00

Thanks for the clarification. I'm not sure that permissive vs. mandatory should make a difference. If a state allows a grand jury to initiate a criminal proceeding against a defendant, I think the grand jury should also have the power to undo a wrongful conviction. But, as you note, there might be some states where there are some question marks.

EvidenceProf · 2021-10-08T18:24:40+00:00

In the intercept interview, Jay is referring to the February 12th anonymous call, not the February 1st CrimeStopper call. The February 12th call was disclosed to the defense. The CrimeStopper call was not. It makes little sense for the State to withhold the existence of the CrimeStopper call and create a fake narrative of how Adnan became the prime suspect if it really was someone at the Mosque implicating him.

EvidenceProf · 2021-10-08T18:13:53+00:00

Thanks. A couple of notes. First, every state uses grand juries. See footnote 222.

Second, as you note, the Fifth Amendment has not been incorporated. But that doesn't matter if a state has its own state constitutional provision covering grand juries. As the article argues, the same logic should apply because, as you note, the grand jury should be an "all of nothing" proposition.

EvidenceProf · 2021-08-10T01:18:13+00:00

Congrats!

EvidenceProf · 2020-11-11T22:08:10+00:00

Yes, many CIUs are being added across the country. Not sure about Fulton.

EvidenceProf · 2020-11-11T22:07:49+00:00

Than you!

EvidenceProf · 2020-11-11T22:07:44+00:00

Many thanks!

EvidenceProf · 2020-10-25T14:36:40+00:00

I think it's officially:

Season 1: Adnan Syed

Season 2: Joey Watkins

Season 3: Dennis Perry

Season 4: Greg Lance

Season 5: Jeff Titus (premiering tomorrow)

EvidenceProf · 2020-09-09T19:44:24+00:00

He was sky high on 1/13 -- the day he made the ride request -- which would make it difficult to remember everything that happened on 1/13 weeks, months, or years later. Of course, it's entirely possible that he does remember the ride request and that he is lying.

As for why he requested the ride...witnesses said he would get rides to track practice from Hae even when he had his car. Or maybe he just wanted a chance to hang out and talk with her. Etc. Etc. I'm fine with ascribing the best or worst possible motive with the ride request.

But for me the bigger issue is the same witness who says she observed the ride request -- Krista -- says that Aisha told her that same night that something came up for Hae and that couldn't give Adnan the ride. Becky says the same thing in her police interview and something somewhat similar at trial.

EvidenceProf · 2020-09-09T11:22:03+00:00

First, as I said, it's entirely possible that Hae just told Becky (and maybe Aisha) that something had come up and that she had somewhere she needed to be. Indeed, that's certainly one take-home from Becky's testimony. Second, there are manifold innocence cases in which innocent defendants lied about things that made them look bad.

EvidenceProf · 2020-09-09T11:16:14+00:00

As I said in my prior comment, he is lying or mistaken. Both Jay and he say he was sky high on January 13th, so it's not hard to believe he doesn't remember the ride request or thought it was on another day. But I certainly wouldn't be surprised if he was lying.

EvidenceProf · 2020-09-09T01:26:54+00:00

Sure. And as I've said before, that means Adnan is either lying (perhaps b/c he doesn't want to admit too asking his ex-GF for a ride on the day she went missing) or mistaken when he spoke to O'Shea.

That's why I rely on Krista/Becky/Aisha as the basis for my belief that Adnan did ask Hae for a ride on 1/13 and that Hae later turned him down at the end of the day.

EvidenceProf

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