Adnan Syed - Serial / Undisclosed

New trial denied by US Supreme Court.

The justices did not comment in leaving in place a 4-3 ruling by Maryland’s highest court that denied a new trial to Adnan Syed, who was convicted of strangling a high school classmate he had once dated.
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Strange that he was granted a new trial and then they're like, actually nm. I wonder how common a new trial request is granted and then immediately denied and if the publicity around this case played into that.
 
Matthew Best said:
Prosecution requests Syed’s conviction be vacated and that he be released pending a new trial.

Yes, the prosecution.

https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news...baltimore-murder-conviction-serial-adnan-syed


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Interesting...

A statement from Mosby’s office read: “To be clear, the state is not asserting, at this time, that Mr Syed is innocent. While the investigation remains ongoing, when considering the totality of the circumstances, the state lacks confidence in the integrity of the conviction and requests that Mr Syed be afforded a new trial.”
Critical to securing Syed’s potential retrial was the passing of the Juvenile Restoration Act of 2021, “which allows persons convicted of crimes as juveniles to request a modification of sentence after they have served at least 20 years in prison.”

Syed was charged as an adult, despite being a teenager at the time of Lee’s death. He is currently serving his 20th year in prison since he was arrested.
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The case will be retried?

To be honest, I cannot really see many options beyond Adnan Syed's guilt unless it is his friend Jay who was guilty. The other possibilities stretch credulity, in my humble opinion.
 
Two alternative suspects

"Neither prosecutors nor defense attorneys will reveal the suspects' identities because the investigation is ongoing, according to the motion. One of the suspects had threatened Lee, saying "he would make her (Ms. Lee) disappear. He would kill her," according to the filing." NPR

Nothing in this comment or link should be taken as evidence that I have an opinion on Mr. Syed's innocence or guilt.
 
The suspects were known persons at the time of the original investigation “and were not properly ruled out nor disclosed to the defense,” according to Mosby’s statement.

The state is not disclosing the names of the suspects but said that, according to the trial file, one of them said, “He would make her [Ms. Lee] disappear. He would kill her.”
The investigation also revealed that one suspect was convicted of attacking a woman in her vehicle, according to the statement. The second suspect was convicted of engaging in serial rape and sexual assault, the statement said.

Some of the information was available at the time of the trial, the statement said, and some came to light later. It is not clear when these assaults took place.

Lee’s car was located “directly behind the house of one of the suspect’s family members,” the statement said.
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Link

Is this pointing where I think it is pointing?
 
theprestige said:
Dunno. I listened to Serial when it first dropped (I was in the auditorium where Ira Glass announced the podcast for the first time). But I don't remember enough of it now to connect the dots you're laying out.

Where do you think it's pointing?
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I listened to it and I remember that almost all of the supposed flaws in the case turned out to be pretty unremarkable in the end.

One of the big things that came up though was Adnan’s friend Jay said he helped dispose of the body with Adnan and he was, iirc, given a plea deal to help them. Jay took the police to the victim’s car, and basically seemed very credible. But if I remember rightly he hated the victim as well and may have said those words about wanting her dead (I don’t remember exactly). So, I think it is pointing at Jay.
 
angrysoba said:
I listened to it and I remember that almost all of the supposed flaws in the case turned out to be pretty unremarkable in the end.

One of the big things that came up though was Adnan’s friend Jay said he helped dispose of the body with Adnan and he was, iirc, given a plea deal to help them. Jay took the police to the victim’s car, and basically seemed very credible. But if I remember rightly he hated the victim as well and may have said those words about wanting her dead (I don’t remember exactly). So, I think it is pointing at Jay.
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Hmmm…. I could be wrong. There are two names that seem to be coming up in Twitter comments on this. Some people are asking if it is Jay, and others think no, it is likely Alonzo Sellars and Don. I don’t know who they are. But the claim seems to be that the police fed Jay the information they had, and he agreed to protest himself from prosecution.

I honestly have no clue now.
 
angrysoba said:
Interesting...



The case will be retried?

