Adnan Syed Remains a Convicted Murderer

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:02 Clip: Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.

0:00:18 Clip: What's my crime? I got bold? And a little negligent? Nope!

0:00:26 Clip: Bailiffs are coming to take away my will to live. Well, one count of being a bear, and one count of being an accessory to being a bare. This is a free court!

0:00:44 Thomas: Hello and welcome to opening arguments. This is episode 1067. I'm Thomas Smith. That over there is real-life attorney, Matt Cameron. Reminder, real life attorney with criminal justice experience somewhat justice system experience. Say that because, you know, people get a little frustrated when we tell the obvious truth about today's subject, but that's okay.

0:00:58 Matt: Don't know about justice, but certainly experience. I m excited to be talking about this one. This is actually the decision that we're gonna be talking about, I think, is probably the most interesting post-conviction case in U.S. history at this point, and it is absolutely the most significant case on victims' rights in U.S. history to date. So there's a lot to get into here. Yeah, no, it's a big deal.

0:01:23 Thomas: Apart from just the fame of the

0:01:25 Matt: Absolutely. Course, Yeah. It is chicken a chicken and the egg thing, because the only reason we are here is because of the fame of the case.

0:01:29 Thomas: That's fair.

0:01:29 Matt: It never would have happened. What we are going to do today is we are gonna listen to my appearance on Serious Inquiries Only, a Thomas Smith podcast from April 2023, about, I barely remember it anymore. But attempt at a deep dive on a legal topic, and I had a great time doing it. And I think it holds up pretty well. So we're going to listen to that to get the context, as

0:01:36 Thomas: There. April 2023, Matt. Yeah. What was going on back then? Jeez. Very interesting I still remember it. It was so sad, Matt, because back then, I didn't understand how stupid the system was and we did a few law shows that were great. And then a lawyer said I couldn't do that anymore. So then, then you were were gone and everyone was like why why are they gone and I was like can't tell you because if I say anything then that's like admitting the thing anyway the whole system sucks I hate it so much but anyway that was what was happening this was very fun this was back that brief moment in SIO time where I thought oh yeah we'll get to just I can have Matt on we can do legal stuff and this won't be so bad being locked you out of my own fucking show uh it sucked after that But this episode was great, and I'm so excited for people to hear it because a lot of people wouldn't have heard it. They were still on the OA feed back then.

0:02:01 Matt: They were so good, we had to stop. Yeah, sure. Sure.

0:02:33 Matt: Yeah, this is still some of my favorite work I've done after the seven months I've been on OA. So I'm excited to get into it again. And we'll play the very most relevant parts, and then we'll come back and talk about what's happened in the last week.

0:02:43 Thomas: That's right. After this ad break, which you can avoid at patreon.com/law, we're going to play you some of our greatest hits. Now, I want to just FYI. This is not just replaying the SIO episode. I need to make very clear because people might be like, oh. Repeat. No, we're playing parts of this SIO episode because it was really a setup and featured Matt's predictions for what would happen. And then we're coming back to you in the now times to give you updates and talk about how those predictions fared and that kind of thing. So it's definitely not just like a repeat episode. Just want to make that very clear because right.

0:03:15 Matt: Let's queue up the time machine.

0:03:16 Thomas: Hit Yeah. What most people who haven't delved into this have seen was Adnan's conviction was overturned back when it, you know, was when we were in Scotland and I couldn't stop thinking about it. And I kind of took away a day of my vacation with Lydia because I was just obsessed with how wrong everybody was on this. Anyway, so that happened. And then all of a sudden, you the other day we hear, well, it's back. And is back because of something like, oh, they didn't take the victim's family into account for that's what I think most people people will have thought it was gone as no murder conviction. And then all of a sudden it's back. That seems weird. Like, isn't there some double jeopardy thing there? You can just put a murder conviction back. What is happening with this?

