Serial S01 - Update 1: Day 01, Adnan Syed’s Hearing
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hello, syria listeners. Sarah ic, here this week, i'm going to do something I haven't done before, which is ducked back into a non siezed case for a few days to report on a court proceedings that's happening in bolt more if you have no idea what i'm talking about right now. Quick, go listen to season one of cereal and then come back to me in roughly ten hours.

What's happening this week is not a new trial, is a hearing. It's actually a continuation of announce petition for post conviction relief. That's something you try only after you've exhausted your regular appeals. It's kind of a last tch effort. He first filed that petition how in twenty ten I think long before I got interested in this case, in fact, I think the very first time I talked to a none was right when the court had ruled against him had denied this petition, but he appealed IT. And that's when he started to get interesting.

In broad strokes, adnan was arguing that his defense attorney at the time of his trial was incompetent, that he made mistakes that was so bad that he should get some form of relief, that maybe his conviction for killing him in lee should be overturned. One of those mistakes had not claimed was that his attorney never contacted a potential alibi witness. Asia mccane remember her? Anyway, after season one of cereal ended, some new stuff came to light, including some new evidence regarding asian machine and about problems with the crucial cell tower testimony at a nonce trial.

And over the past year, the wheels of justice ruled slowly, slowly, like they do. And finally, this week, the bottom city circuit court will hear this new evidence, will hear what some new witnesses have to say about what happened or didn't happen at IT on's original trial sixteen years ago. Right now, it's tuesday, february second, twenty sixteen, the night before the hearing starts.

As soon as i'm done recording this, i'm getting in my car and driving a ball tomorrow. And i'm going to show up at the course at A M tomorrow like they told me to, and i'm gonna watch and listen. And i'm going to tell you what happens, not week by week, but day by day.

I'm fascinated to see who exactly will testify, what we'll say and how will be to have all these people back in one courtroom. All right now we're gonna refresh your memory about the case of a nancie and then after that, it'll magically have turned into tomorrow. And you're hear me calling my producer dan achieve s to tell her and you about day one of a nuncey ing.

This is a global chAllenge. Prepare call from. And in meta, the maryland correctional facility, this cause will be recorded. This I understand that someone could look and say, oh no, he must be lies is so coincidental that um he told mean that he had both his heart there was extremely wrong for anyone to treat them that way.

Why would you admit to doing something that drastic if you hadn't done IT? There's no way that SHE was at bath light to thirty fish. Did anybody you use, I think like .

the odds of you getting the charming so but you're just not that lucky.

IT tends believable .

even now.

if nice, if there was said that proves innocent, great and great. But I think .

I think you might be that technically.

you know, I have not everything to explain IT. And IT is what IT is if someone believes me or not, you know, I have no control over.

Hello, hi, hi. Can you hear me? OK.

I can hear you.

Are you recording? I am recording. okay. So I am also recording here in the studio, new ork. So let's sink up our sound.

Hi.

where are you?

I'm in a hotel room in in the closet of the hotel room like in the and I have I got some pillars behind my back but then on either like i'm flanked by these two very racy um bathrobes like one is like a letter d print and one is a eber print and they're hanging on either side of me but it's making a good little sound studio here like .

the classic podcast test. You .

are a very, very, very slim gant right now.

So had to go.

I was I I found that I found IT fascinating. I found all of IT fascinating.

Yeah like, who the who are the players there today who were the first people who testified? And like.

yeah, so so the first hour of the day was establishing that Christinia guitar has announce trial attorney back in the origin. Inal criminal trial had been declining in a bunch of way sort of physically, professionally, financially um so they were like two attorneys who had worked with her in the from the middle late nineties you know ninety nine obvious ways when he takes a nan's case um who testified of like how how bad IT got and IT did seem like IT was pretty bad from their testimony like that he was in physical pain SHE was passing off cases to people because he was overwhelmed um her performance in the courtroom seemed sort of definitely not how he had been which was kind of this like legendary you know sought after, very successful defense attorney and that he just was like her her powers were definitely waning and but sort of more to the point was this question of why would he not have called why would he not have looked into asian claim as a possible alibi witness for her client for a non? And is that is there any strategic reason why you would not check check to this person for her, for her not to call asia machine?

okay.

And and then you know the big witness of the day was asia mclin tell me .

about asia, like, what did what did he say? What was that like .

IT was A, I have to say, like I was of IT was kind of intense in the courtroom when he was when he was testifying, you know and I was like, I don't even know, totally had a top up, but like cereal was a part of her testimony. IT was also just a very strange, a little bit surreal.

Like, is this happening right now a moment? Because the I the way that I first learned about the case right was just like there's been this miscarriage of justice, like there was this key witness who has never heard from, and he would have provided the perfect alive and and SHE was never heard from. And it's just like, you know, this growth negligence happened.

And so IT all remembered this. Like this was how we open. The whole thing was just like, we just need to .

find this girl and find out what he will .

say key to this okey.

they were feeling like that. Yeah.

yeah. Like this can be that hard like, i'll just track her down and see what he says, right? And then we do tracked her down and then it's it's not that simple, right? It's not at all. It's just it's so much more complicated than her, whatever, just to see her sort of stride in the courtroom and she's pretty striking looking also she's she's beautiful and and yeah and she's kind of time. And should you had these like very high heels on and he looked very put together and and she's got like bright red lipstick and and and so I was just there was like how there SHE is there was just like a lot of drama in .

the room when he was testifying and saying that was causing drama.

