ADNAN SYED v. STATE OF MARYLAND
Court of Special Appeals of Maryland, Woodward, March 29, 2018,
IAC – Trial counsel is ineffective where they are given specific information about an alibi witness and fail to contact that witness
(Dissent – Graeff – The trial attorney already had the information she needed to make a decision, so not ineffective to confirm what she already knew)
Facts:
In 2000, a Baltimore City jury spent three hours deliberating before finding Syed guilty of first-degree-murder of his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee.
The facts as presented at trial showed that:
The victim was last seen at school at apx. 1415 hours. At some point between 1436 hours and 1521 hours, Syed met up with Jay Wilds, a friend, and showed him the victim’s body in the trunk of her car. He said that he had strangled her and that she had kicked the turn-signal lever on the car while he was strangling her. When her vehicle was recovered by police, the turn-signal lever was broken.
The two of them eventually buried the victim in Leakin Park 127 feet from the road and left the car near some apartments.
When police located the vehicle, they found a torn-off map of Leakin Park inside of it which crime-lab discovered had a partial palm-print from Syed.
Over the course of the day and while they were burying the victim, Syed received numerous phone calls from the victim’s family as well as the police.
An expert for the State testified that these calls placed Syed in the area of Leakin Park at 1909 hours and again at 1916 hours.
Syed was convicted in February of 2000 and appealed, but his conviction was affirmed.
In 2010, Syed filed a motion for post-conviction relief arguing that, among other things, his trial attorney failed to get in contact with an alleged alibi witness, Asia McClain.
McClain had previously written Syed in 1999 after he was arrested stating that “I’m not sure if you remember talking to me in the library on Jan. 13th, but I remembered chatting with you. Throughout you’re actions that day I have reason to believe in your innocense. I went
to your family’s house and discussed your “calm” manner towards them. I also called the Woodlawn Public Library and found that they have a survailance system inside the building. Depending on the amount of time you spend in the library that afternoon, it might help in your defense… I hope that you’re not guilty and I hope to death that you have nothing to do with it. If so I will try my best to help you account for some of your unwitnessed, unaccountable lost time (2:15-8:00; Jan 13th.) The police have not been notified Yet to my knowledge maybe it
will give your side of the story a particle head start…”
The trial attorney did not testify at the post-conviction hearing because she died prior to filing of the post-conviction. McClain also did not testify at the hearing.
In 2014, his post-conviction was denied. He appealed the denial of his post-conviction to the Court of Special Appeals.
Later in 2014, This American Life published the podcast “Serial,” which publicized the story and McClain, the alleged alibi witness who claimed that she saw Syed at the Woodlawn Public Library at the time that the State alleged he was murdering the victim. “According to McClain, the NPR podcast changed her outlook on the case and caused her to realize how important her information was.”
McClain contacted Syed’s post-conviction counsel who requested that a new hearing be held to determine whether Syed’s trial-counsel was ineffective for failing to speak with her.
The court allowed this new hearing and Syed challenged that issue as well as others, including that Syed’s trial attorney was ineffective for failing to challenge the State’s cell-site location information (CSLI) expert on the accuracy of cell-site with regard to incoming (as opposed to outgoing) calls. An AT&T fax cover sheet for Syed’s phone records contained a disclaimer stating that “any incoming calls will NOT be considered reliable information for location.”
The post-conviction court concluded that Syed’s trial counsel was ineffective for failing to contact McClain and failing to question the State’s CSLI expert. Because of this, the post-conviction court ordered that Syed should receive a new trial. Other claims were denied.
Both sides then appealed the post-conviction. The State argued that Syed’s trial counsel was not constitutionally deficient. Syed argued that a new trial should have been ordered on additional issues.
Held: The Court of Special Appeals held that Syed’s attorney’s failure to even get in touch with McClain was constitutionally deficient. New trial ordered.
Right to Counsel – Ineffective Assistance – The 6th Amendment gives defendants the right to an attorney. However, an attorney who fails to meet minimum standards of competence is not the “counsel” guaranteed by the 6th Amendment.
Ineffective Assistance of Counsel (IAC) – To claim that an attorney was constitutionally deficient, a defendant must meet the “Strickland Test”:
1) The defendant must show that the attorney’s performance was constitutionally deficient
2) The defendant must show that he was prejudiced by this deficiency (that the attorney’s poor performance made the trial unreliable)
Plea Bargain – Defendants do not have the right to a “plea bargain”
IAC – Plea Bargain – A defendant is not “prejudiced” by an attorney’s failure to seek a plea bargain if he cannot show that a favorable “bargain” would have been offered by the State if requested
From the Case: The original prosecutor testified that there was no “plea bargaining policy” and Syed failed to show that he would have received a bargain if his attorney had asked for one. Therefore, denial of post-conviction on this ground was proper.
IAC – Duty to Investigate – Counsel has a duty to make reasonable investigations or to make a reasonable decision that makes particular investigations unnecessary.
IAC – Duty to Investigate – Once a defendant identifies potential alibi witnesses, defense counsel has the duty “to make some effort to contact them to ascertain whether their testimony would aid the defense.”
IAC – Duty to Investigate – An alibi witness is “identified” where they are given the name and address of the witness or at least sufficient information to enable defense counsel to contact the witness
IAC – Duty to Investigate – To be “identified” as an alibi witness, the attorney must be given enough information to suggest that the witness could provide the defendant with an alibi (a witness whose testimony makes it almost impossible for the defendant to be at the scene of the crime when it was alleged to have occurred).
From the Case: At the post-conviction hearing, Syed testified that he identified McClain as a potential alibi witness to his attorney and gave the attorney the letters from McClain containing the substance of her story and contact information. This was sufficient for the defense attorney to be on notice that a potential alibi witness existed and imposed a duty to contact that witness.
IAC – Duty to Investigate – Failure to investigate a particular lead may be excused if there is a reasonable basis not to do so.
From the Case: “In our view, the bottom line is that no reasonable evaluation of the advantages or disadvantages of McClain’s alibi testimony, as compared to an alibi defense based on Syed’s habit or routine, could be made without first contacting McClain.” Failure to do so made trial counsel’s performance “deficient.”
IAC – Prejudice – In deciding prejudice, the court may look to either: 1) a reasonable probability that but for the attorney’s incompetence the outcome would have been different or 2) whether the result of the proceeding was “fundamentally unfair or unreliable.”
From the Case: “The State points to several critical aspects of its case including, but not limited to, (1) evidence of motive from Hae’s break up note found in Syed’s room in which the words “I’m going to kill” are written on the back; (2) Wilds’s testimony; (3) forensic evidence of Syed’s partial palm print on the back cover of a map book with the Leakin Park page ripped out; and (4) witness testimony from Vinson, Pusateri, and Tanna that corroborated Wilds’s testimony.”
From the Case: In spite of this, the Court of Special Appeals held that because the State produced no direct evidence of the murder and only had evidence of the burial of the body, the case was sufficiently weak that an alibi witness testifying in the defendant’s favor would have “altered the entire evidentiary picture.” Case sent back for a new trial.