Adnan Syed: Innocent Until Proven Guilty

The Case

The podcast Serial, narrated by Sarah Koenig, examines the 1995 murder of Hae Min Lee and the prosecution of her ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed, for the crime. After listening to the podcast and doing other research on the case, I’m positive that Syed is innocent for a variety of reasons. I’ll share four of these reasons with you below, in no particular order of importance.

Reason One: Jay Wild’s Inconsistent Testimony

By listening to Serial, I learned that Jay, a former classmate and acquaintance of Syed, claims: Syed told Jay he was going to kill Hae; Jay picked up Syed after the murder, and that Jay helped Syed bury Hae’s body. Jay was a star witness for the prosecution at Syed’s trial. However, Jay’s testimony throughout his police interviews and Syed’s two trials was inconsistent. Jay’s inability to keep his story straight shows that Syed is innocent.

Reason Two: Failure to Produce Asia McLean

According to Serial, Syed’s defense lawyer, Cristina Gutierrez, failed to contact Asia McLean, a former classmate of Syed’s who says that he was in the school library with her on the afternoon of Hae’s murder. Follow this link to the Serial website to read Asia’s sworn statements that provide an alibi for Syed. This proves Syed’s innocence. If Syed was with Asia, he wasn’t off with Jay and plotting to kill Hae.

Reason Three: Syed’s Bad Memory

Koenig, during Serial, looks at how memory works and the role that it plays in Syed’s case. Much attention has been paid to the fact that Syed cannot clearly recall what he was up to the day that Hae was killed. Although some people find this a convenient lack of memory on Syed’s part, I consider it a sign of an innocent man. For Syed, the day was a normal, unremarkable day. He didn’t know he’d need to remember what he did that day, as he didn’t know Hae was going to be murdered. To me, this further supports the fact that Syed isn’t guilty of killing Hae.

Reason Four: The Cellphone Evidence

The podcast Undisclosed, which is put together by a legal team made up of Rabia Chaudry, Susan Simpson, and Colin Miller, does a convincing job dissecting the cellphone evidence used to convict Syed. What I found most damning is that a fax cover sheet sent by AT&T with the cell phone records clearly stated that incoming calls could not be used to determine location. The Undisclosed team does a great job explaining how Jay’s testimony about being with Syed in Leakin Park was backed up by incoming cellphone calls, and how if incoming calls can’t be used to determined location, Jay’s evidence is further called into question.

Conclusion:

The fours reasons discussed above are the main reasons why I believe that Adnan Syed is innocent. To learn more about his case and so you can make up your own mind, here are some useful resources:

Season one of Serial

Adnan’s Story by Rabia Chaudry

Season one of Undisclosed

“Split the Moon” by Rabia Chaudry

Investigation Discovery’s Adnan Syed: Innocent or Guilty

Starting Your Day Off Right With Serial

Serials a fascinating true crime podcast. It examines the 1995 murder of Hae Min Lee and the prosecution of her ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed, for the crime. Based on the questionable evidence, some people believe he was wrongly accused. The narrator of the podcast, Sarah Koenig, re-opens the case for public scrutiny and uses her investigative journalism skills to explore if Syed has been wrongly convicted.

Serial is the first podcast that I’ve ever listened to, and it’s an exciting new medium for me. I enjoy how mobile podcasts are; I can listen to a podcast when I exercise or commute to school. The freedom that this offers is also, at least in part, why I enjoy listening to audiobooks. I can now multitask and get to listen to an interesting story told via podcast. Although some people  might find podcasts difficult to follow, I’ve no problem visualizing stories in my mind.

There are many reasons why I love Serial, with one of the main ones being Sarah Koenig’s ability to tell a story. Her style is very conversational and easy to follow, and she draws in listeners and makes us think that we are solving a mystery right along with her. Some may claim that Koenig’s casual tone diminishes the seriousness of the content; however, this informal approach to investigative journalism is more likely to attract the younger generation, many who don’t want to spend hours reading in-depth articles in news magazines.

Serial risks opening up old wounds for the family of Hae Min Lee, as they may have felt closure when Syed was convicted and imprisoned. But, at the same time, if he has been wrongly convicted, they may want to find justice for their daughter. Ultimately, if people can be wrongly convicted, it should be a concern for everyone in society.

After listening to only the first episode, I already question Syed’s conviction. I know I wouldn’t be good at remembering the details of a day from six weeks ago, especially if it was just a run-of-the-mill kind of day. Can Syed be blamed for not remembering everything he did during a twenty-minute period weeks afterwards? Can Jay’s memory, or even Jay himself, be trusted? I can’t wait to listen to the next episode in hopes that it will help me answer some of these nagging questions. Pass the milk, and bring on the Serial!