I think, because there had been so much talk about her and about what SHE might have said, would have said, you know, passing everything SHE said, passing her letters, passing her affidavit, passing the stuff that he said to me um and then to just hear her save is things that sounded like very straightforward which which were .

kind of arresting like.

I don't know, he was just saying like s SHE was very sure of herself and very sure about what you remembered, which is like, you know, the same thing we've been hearing, right which is like, I remember, you know, I was in the library, the wood on public library, after school on january thirty ninety nine. Starting at about ten forty five or so, I was waiting for hours for my boyfriend to pick me up. He was super laid.

I was super board. As soon on school ended, I remember I non walked in. We chat, you know, like this whole thing. We chated for fifteen, twenty minutes.

I did IT land like when SHE. Yeah, that's saying I think total I .

think I totally did land SHE seemed very Normal, you know and then he said these like very um idealistic things that um I think that's probably also what made people kind of emotional like where he said i'm trying to find I mean, were just so simple the things that he said but he was sort of like so ann's attorney y Justin Brown said, why did you want to testify and he just said, I felt for justice to be sure if we should put all the information on the table I just thought I was the right thing to do.

I was scribing like crazy in my notebook. I was like to sort scribing. So I was like just super focused on writing.

And so was everyone around me, which was so I didn't really look around the room. But um more I was trying to see what a non's face was doing. So could you see his face from where .

you're sitting? No, I looking the of his ad or .

I was just looking trying to see if he was even looking at at who was testifying and you know I couldn't tell to me IT seemed a lot like he was just sort of looking down or looking straight front of them, like at the table in front of them. He was very, very still the entire preceding yeah like barely moving, like he would shift occasionally but almost like he just became a stone.

Asia today, understand, was IT still was IT. Did you find IT was still as compelling what he was saying, that simple thing he had to say, IT, was that still his compelling to you now today.

hearing her explain her letters like things in her letters that seemed a little like, what does that mean? And so he should have .

went through .

the letter. Well, so he said, this is, this is pretty detail. But there is a part of one of her letters where he says, if you need me, like, maybe I can help you account for some of your unaccounted for time between the hours of two, fifteen and eight P. M. You know how he says that one of the matters and that's also one of the things in the original post conviction hearing that judge wells ruled a noted in his opinion where he say, just sounds like she's offering to lie IT sounds like she's learning like.

yeah.

maybe she's farting or like this. This is a very big window of time. So like what you saying? Like I can make that and and so ann's atterley had her explaining, what do you what do you mean by that and he said, oh, well, I had been to a nance house that day to tell his parent, to tell his family like, if you you know what I knew and and they told me he was struggling to account for that afternoon.

Like he couldn't really remember what happened after school, between school and going to the mosque. Eight, a clock around eight. Clark, so that was the period of time. So he was saying, I can account for this little slice of IT of that period, if you need.

This is why he writes the letter in the .

first place. Yeah, right. That kind of thing was interested. No, not interested. But I just felt like, oh, I got IT OK IT.

All seems like very straight forward and clear as SHE came off really well for the defense. And we have yet to see what the states gonna to over tomorrow, like that will continue tomorrow. They started and you could see like they are going to go really hard on her. I think you .

really yeah like how did you tell because .

of how they even started? I mean the the prosecution is tough. He's tough. I'm not totally sure what their with their plan is with asia, but I think I think what they onna try to do is nothing. They're na try to like discredit her exactly.

But I think what they are going to say is you think of yourself as a person with a really precise memory. But but here, here are some ways in which we're going to show you that your memory isn't as precise you think IT is. And so i'm totally speculating here, but to show that if you had gotten on the stand back at a non's trial, this testimony wouldn't have worked very well. IT wouldn't have changed the course of the trial because here's these ways I can here's all these ways I can poke holes in what you're saying .

in your testimony. H and starting to his holes.

He he wasn't starting to poke holes yet like shedding get that far. But you've got late and then we stopped. But he was clearly trying to he he was sort of laying the foundation for her to not remember stuff.

Oh so to ask the questions that she's gonna to flounder a little bit and the ah ultimately say something that either .

not satisfying or times he had to say, I don't remember not sure i'm not clear. I could I could speculate if you want, but I don't know. I don't i'm not sure.

And but and they didn't have anything they didn't have they weren't directly related to her statement. That was like, did you play sports? Yes, I did.

I I played value ball basketball. Did you have baseball practice that day? I don't think so.

I don't. I'm not sure. I don't think so though. So you you had baskets all practice or you didn't you know I was like that, but a lot of that just like smart.

So but so do you think they're doing this? Because do you think they're doing this to say you you're remembering a different day.

I think it's possible that's where they are going.

but you think maybe that's the direction they are going in.

I think I I mean, the direction I go. And if.

Yeah, right, hearing back to the course tomorrow I am.

It's starting again nine thirty tomorrow morning.

right? So you will check back in with me.

Yes.

right. Touch your now. bye.

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