A Letter On Behalf of Justice For Adnan Syed
Sent to Maryland State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby on 11.10.21
Dear State’s Attorney Mosby And All Who Might Also Read This,
I am writing to you as a concerned citizen on the matter of the current incarceration of Adnan Masud Syed, an inmate at the North Branch Correctional Institute in Cumberland, Maryland. If you are unaware of Mr. Syed’s situation, he was convicted in 1999 as a minor (17 years old at the time) and yet was tried as an adult (the first of many procedural/institutional errors), and found guilty of the murder of Hae Min Lee, his ex-girlfriend, who had been missing for nearly 5 weeks prior to being found in Leakin Park.
Mr. Syed has been the subject of multiple documentaries, podcasts, and books, not to mention countless blogs and articles, all detailing exorbitant evidence proving or pointing to his innocence in this crime.
There is overwhelming evidence that directly impeaches the state’s case against Mr. Syed, and yet he remains in prison. Myself and many, many others perceive this man to have been the unfortunate victim of a perfect storm of procedural, prosecutorial, forensic, and legal errors, mishandling, neglect, violations, and misconduct, which then unfortunately created the grounds for denial of his appeals. This is a man whose experience, in my opinion, demonstrates nearly perfectly the flaws in the justice system and how it unfortunately folds in on itself and denies, rather than promotes, justice. I am confident that when you examine the evidence and educate yourself on this case, you will come to the same conclusion.
To name just a few examples: untested DNA evidence that could exonerate him and find the killer of this young woman (Hae Min Lee); police misconduct on the part of the officers who have disobeyed procedure on multiple other cases; prosecutorial Brady violations; and grossly ineffective representation of counsel in his first and second trials by the same defense attorney on his behalf. That last one alone - ineffective representation of counsel - directly caused or contributed to his later denials of appeals to various courts. He is servicing a life sentence plus 30 years for a crime based on what was effectively a Magic Bullet theory posited by the state, based on now-agreed-upon faulty cell phone tower evidence. The State of Maryland has, it seems, insisted upon spending over something close to $1.5million in the incarceration and court costs alone for a man who so clearly did not commit this crime, leading me to believe that the state itself doesn’t act in self-interest, if we’re looking at this squarely; and I know you are a woman who is insistent upon justice and you deserve to correct injustices like Mr. Syed’s in order to recalibrate and rightly orient the direction of your great state.
The real killer of Hae Min Lee is still at large. The state’s continued refusal to reexamine Mr. Syed’s case and clear his name is tantamount, logically, to an insistence that Hae Min Lee’s killer roam free.
I urge you as State’s Attorney to please consider my request and examine the evidence that so clearly exonerates Mr. Syed in this case. He has appealed to every court in the state, and based on the numerous technicalities built into the system, he has either been denied an overturn of his conviction, or been denied the chance for a new trial. This seems to represent a deeply illogical and irrational “motive” on the part of the State of Maryland to keep this man incarcerated. Mr. Syed, like many others, appears, in my eyes, to have fallen between roughly every crack in the system over the course of not only the onset of the investigation into Hae Min Lee’s death, but in the procedures of the “justice” system, as well - and I use quotes for that word not out of disrespect but because he has actually been denied a new trial and an overturn of his conviction based on “failing to meet the terms/grounds for justice”. Mrs. Mosby, I respectfully inquire how the institutions set up by the state of Maryland could claim to seek and protect this concept, justice, and yet leave no room for the actual facts in and about this case that so clearly point to his innocence and to the guilt of another yet unknown/unascertained party.
I urge you once again to please examine this man’s case and see for yourself how he has fallen into the eye of the storm of injustice in essentially every crucial phase of his proceeding through the legal system. When it comes to justice, what aspect isn’t crucial?
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Respectfully,
Jessica Aimee Cakuls,
A concerned global citizen who resides in Illinois.