0:03:56 Matt: Is super weird, but there is no double jeopardy issue for reasons we're going to get to. Yeah, let's get into the history. I think it's important to just run this down, because the timeline on this, I wouldn't usually get into timelines in an appeal, but it is a fascinating timeline, and it has a lot to say about where things went and where we are now. So Marilyn Mosby is the district attorney in Baltimore City, and she was up for re -election uh otherwise she was up for re -election in july 2022 last year and ordered a complete review at the suggestion of a prosecutor who's working in basically the sentencing reduction or wrongful convictions unit under her uh complete review of this case because they were approached by the defense in Innocence Project lawyers who asked them if they could review for the possibility of under the juvenile restoration act which would essentially kind of get to what you were just talking about the idea that this man served his time he committed this offense when he was a minor and he killed a minor but law allows anybody who served 20 years already to seek a sentencing reduction so you

0:04:49 Matt: Know worst case yeah it makes sense right I mean brains aren't fully developed which is juvenile your 17 year old brain is very different than your 37 year old brain so

0:04:49 Thomas: Agree with that yeah yeah absolutely who knows how how many murders I committed back then. I probably zero, but

0:05:03 Matt: Let's hope uh it that's that how this all kicked off was because they were seeking this the sentencing so this is actually something that could have happened in the alternative is he could have just been released naturally because his he'd done his 20 years but becky uh feldman and marilyn mosby's office started reviewing this and decided that she came up with a couple of things that had not been turned over in the original case and that That, of course, would be a Brady violation. I'm sure we're somewhat familiar with Brady, but essentially just evidence that was suppressed, that the prosecution withheld, essentially, that would have made a difference.

0:05:30 Thomas: Cause in criminal law you have, the state has like the obligation to share any evidence that might, you help the other side. Right.

0:05:37 Matt: Serious consequences if you don't. And I'm all about, I mean, obviously, any given Brady violation, if it's a real Brady violation that should be the end of the trial, the endoftheconviction.

0:05:44 Thomas: Absolutely. I think I said

0:05:46 Matt: That's easy.

0:05:46 Thomas: That at the time too. And I, this was a Brady violation, then yeah, sure. He should get out on that anyway. Like I, that's all fine. I'd still doesn't change the truth of the matter that he definitely did. Anyway.

0:05:56 Matt: Well, we really should, just before we go any further, separate out factual guilt, which I think we both agree is very strong here from the legal questions which is what we're talking about in this appeal and is a lower brain thing we have to do but I'm just going to be referring to these things but in the back of our minds I think we both understand the facts are pretty overwhelming

0:06:13 Thomas: And at least 17% of the listening audience will maybe agree with us. So that's where we'll Swiss

0:06:17 Matt: The rest might have already destroyed their podcasting devices but yeah but uh just give us a chance just give going with this. The Brady evidence that the state's attorney believes they found were a couple of handwritten notes. And these were call summaries, basically, that a prosecutor had someone who was reporting information on the case, not too long before the trial started, actually. Is, consider this note, especially now that I've seen the whole thing. Now, the whole think is actually available, and we'll post a link to it. But it was actually shared by the man who wrote it because he was so concerned about the way it was being used

0:06:20 Thomas: They've already smashed their iPod touch. Hmm

0:06:53 Matt: Because out of context it sounds pretty bad when you're when you've got someone saying that he would make a teenage girl disappear he would kill her that's not a direct quote but that's that was what the man wrote down the prosecutor from what he was being told was that there was somebody out there who was saying that he wouldn't kill her and that he was going to make him and later disappear and he would killer yeah

0:07:08 Thomas: And this okay so now I'm remembering so this was a note that there was another suspect like this is like allegedly there's some mystery suspect who had said this about hayman lee

0:07:19 Matt: And then when you look at the actual note and I'm going to read a bit of it into the record here because I honestly you're I'm gonna say this a number of times throughout this episode here but I think this this was botched beyond on beyond all belief by by the prosecution and were trying to do a good thing but they really I okay let me

0:07:31 Thomas: 100 because by the way I think when I looked in when this happened when this was announced I don't think this was available because I looked everywhere I I don't think I've seen this. I think we were still waiting. Oh, man. Okay. I'm excited for this.

