Adnan Gets A Retrial

By: Connor Lenahan

Fans of Serial Season 1 rejoice, things just got very interesting in the epilogue of the Adnan Syed case. Despite facing very unfavorable odds, Syed is getting a retrial regarding his 1999 conviction in the murder of his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee. This creates a renewed interest in one of the most exciting pieces of true crime storytelling this decade. Yet there are two sides to this story.

First comes with the retrial itself. It comes from a review of Adnan’s original attorney Cristina Guttierrez. She was found to have been overloaded with cases and medically incapable of giving her full efforts to his defense. This isn’t exactly shocking after listening to the first season of the podcast. Guttierrez was seemingly overwhelmed with the case the entire time and the thought that Adnan should get another chance with a dedicated lawyer was acceptable. This creates a far more equal playing field for everyone involved.

Yet we come back to the same question everyone had when Serial premiered in 2014: Did Adnan do it? I can’t say for certain that he did, neither can Sarah Koenig, Serial’s host, or the police for that matter, but it certainly seems like he had to have somehow been involved. Apologies as the deep details aren’t as fresh a year and a half after the podcast started, but Adnan wasn’t far and away innocent. Giving him a new trial could prove that he is completely correct in claiming his innocence, or potentially could lead to refined evidence that he actually did kill Hae Min.

Honestly I’d be betting on Adnan being found guilty a second time, simply because if it looks and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck, not a horse. But we get to revisit this story again with new eyes. Who isn’t excited for that journey? Let’s not put the cart before the duckhorse here, this will be a fascinating story yet again very soon.