New motion filed in Adnan Syed case

THE lawyer representing “Serial” podcast subject Adnan Syed says key evidence used against his client should have been excluded from the murder trial.

The motion focuses on the fact that, according to Syed’s attorney C. Justin Brown, the Baltimore police ignored the cell phone data’s cover sheet, which clearly stated that incoming call data is not reliable for pinning down the call’s location. “We hope the court considers it”.

Adnan Syed is now serving a life sentence for the murder of his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee.

Serial may have ended last December, but fascination with Adnan Syed’s case continues, as new developments crop up every now and then. Both were students at Woodlawn High School in Baltimore. But if that call data is successfully thrown out, it would mean that Asia McClain, who might provide an alibi for Syed at the reopened hearings, could offer a successful counter argument. “Any incoming calls will NOT be considered reliable information for location”, People reports.

The Maryland attorney general’s office has not commented on the motion.

“There is no imaginable way this could have been a strategic choice”, Brown wrote in the motion.

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals agreed in February to hear Syed’s appeal of a lower court ruling that denied his request for a new trial, according to the paper.

Syed asked the appeals court for a new trial, arguing that Gutierrez failed to adequately represent him.

The calls originally corroborated Jay Wilds story, who confessed to allegedly helping Syed bury Min Lee’s body at Leakin park. Syed’s original lawyer Cristina Gutierrez never knew about the cover sheet and couldn’t protest its use or have it thrown out in 2000 during Adnan’s first trial.

This created a map of sorts, which they claimed showed that Syed was present at the site where Lee’s body was later found – Leakin Park in West Baltimore.

“In addition, the State’s misuse of cell tower location, and trial counsel’s failure to do anything about it, amounts to separate claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, prosecutorial misconduct, and a denial of Syed’s due process – claims that Syed raises with this filing”, Brown wrote.