0:07:40 Matt: It wasn't yeah this came out in november a couple months after and it was never It wasn't included in the court's decision because it wasn't officially on the record, but the Attorney General's brief referenced it, so I had to go and find it. But essentially, you what you think about this. Prior to murder, Redacted was upset that the woman was creating so many problems for Adnan. He told her that he would make her disappear, he would kill her. Now, that's a new paragraph, he told her. Now, the prosecutor put a footnote on the transcription, because the original note is so hard to read that he produced a transcription along with the original so you can compare them and he put a footnote and said he refers back to and replaces the proper noun adnan it's antecedent so essentially when he's saying he told her he would make her disappear this is someone quoting adnan yes this is not a pretty issue I mean this This is, it's inculpatory.

0:08:25 Thomas: This is someone saying Adnan said that he... Oh, my God. Holy shit. That's...

0:08:35 Matt: It's really a problem.

0:08:35 Thomas: Are you kidding me?

0:08:36 Matt: No, it was really weird.

0:08:36 Thomas: Is insane. This is... Like, this is... telling you, this whole thing was designed to fuck with me, Matt. It was designed because it's so obvious. And then we get this Mosby person, I think it was, who... And I remember that was Andrew's theory at the time. And it makes sense, like had a lot of political incentive to try to like make news and just did the most ridiculous thing. It made it it made it seem like for everybody, anybody watching, it people the strong impression that there's some exonerating evidence.

0:09:04 Thomas: I don't blame people for thinking that because, again, the heuristics are, well, prosecutors or whoever, they never take back a conviction. They want people to be in jail forever like what they went back on their thing that must be pretty strong evidence and then a lot of people too were like yeah the the prosecution who worked uh convict Adnan at the time was like oh yeah we made a mistake you know all this stuff and it's like I don't, I don't think that happened, did that happen, yeah

0:09:26 Matt: No, that's just, and they never used the word exonerated. They never even said he was innocent. They just came forward and said they couldn't stand by the integrity of the conviction, which if there were real, pretty evidence, that would be true. You can't. But this is what they got. This statement, he told her he would make her disappear, he would kill her. This is the only thing that's actually really new in the motion that they brought last year. And this is what their allegedly Brady evidence was. Now, at best, this is incredibly ambiguous. Now, you could say, and this is fair to say, that the man who wrote the note, the prosecutor now, has some incentive to say that this was not Brady evidence, that this actually was totally by the book, and it was fine. He also claims it was turned over to the defense, but that's neither here nor there. We can't really prove that, because the defense attorney's been dead a long time.

0:10:04 Thomas: How does that work actually I mean I don't want to sidetrack you but like forget everything else, can you like an uh an appeal on a brady violation and then it's like well we we can't we don't know what was turned over but we think how would you how would that work yeah

0:10:16 Matt: I mean, the defense file is presumably long gone. I don't know. But that's the only way you'd know, is if it's actually in her file but the attorney general's office made the point that this was made available many times that the file was made able during the appellate process so who knows um but now I don't want to be very careful how we talk about this we're not going to name any other people because there are no official other suspects in this case and that's part of the issue with this motion um redacted in this note is it looks like we know who that is and I don't want to talk any more about it but it was essentially somebody who had been counseling adon in his relationship and so redacted was upset the woman was causing so many problems for adnan he told her he would make her disappear that makes no sense if it's your like spiritual advisor you know relationship advisor saying I'm gonna go kill her

0:10:56 Thomas: Well in order for this to be exonerating, it would have to be someone who was so mad on Adnan's behalf that he was going to kill Hay for Adnan?

0:11:09 Matt: Yes just by himself just go off and do this an adult mind you getting so mad about a teenage breakup that he's gonna jeopardize his own it's It's insane. It's actually off the rails. I had to stand up and walk around the room when I realized that this was the Brady evidence, that this is what they're actually working with, because

0:11:26 Thomas: Is that what did? Because I remember there's also the absolutely terrible DNA, whatever. So it wasn't, was it?

0:11:31 Matt: There's a reason. That's not mentioned, for a good reason.

0:11:33 Thomas: Sorry. Where are we now? I've lost it. Is this in the original getting rid of the conviction or whatever? Whatever.

