Retired Baltimore Circuit Judge Martin Welch now has to decide whether Adnan Syed, subject of the podcast “Serial,” should get a new trial.
Welch listened to more than three hours of arguments Tuesday from lawyers for both sides.
Syed was convicted in 2000 of killing his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee, and sentenced to life in prison.
His lawyers argued over five days that his previous defense lawyer, the late Cristina Gutierrez, failed him by failing to contact Asia Chapman, who offered to testify on Syed’s behalf.
“It’s not what she did in this case that matters; it’s what she didn’t do,” Brown said Tuesday.
Chapman, then known as Asia McLain, said in letters at the time of Syed’s arrest that she would testify that she saw him at the Woodlawn library on Jan. 13, 1999 at the time the state said Hae Min Lee was killed. But no one from Gutierrez’ team talked to her.
Brown also said cell phone data linking Syed to Lee’s burial site in Leakin Park was misleading because jurors saw it without a cover sheet warning that information about incoming calls was unreliable.
That and other failures on the part of the defense more than justified a new trial for Syed, he argued.
Deputy Attorney General Thiru Vignarajah argued that Syed received a vigorous defense from one fo the best lawyers in the state. And that Gutierrez probably decided that McClain was too risky as an alibi witness.
Confidence Afterwards
Afterward, Vignarajah said he is confident the state put on the case it needed to. He called Chapman a “charming witness,” but said Gutierrez and her team must have seen something flawed.
“What Asia McClain presented in 1999 were two letters that looked, at best, confusing and, at worst, doctored. And a defense attorney like Cristina Gutierrez would likely have seen right through them,” he said.
Brown also was confident. He said he felt “the hearing went well for us” and “we accomplished the things we wanted to accomplish.”
He speculated that Gutierrez failing to call Chapman was a sign of her her decline. Gutierrez was said to be suffering from the effects of multiple sclerosis in 1999. She was disbarred by consent in 2001, citing numerous health problems, and died in 2004 from a heart attack.
“She wasn’t the same lawyer in 1999 that she was in 1990,” he said but added that he took no joy in making the comment. “Based on, literally, dozens of people I’ve spoken to that is our impression of it.”
Brown added he is prepared to fight for a new trial on appeal if Welch does not rule in favor of Syed.
The Associated Press contributed to this story