Hae Min Lee Essay

The criminal justice system is meant to protect the innocent, and punish those who are guilty of a crime. However, no system is perfect, and as a result, sometimes the innocent become victims of the system that was meant to protect them. How exactly do these innocent people become victims of the system? Sometimes the person gets framed, and the crime scene is staged to point a finger at them. Sometimes, there is no strong physical evidence against them, yet circumstantial evidence is used by the crown to put them away. This happened to a 17 year old boy named Adnan Syed in Baltimore, Maryland, who was imprisoned for life, for the alleged murder of his ex-girlfriend Hae Lee. Throughout the Serial podcast, Sarah Koenig is able to critically analyze information which proves Adnan’s innocence. Firstly, Asia’s letters gave Adnan an alibi for the time of the murder. Secondly, Adnan’s innocence can be demonstrated through the lack of any strong evidence and the prosecution’s use of circumstantial evidence which can be disproved. Thirdly, Jay’s constantly changing testimony is not credible evidence of Adnan’s guilt, making him innocent.

Adnan Syed, a senior in Woodlawn High School, was convicted and charged with the first-degree murder of his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee in 1999. Not only is Adnan’s alibi inconclusive, but he also fails to recall any specific details or occurrences of January 13th-the date Hae Min Lee disappeared. His acquaintance, Jay Wilds, has served as the State’s key witness. Despite having already served seventeen years in prison, Adnan did not murder Hae Min Lee. His innocence simply has not been captured due to missing perspectives, inconsistencies in Jay’s story, and biases in the law enforcement.

Whether one particular person happens to be a defendant, a witness, a friend, or even just an acquaintance, murder cases weigh heavily on everyone involved. Huge amounts of evidence must be analyzed, people must be interviewed, research must be done, and a case must be made. Ultimately, all this work comes down to one decision: convict or acquit. The case of Adnan Syed v. State of Maryland is no exception. Syed, at the age of nineteen, was convicted of the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee. He was sentenced to life in prison, plus thirty years. However, from the day the case ended, people have had doubts about the verdict. Holes in the state’s argument slowly became more apparent. For example, the state placed a massive amount of trust

We believe that Jay is guilty. In the next five minutes we will prove to you that Adnan is in fact innocent and why Jay should be in jail. Adnan was close friends with Jay’s girlfriend Stephanie which is what we believe Jay’s motive was to murder Hae. The court convicted Adnan of the murder with the motive of being jealous of Hae’s new relationship. We argue that the motive of jealousy was what made Jay kill Hae Min Lee.

Adnan’s ex-friend, Jay, told the police and detectives that he witness seeing Adnan opening the trunk to Hae’s car, with her dead body inside. Jay states, “He opens the trunk. And all I see Hae’s lips are all blue, and she’s pretzeled up in the back of the trunk. And she’s dead,” (Ep. 1, p. 9). This means that Jay saw Hae dead in the trunk of her own car, with Adnan by his side. Furthermore, this shows that Jay was the only one to witness seeing Hae dead, which means that Jay didn’t have an alibi to back him up with his accusation. When Sarah Koenig looks further into the investigation, she realizes an important detail. Sarah Koenig narrates that, “As for physical evidence, there was none-- nothing. Apart from some fingerprints in Hae’s car, which Adnan has been in many times, there was nothing linking him to the crime-- no DNA, no fibers, no hairs, no matching soils from the bottom of his boots,” (Ep. 1, p. 6). Here, Sarah is making the point that there was no proof that Adnan was the one who actually killed Hae. Nothing from the hairs on his body to the dirt on his books physically proved that he was even at the scene of the murder. Thus, Adnan is innocent because there was no trace of himself, on Hae or her car, that showed that he killed