0:11:39 Matt: We're talking about the motion to vacate, which they didn't have. So they had done DNA. They mentioned the original motion to vacate, which frankly isn't that great, that the DNA test was inconclusive. And that makes sense, because DNA was done completely differently back then. I don't even know how much they did at the time, but we can get a lot more out of samples now.

0:11:40 Thomas: Emotional vacay. Yeah.

0:11:57 Matt: But that evidence was not being preserved in a way that it was going to be DNA tested necessarily. And the only thing they were able to get conclusive DNA out of at all, it sounded like, were her shoes, which is not the first place I'd look for a murderer's DNA.

0:11:57 Thomas: Yeah, so that was my memory of this. So, because what we first got was, man, how did this go? Because I remember there was something where they announced, like, if if we either find that it's not a match or that it is inconclusive, we are going to let him go, right? Wasn't it something like that?

0:12:23 Matt: The court has some things to say about that in a footnote. They have some pretty salty footnotes all the way through this. But yeah, she said that she intended to certify find that he was innocent unless his dna was found on the items right so

0:12:27 Thomas: I bet. Yes. Yeah and And so that was what drove me nuts. I went, I, telling you, Matt, I went through so much trying to find what fucking pair of shoes this was. And I'll talk about someday because it's actually not, maybe it'll be clear now, like maybe they've released more, but back at the time when this first came out, it wasn't clear because there was a pair of shoes. I don't know whose it was. She had two pairs of shoes because she had like a, know, a practice I or something. She had some, whatever, in her car, she Had another pair of shoes. It didn't tell me which pair of shoes there were. It was impossible to figure out. And in the end, the exonerating evidence for Adnan was his DNA wasn't on a pair of shoes.

0:13:06 Thomas: Was just imagine for any other case, any other case, if you had a suspect and they're like, well, his DNA was not on these shoes that may have just been in, by the way, in the back of the car that she'd taken off to change for the next thing she was doing. His DNA wasn'T on those shoes. Well, free to go completely.

0:13:06 Matt: I can't call that exonerating

0:13:24 Thomas: Completely, there's no way a murderer's DNA could not be on shoes that are in the car that might not even been the ones she was wearing, by the way.

0:13:31 Matt: It's it's insulting to the idea of exoneration frankly uh of my career I have worked with no number of people who have been actually wrongfully convicted and it is it's really a kind of a nightmare for everybody involved to deal with someone who's wrongfully convicted because you know for sure they're not supposed to be there and I work obviously very hard in all of my cases but there's something, there's an extra push when somebody is just begging you to do something because they're sitting there for no reason exoneration in my mind is we tested this and there's someone else's DNA on here that we can match to the scene that we could have been there it's not that there's just potentially maybe some other DNA there might be some other suspects, one of the nutty things about this motion that they mention is that there are a couple of suspects, but they haven't done anything about it. They're allegedly in the middle of investigating, but they filed this motion while they're in the middle of an investigation, whether it may or may not be suspects. I mean, it's just, and what they mentioned about the suspects is certainly not very compelling. It really makes you think they don't care about the finality of this at all. But just to get back to the history very quickly. So they're reviewing this two months before the primary. She's under indictment at the

0:13:46 Thomas: Is, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.

0:14:30 Matt: Time because she's committed a number of, or allegedly committed excuse me a number of covet related uh financial crimes and so she's coincidentally or not digging into the most famous murder in maryland two months before her primary she loses that primary in july of 2022 and the motion to vacate is filed in september 14th of 2022 so this is a couple months after she loses her primary my theory on this just for what it's worth is that you've got somebody who's under indictment who's on their way out basically in disgrace grace, and just as kind of a last blaze of glory, this is her opportunity to reopen the podcast murder, the one that everybody's heard of.