To be honest, I cannot really see many options beyond Adnan Syed's guilt unless it is his friend Jay who was guilty. The other possibilities stretch credulity, in my humble opinion.
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Why do you have to have an alternate killer? As I said much earlier in this thread, I think there reasonable doubt about Adnan’s guilt, as now does the prosecution. His refusal to plead guilty and get released adds to the belief he is not guilty.
 
theprestige said:
Over the years I've come to the conclusion that the case, the trial, and the podcast were all ********.
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What amused me about the podcast is that it was obvious that the podcaster had a crush on the teenaged Adnan, and actually was pretty disappointed when she met the middle-aged man.
 
lionking said:
Why do you have to have an alternate killer?
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Logically there must be. It is not on Adnan Syed to track down the alternative killer, of course, but there must be one given that she was murdered.

It looks as though the prosecutors themselves are saying that there are two other suspects and that the police did not do a good enough job of ruling them out.

I guess we will have to see how it pans out.

lionking said:
As I said much earlier in this thread, I think there reasonable doubt about Adnan’s guilt, as now does the prosecution. His refusal to plead guilty and get released adds to the belief he is not guilty.
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Possibly, but I never got that from the podcast. For me, it seemed as though they followed a number of leads that they hoped would be promising, and came up with nothing.

1. Adnan says it would have been impossible to make the car journey, so they tried it and were able to do it.
2. Someone says she thought that she saw Adnan on the day he supposedly committed the murder (but they began cautioning about the fallability of memory and it sounded like she herself may have got the day wrong).
3. They spoke to an advocacy group about the police interrogations, presumably expecting them to say that the investigation was flawed, but the advocacy group's rep said it was actually quite good.

Some of the other stuff I remember hearing at the time just sounded like throwing stuff against the wall and hoping something stuck, like listening to people claiming LHO was innocent because of a list of irrelavant details about his Italian rifle or Jack Ruby's behaviour etc...

But, I could be wrong. It's happened before.
 
Apparently one of the new suspects is someone who failed a polygraph. Though apparently he passed it the second time they gave him one.

I mean, honestly, a polygraph?
 
Well, for what it is worth, the full motion is here. It gives something of a recap of the case and why the conviction first happened. Then it goes into a few reasons why the prosecution may have been unsound or at least not followed procedures correctly including something called Brady violations which are apparently withholding evidence that may be beneficial to the defendant.

In summary, there seem to have been some issues with them not asking Asia McClain to testify as I believe she is said to have had an alibi for Adnan Syed (IIRC, this seems to be disputed), and the cellphone records apparently are not good enough to show Adnan at Leakin Park where the body was found.

I believe the person who found the body is now a suspect (from elsewhere and not in the motion). I think it may have been him who was given a polygraph test. Anyway the polygraph test is given as a reason for not having properly eliminated him as a suspect.

"One of the suspects" (not sure which or if each claim about the suspect refers to the same one) has a history of violence and sexually assaulting women.

It turns out that one of the police detectives was guilty of misconduct in another unrelated case.

Okay, here is my completely humble opinion: I still think Adnan did it and the original conviction was correct.
 
One of the unusual things here is it seems that DNA was restested a few months ago with the expectation that this might exonerate Adnan. But it came up inconclusive.
 
theprestige said:
Translation:

I won in court but lost in the court of public opinion. Can I please have a do-over? I promise to fail to secure a conviction this time!
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It does seem an extremely bizarre course of action from the prosecution. If they think he's innocent then they should be looking to drop the charges. If they think he should face trial to be prosecuted and convicted, they shouldn't be looking for a new trial when he's already so..... :boggled:

It's been a while but from what I remember of this case, to believe Adnan is innocent you have to more or less believe Jay is innocent, and to believe that you have to be crazy.

But Jay is a terrible witness and I'm sure 20 years hasn't helped that. A new trial is probably as good as an acquittal.
 
bagels said:
It does seem an extremely bizarre course of action from the prosecution. If they think he's innocent then they should be looking to drop the charges. If they think he should face trial to be prosecuted and convicted, they shouldn't be looking for a new trial when he's already so..... :boggled:

It's been a while but from what I remember of this case, to believe Adnan is innocent you have to more or less believe Jay is innocent, and to believe that you have to be crazy.
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This. Jay knew where the victim's car was located. This was the key fact that can't be explained away.
 
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