{"id":2788,"date":"2022-11-04T08:34:11","date_gmt":"2022-11-04T12:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/?p=2788"},"modified":"2022-11-04T08:34:12","modified_gmt":"2022-11-04T12:34:12","slug":"adnan-syed-innocent-after-23-years-in-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/adnan-syed-innocent-after-23-years-in-prison\/","title":{"rendered":"Adnan Syed: Innocent After 23 Years In Prison?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Ayah Hassan, Staff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1999, Adnan Syed, a teenage boy from Woodlawn High school was accused of a terrable crime: murdering his ex- girlfriend. On September 11 the Baltimore City Circuit Court vacated the conviction and on October 19 the Maryland Office of the Public Defender dropped the charges against Mr. Syed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On January 19th, 1999, Hae Min Lee (Adnan\u2019s ex girlfriend) was declared missing. Her body was eventually found in Leakin Park in Baltimore, Maryland. After a series of interviews, investigations, and court trials, Adnan Syed was convicted of her murder and sent to jail. Was there really enough evidence to convict Adnan of such a terrible crime?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saadi Patel, a close friend of Adnan who went to the same school as him in their senior year of high school, the year that Hae went missing. \u201cWe were childhood friends\u201d, says Saadi. They\u2019ve known each other since birth, hung out often, and loved to play sports together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Adnan was accused of murder and sent to jail, it had an immense impact not only his family and friends, but also the community around him. Saadi says that \u201cit had a major impact on me and a lot of my close friends and family. When something like this happens you just don\u2019t know how to continue on with your life.\u201d Saadi uses the words \u2018shocking\u2019 and \u2018disbelief\u2019 to describe his and others\u2019 emotions after this tragic incident. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adnan\u2019s community provided help and support in many ways. They not only provided financial support for the family, helping raise money to cover legal fees, but also emotional support. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Years after Adnan was sent to jail, NPR reporter Sarah Koenig produced The Serial Podcast<\/em>. This not only shed light and awareness to the situation, but also investigated the case even further, looking for something that might have been missed or solid evidence supporting or refuting Adnan\u2019s guilty verdict. Saadi says \u201cI was happy that they were bringing attention to the case, because if they didn\u2019t bring attention to the case, I don\u2019t think he would have ever been released.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The podcast was very popular and influential. Emery Hassan, a self proclaimed podcast guru said, \u201cIt was probably one of the best podcasts that I’ve ever listened to!\u201d Diane Curry, an English teacher at River Hill High School, said, \u201cI thought it was a beautifully crafted story. They had certainly the first half of it set up almost like a novel. They were unveiling pieces and it kept you hooked!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The evidence used to convict Adnan was very minimal. \u201cI think that the podcast brought a lot of issues to light. It made you realize that certain things weren\u2019t looked at to the fullest and there was a lot of evidence that was overlooked\u201d Emery said. Ms. Curry agreed, saying that \u201cthe cell phone data aligned with what Jay was saying but that was completely false and unreliable. You can\u2019t get convicted from that data, that was completely unfair.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked what interested him most about the podcast, Emery says \u201cI think a lot of it had to do with it being recommended to me by so many people and just the true crime nature of it. The podcast wasn\u2019t biased towards any person, she was trying to find out the facts of the case.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On September 19th, 23 years after his initial conviction, Adnan Syed was finally released from prison. After his conviction, he was overturned because of failure to disclose evidence to the defense team of an additional suspect who threatened Lee\u2019s life and had the motive and intent to kill. As Adnan left the courtroom, everyone cheered! \u201cI went straight to his house afterwards and I got to spend a couple hours with him,\u201d said Saadi. They hung out and he took him around to a few places. \u201cIt was almost like no time had passed.\u201d  After 23 years in prison, Adnan is slowly adjusting to a normal life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you are interested in listening to the true crime podcast, go to https:\/\/serialpodcast.org\/<\/a>. There\u2019s even a documentary on Hulu called \u2018The Case Against Adnan Syed\u2019 that shows pictures and videos of details in the case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ayah Hassan, Staff Writer In 1999, Adnan Syed, a teenage boy from Woodlawn High school was accused of a terrable crime: murdering his ex- girlfriend. On September 11 the Baltimore City Circuit Court vacated the conviction and on October 19 the Maryland Office of the Public Defender dropped the charges against Mr. Syed. On…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2788"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2789,"href":"http:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2788\/revisions\/2789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}