0:15:04 Matt: And I mean, I think it really is that cynical. I'm sorry to have to say that, and Twitter's not going to be happy with me, but I really think that's my read on it, because the way this was done, and let's get into the actual day-to-day and how this happened in September, because I've never heard of anything like this. I do a lot of post-conviction work. And post-conviction work is slow, it's methodical, it takes a long time. Just getting a hearing on a post - conviction motion can take months. And And it's something that everybody involved takes very seriously, because you're talking maybe potentially about overturning a jury verdict, something that a jury worked very hard after hearing a lot of evidence. And sometimes jury verdicts are wrong. I'm not saying this, I've certainly seen it. You have to be able to come correct and prove that if you're going to step up and do that. So that makes this all the stranger when you have the prosecution looking to overturn a jury verdict and they make this decision on I believe the 12th, yes, on the 12th of september 2022 now they do call young lee I'm going to mention a few times that's hae min lee's brother and he's the representative of the family at this point and becky feldman calls him and says look we're going to file this motion to vacate here's a little bit of what's in it calls again the next day reviews it a little bit more. He says later he doesn't really understand what this is about, but

0:16:15 Matt: This is on the 12th of September. She goes in and files it two days later, on the 14th of September, a motion to vacate in a murder case after giving the victim just that much notice. We're up to, I believe, Wednesday now. That was a Monday. Then on Friday, she goes in for a lobby conference, which is an off -the -record in -chambers meeting with the judge where we don't know what happened, lets him know after that, and this is where it really gets wild, after this meeting on a Friday day with the judge, they schedule a hearing on this motion for them that Monday, the next business day. So we're talking essentially about a week between the time that the victim was found out, victim's representative.

0:16:48 Thomas: Matt, let me tell you from recent experience, legal system usually takes a really fucking long time to do anything. Thing.

0:16:55 Matt: Yeah, you'd know. You would know. Imagine, I mean, this is a murder conviction. And this is the kind of thing, okay, again, Again, if they actually had come up with the DNA of a known serial killer on those shoes, then I'd understand that. That makes sense.

0:17:09 Thomas: That had no explanation for how it was there at all. Yeah a hundred percent. That'd be awesome. I'd be like this is you're a hero.

0:17:14 Matt: It through. And that, you push, you get the Monday hearing, you get it done as soon as possible. But when all you have is this weak tea.

0:17:22 Thomas: Yeah and let's be real that wouldn't happen. Like in your average case if it weren't Adnan you'd have somebody you to rights who definitely did it who wasn't in jail and then you know Scalia would tell you like yeah it doesn't matter. Who cares? That's what would really happen if this weren't a famous podcast case yeah

0:17:34 Matt: But it's power of the podcast. Absolutely. Absolutely. So again, imagine being in the situation where your sister has been strangled to death. That is how she died. It's a terrible thing in this very brutal personal way. You've been living with it the last 23 years, basically believing that the right guy's in prison, right? And then you get a call out of nowhere from this prosecutor who's been looking into this, who says, I'm going to file a motion in a couple of days here. Just want to let you know that we're going to be completely vacating everything that you thought was true, and he's probably going to get it out oh sure

0:18:08 Thomas: Well that's stating it very lightly matt imagine having to live through this podcast phenomenon where every person in the world thinks somehow the murderer didn't do it and then the one thing maybe you could hang on to was like well at least the justice system fucking once got it right nope now that's been taken away

0:18:17 Matt: The jury got it yeah no I I've actually I've tried to think about what that would be like to have everybody in the world know about your sister's murder and about the level of detail

0:18:25 Thomas: It's it's impossible yeah I'll be honest that's that's why I get so mad about it like I get so upset I know it's just one case you as you say we all get obsessed with it but it bothers me so much that so many people are convinced of something that isn't true and imagine having to live through that as a as the victim's family like it that is just mind that is truly you know Twilight Zone Black Mirror-esque crap like to just have to try to live with that yeah

0:18:50 Matt: And it's it's something that I really hope listeners are thinking about as they're thinking about this because we got to get outside of the puzzle box mentality and I the true crime industry has really done terrible things for victims um is not a game and I will say the prosecutors here were treating it like a game because they file this motion and then they ask for a hearing that monday after after having this conference with the judge on friday this is what you're saying here is essentially we know what the outcome is going to be there's no reason to have a real hearing and remember that both parties agree this is unusual that both the prosecution and the defense agreed that the judgment should be vacated that he should be released but that's not a guarantee the statute that they're working under here just says that the judge may uh the conviction upon motion. We have to hear something. We have to see that there's a reason to. I mean, there's always a chance that both parties have lost their minds, which did kind of happen here, I think.