What would you do if a convicted criminal’s guilt was being questioned? Would you have the urge to let your inner detective shine? If you are one of those people, the perplexity of this murder would be right up your alley. On January 13, 1999, in Baltimore, Maryland, 18-year old high school senior Hae Min Lee mysteriously disappeared after school, leaving her family and friends worried. Weeks later, on February 9, 1999, the innocent young woman’s body was found buried in Leakin Park. Many people, including the whole state of Maryland, pointed fingers at Adnan Syed. Syed comes from a traditional Muslim family, yet he did “American teen-like” things, such as dating and going to

Every time Jay was asked to give his testimony his story changed and he never really had an exact story of what happened that day or why Adnan would have killed Hae Min Lee. In the trial testimony Jay was asked why Adnan killed Hae and he said, "because Hae made him mad." In Jay's second testimony he responded to the same question with a different reason "because Hae had broken his heart."

Initially, Jay said he didn’t know anything. Only that Adnan Syed said he was going to kill his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee for breaking up with him. And so, first, he changed saying he did help bury her, but that’s about it. Some consistencies in Jays story was that Hae’s body was buried in Leakin Park, although the time for the burial doesn’t ever seem to match up any other time, he does

High school, a stressful time in any teenager’s life, copious amounts of homework, quizzes and tests, figuring out what to do after high school, and where relationships are made and often broken. Oh! And sometimes murders...Wait…January 13, 1999, Woodlawn High School, MD, the day where a 17 year old girl named Hae Min Lee is reported missing by her parents. A month later, she is found dead in a shallow grave in Leakin Park by a maintenance guy who was looking for a place to use the restroom. Weeks later, police arrest Adnan Syed, ex-boyfriend of Hae, on the account of first degree murder by manual strangulation and he has been in prison ever since. Even to this day, Adnan’s case

In my opinion, Adnan Syed should not have been found guilty under his circumstances; he was wrongfully convicted for the murder of Hae Min Lee and should be exonerated. Adnan was wrongfully convicted because he was found guilty simply on the basis of reasonable doubt, had been exploited by his defense lawyer, and was provided with ineffective counseling by Christina Gutierrez,.

The second reason i believe adnan is innocent is there was no payphone at best buy.this reason makes sense because jay says this is where the calls happens.that’s where adnan call and say’s hae is dead.a qoute from the story is ‘’i get to bestbuy and adnan opens haes trunk and shows hae’s body, we ditch the body then hangout and smoke weed’’.this proves that he is innocent because why would you kill a person and then go smoke weed like nothing happen.therefore adnan is innocent because there was no

There has been a lot of speculation and internal conflict as to who committed Hae’s murder. At some points, I thought that surely Adnan had done it. However at other points, there was no way that he had killed her. Based on the lack of physical evidence against him, I do not believe that Adnan committed the murder.

Based on information provided by Sarah Koenig's podcast, Serial, for murdering Hae Min Lee, Adnan Syed shouldn't be calumniated. The 3 accounts are; if he murdered Hae he'd look back on the details from that day, Adnan parked Hae's car, as claimed by Jay, but he didn't remember that, and Sarah and her friend driving by the day Jay adumbrated.

The justice system put an innocent man in prison for life without sufficient evidence. The justice system took away Adnan’s rights and basically ruined his life. Throughout this semester, as a class we have read and discussed the different ways the justice system has failed to perform justice. We are taught to look at all the evidence presented to us before making a judgmental call and that is not what the State of Maryland did. They use unjustifiable evidences and statements that just don’t seem to add up correctly. For the sake of Adnan and his family, I truly hope he seeks justice and Hae’s true killer is

Another couple of ambiguities are by themselves insignificant; however, the big picture makes the small ambiguities significant. Usually a murderer asks for help from close friends only, whom will not tattle, and only help. Jay does not paint himself as a close friend of Adnan, rather just as a friend. Another time when he speaks with the detective, he paints himself as an acquaintance. It is certainly strange if Adnan requested Jay’s help. However, this could be resolved as Jay acknowledges in one of the interviews with the detectives that he is not innocent and he was involved with drugs, so Adnan could think that Jay would be an excellent resource in helping him commit this murder. An additional ambiguity can be resolved for the identical