In 2014, Adnan Syed‘s controversial case became a national sensation when Serial was released—fourteen years after he was convicted of murdering his girlfriend, Hae Min Lee, and sentenced to life in prison. His story is now being re-examined in HBO’s The Case Against Adnan Syed, which picks up where the immensely popular 2014 podcast left off.
His original murder conviction was overturned in June 2016 after a court found that Syed’s trial attorney, Cristina Gutierrez, failed to cross-examine the prosecution’s cell tower expert about the reliability of location data for incoming calls. According to Rolling Stone, the prosecution used two incoming calls to corroborate their witness’s testimony about helping Syed bury Lee’s body hours after the murder.
Many armchair detectives have come to agree that the late Gutierrez—once considered a top Baltimore criminal defense lawyer—did not focus on the appropriate evidence, and theorize that the case could have gone differently if she had.
Here’s everything you need to know about Syed’s controversial first attorney.
She was disbarred by consent.
According to a 2001 article in the Baltimore Sun, clients made complaints against Gutierrez after she neglected to file their claims. Later, a commission found that she didn’t put client money into a designated trust account. Gutierrez was reportedly “disbarred by consent” in May 2001, and none of the negligent client claims were investigated because she willingly signed the disbarment. That was a year after she represented Syed.
“Since I can’t defend myself against anything, and I can’t practice anyway, I decided to sign the consent,” Gutierrez told the Sun at the time.
Her son says health issues could have affected her decision-making.
After her son Roberto Gutierrez first listened to Serial—which implies that his mother did not focus on evidence many believe could have kept Syed from being sentenced to life in prison—he defended her in an interview with The Baltimore Sun, noting that she was suffering from health problems like multiple sclerosis and diabetes during the case, which affected her decision-making.
“But, if she was coherent and she didn’t use evidence in a case—there was probably a reason for that,” he told the newspaper.
“If my mom didn’t give him a good defense, I hope he gets a good defense,” he added. “I know that was her intention. She really loved her job.”
After Gutierrez died in 2004, a U.S. district judge ruled that Gutierrez made a serious mistake in a separate case.
Gutierrez died of a heart attack in 2004. Six years later, a U.S. district judge ruled that Gutierrez failed to offer John Joseph Merzbacher, a Catholic school teacher, a 10-year plea deal in a child rape case in the 1990s. The mistake nearly set him free, according to The Baltimore Sun, until an appellate court stepped in to correct the issue.
Syed’s appeal was based on a similar claim of omission.
In November, state prosecutor Thiru Vignarajah acknowledged Gutierrez did not contact an alibi witness in Syed’s case, but believes the attorney understood what that witness, Asia McClain, told her at the time.
“The record is not silent on whether or not Ms. McClain was contacted. The state agrees with that. The record is silent on the critical question of why,” he said, according to the Associated Press.
The suggestion here is that it’s unclear why Gutierrez decided to pursue one investigative path over another, and that it’s “wrong to conclude that Syed’s constitutional right to effective counsel was violated,” according to AP.
On Friday, March 8, Syed’s murder conviction was reinstated by the Maryland Court of Appeals.
The court reinstated Syed’s conviction Friday, agreeing that while his defense was deficient, it “did not prejudice” the case. He will not get a new trial.
“We agree with the conclusion of the Court of Special Appeals that Mr. Syed’s trial counsel’s performance was deficient under the Strickland v. Washington standard in failing to investigate the alibi witness,” four judges on the court wrote in their conclusion. “We disagree, however, with that court’s conclusion that Mr. Syed was prejudiced by his trial counsel’s deficiency.”
Three of the judges wrote the dissenting opinion, stating that the deficiency was, in fact, prejudicial against Syed and his defense.
His lawyer, Justin Brown, tweeted, “We will not give up. #FreeAdnan.”
Brown also released a statement on his website that reads, “We are devastated by the Court of Appeals’ decision but we will not give up on Adnan Syed. Unfortunately we live in a binary criminal justice system in which you either win or you lose. Today we lost by a 4-3 vote. Our criminal justice system is desperately in need of reform. The obstacles to getting a new trial are simply too great. There was a credible alibi witness who was with Adnan at the precise time of the murder and now the Court of Appeals has said that witness would not have affected the outcome of the proceeding. We think just the opposite is true. From the perspective of the defendant, there is no stronger evidence than an alibi witness.”
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