0:19:36 Matt: So you have to have a judge actually sign off on this. So would expect at that point that maybe, I don't know, for example, you might include a copy of the note. That would be something you might want to show the judge. They didn't do that.

0:19:35 Thomas: Apparently yeah well again and this is blowing my mind again it's just based on this note because you they They talked about the DNA, but as far as we're concerned, paperwork, legal appeal, whatever wise, it's just on the basis of this note and it being a Brady violation.

0:19:59 Matt: Yeah, they also rehash a lot of other stuff that's already been covered in his prior appeals that they think is still relevant, and basis of the motion is actually kind of fuzzy. It's hard to tell because they have the right to bring it this statute. And I should mention, this statute was actually passed because Maryland law enforcement was so corrupt that there's a bunch of really bad convictions. This is a very special statute that was passed in part to allow the prosecution to bring these motions for this purpose. So I'm very sympathetic to that. That's something that's important. -301.1 in Maryland allows the court to may vacate the judgment on grounds of one, newly discovered evidence, which would have made a difference, or two, the state's attorney has received new information, which calls into question the justice of the conviction. Neither of these things are really that, because this is not newly discovered evidence. This is something that they had since January 2000, and there's no real clear here for Brady violation. It's a little complicated, but it's not really clear, even though they're relying on the second prong here, kind of shoehorning this all in. So this is in conflict with the Victim's Notice Statute, which requires that When this kind of motion goes to a hearing, that before that hearing, the victim or victim's representative shall be notified that they have a right to attend, etc., etc. And notably, in 2013, they amended that statute to say that if the victims aren't properly notified, that there there should be a remedy. It doesn't

0:21:12 Matt: Say what that remedy is, and we'll get to that, but there should be some way to fix it because we can't just have a right without a remedy, it's pretty classic legal stuff. So the reason I mention all of this is because, again, have this man in California who wants to attend a hearing in Maryland, and he tells the prosecutor he wants to attend, and she lets him know that he can attend by Zoom, which is, this is, it gets really interesting, this an issue I've been dealing with a lot in my practice about when is somebody actually present? And how much does Zoom count for presence? Rather than travel from California last minute, which is very hard to do, as you would know, to come from California, Baltimore, he chooses to appear by Zoom because that's all he can do.

0:21:45 Matt: And it's incredibly last minute. He's actually at work when the hearing is going on. He rushes home, and he has 30 minutes basically to put together something to say. He hasn't had time to think about it. I want to read in just a bit of what he does say, because I thought it was pretty touching, and I think it's here. This is from Young Lee. Your and every day when I think it's over, when I look and think it over, or it's ended, it's over, it always comes back. And it's not just me. It's killing me and my mother. It is really tough just to go through this again and again and again. I believe in the justice system, the court, the state. I believe they did a fine job of prosecuting Mr. Syed. And I believe the judge did make the right decision. But just going through it again, it is living a nightmare over and and over again. It's tough. And I'm not. Like I said before, I trust the court system. I trust the justice system. It was kind of blindsided. I always thought the state was on my side, you know. But I just don't know where I hear there's a motion to vacate judgment. I thought honestly, I felt honestly betrayed. I keep thinking to myself, why is the state doing this? And I am not against an investigation or anything of that sort that Ms. Feldman is doing. I am not against it at all. The motion to vaccate judgment, it's really tough for me to swallow, especially because I am NOT an expert in legal matters or law or anything like that. But I ask you just to make the right decision that you see this motion I feel it's unfair especially for my family just to live through it all and knowing that there's somebody out there just free of killing my sister it's tough he goes on just a little more but I really wanted to make sure to get those words in there because that's what he was able to come up with on very short notice

0:21:52 Thomas: Holy crap. Yeah.

0:23:05 Matt: And I think that's very affecting you can imagine you know the rawness of that because he's just trying to do his best having just found out this is going to happen and this whole case really shows why notice is so important for these things because he actually did have time to get his own lawyer who's representing him. The first thing his lawyer did at this hearing on this Monday the 19th ask for seven days. That's all. Just a seven -day continuance so this man can actually fly out and attend because they're all appearing in person. He's making the point my client should be able to appear in person too. And will tell you that if they had just granted those seven days, I think we wouldn't be talking about this. I think this would have actually worked out for Adnan. But they had to rush it because they were on a schedule and they had a press conference planned that day, and they weren't about to cancel their press conference, and they weren'T about to cancel their plans. I mean, it really is that craven. You can tell from the opinion it's that obvious. They make a real point of saying that it's very unusual that he would just be released immediately to his press conference. They put on a GPS bracelet and didn't even set it up because they're in such a hurry. They just let him out. Never happens.

0:23:48 Thomas: Holy shit. And this, and this is the recent this is a judge saying, this isn't somebody like with an ax to grind or something. This is like just appeals court being like, what the fuck?

0:24:09 Matt: Just straight up this it's clearly unusual then they don't really even comment on it they just mention it and this is an 85 page decision from the from the appeals court because they know how much attention this case is getting and they are really supposed to be looking at one question which is was it appropriate for the trial Judge not to continue knew the case, and just to allow this very quick Zoom appearance, is that enough participation? That was the only thing they're supposed to be reviewing. But in this 85 -page decision, they're essentially going through and explaining exactly why they think Adnan said is guilty, and they're going through it and explaining Exactly What They Want to Happen, which I'll talk about.

0:24:40 Thomas: It's almost like they're like, look, we were on vacation in Scotland, and this shit happens and we couldn't, we just couldn't put it down, I know we're not supposed to be thinking about this right now yeah it's

0:24:49 Matt: They got the same bug you did. It just got in their heads.

0:24:50 Thomas: It's fucking you insane you really okay

0:24:53 Matt: Yeah one very notable thing from that hearing was that the court ruled specifically just get your head around this there's no requirement that the notice to the victim's representative be reasonable so it can just be notice you could give them like five minutes notice apparently which would be completely unreasonable and so because it just says notice in the statute they're like well whatever he was given notice he can appear and it's 2023 2022 he he can appear by Zoom, right? And that's enough. That is an open question, again, when everybody else isn't appearing by Zoom. They wrap up this thing, they have their press conference, and then there is an interesting little war between the Attorney General's office and the State's Attorney's office, because the State Attorney has just rushed this thing through, they are essentially saying that the Attorney general's office and the prosecutor who is now there, who was working at the State attorney's office before, withheld this evidence. So the Attorney General makes a very unusual statement against the State Attorney.

0:25:05 Thomas: What wow wow wow

0:25:44 Matt: Other serious serious problems with the motion to vacate the allegations relating to brady violations are incorrect neither the state's attorney must be nor anyone from our office bothered to consult with either the assistant state's journey who prosecuted the case or anyone in my office regarding these alleged violations the file in this case was made available on several occasions to the defense so that's quite a statement to say that your fellow government you know public servant did not bother to consult you that's just putting it all out in the open um

0:26:10 Thomas: So they're saying we did we did provide this there is no brady violation because this note was was available yeah

0:26:15 Matt: And And you never asked even the guy who wrote it what it meant, which is pretty important in this case because it's extremely ambiguous. You'd think you'd want to know what he was working with. Responded, I think Attorney General Brian Frosch needs to speak with his office willful decision to sit on exculpatory evidence for the last seven years. This is just heating up, basically. Has to defend this. But now this is a real why are you hitting yourself moment here. Inability to uphold this fundamental obligation denied Mr. Syed his right to a fair trial, and now forces a family to relive an unimaginable nightmare because of his unconscionable misdeeds. Quite a statement. Unconsionable misdeed is of having a file, basically. Going to get weirder, because we've just had a fly -by -night hearing, essentially, after a quick off -the -record meeting. We've had this Monday hearing, absolute last notice, and is a very strange procedural posture because the case has been vacated and that means it's back on the trial docket which means they have 30 days to figure out if they're going to file file a nullpros which was canceling the case basically just killing it or if they 'Re actually going to go through with another trial which is going to be very hard to do 23 years later but possible so

0:27:15 Thomas: Or you know if they're gonna go after one one of the many other uh that definitely yeah

0:27:20 Matt: The yeah yeah So this is a really strange thing. I mean, it's unusual. So many of these things have just never really happened before, and just a combination of circumstances.

0:27:28 Thomas: Well right away forget everything else it's hell of a decision just no matter what to be like all right are we gonna try to re -prosecute someone from a decades old thing like I don't know our witness is still alive are they still gonna talk to us are this you know could that even be a a real trial is that you know like forget that it's adnan say it's anybody else like I don'T KNOW HOW WELL YOU COULD CONDUCT A TRIAL with those constraints mm

0:27:41 Matt: It is really hard to do. I do a lot of post -conviction work to try to dispose of cases from the late 90s, early 2000s, around this era, and they are much more of an uphill battle because the court knows that if they reopen this case, they are killing it. That is the end of the case. He is going to be essentially acquitted. That is what is goingto happen. Happen. Young Lee appeals the decision. Now, this is a very strange thing if you think about the standing here, because he's not a party to the case. He's a victim's representative. But the statute allows this, allows the victim to step in and have standing in certain cases if the victim's rights have been trampled on. So when a right secured to the victim, I should say, is denied. So he files along with the appeal, he files a stay request, essentially saying, I want you to make sure that you don't let her null -prost this in the meantime, because a But a nullpros, nullprosc, he essentially is just dropping the case. That's the colloquial for that.

0:28:34 Thomas: And then it's like then it is done right is that like final final can't

0:28:38 Matt: Would be. Well, that's an open question here, too. I'll get to that.

0:28:41 Thomas: That's true who hell knows with

0:28:42 Matt: Should be, but this is, again, we're just off the rails into another territory here. So he's requesting a stay because he suspects that she's going to nullprost the case, and that would effectively kill his appeal. That's on the 29th of September. The 5th of December, he reiterates this to the appeals court, and he says, seriously, I really want this to stay, because I think she's about to null -pros it, because they've been talking about this DNA. She essentially made this statement about how if we don't find his DNA on these shoes or anything else we're testing, then we're going to actually null -pos it.

0:28:52 Thomas: This yeah yeah

0:29:11 Matt: No, it gets even crazier, because on the 5th, on the 7th, they get the DNA test back, and on the 11th, she files this null pros. Now, the Attorney General's office filed a brief in this case, which is pretty angry. It's hard. No other way to put it. It's pretty out there. They are making their points and they want to be heard. They're making this in response to a motion to remove the attorney general's office from the case because they expressed some opinions about this, some of the stuff I read you before. I just want to read you from this brief because this is something really to consider. Just one more way the victim was not heard here. It is unclear how early in the morning Ms. Mosby called Mr. Lee's attorney, but at most, Mr. Mosbye gave counsel only an hour or two to notify his client the charges against the man whom he believed strangled his sister were going to be dismissed. Given that Mr. Lee lives in California, Mr. Lee's attorney would have had to deliver this news at six in the morning. At that same press conference, when asked about the victim's appeal, Ms. Mosby said, I've utilized my power and discretion to dismiss the case. There is no more appeal. It's moot. When told the victim's family learned of the dismissal in the media and pressed about her office's treatment of the Lee family, she attacked his attorney. I think it's unfortunate, you know, that you have certain attorneys that try to exploit families. I think that's what's happening in this case.

0:29:06 Thomas: It's what yeah

0:30:17 Matt: It's bad. It gets worse. Then she said, why would I wait just so that I could appease someone who doesn't appear to be, and I'm not talking about the family, I'm talking about the attorney, doesn't appear to be appeased. Really bad. That's condescending. It's saying essentially that, what's wrong with you? Why can't you just accept this? And I've never been in this situation. I hope I never am. I don't know how I would respond if I had a loved one who was killed. I do not know what it would do to me. But you can tell all these people are in pain and that they want answers and they want finality on it. This is not the right way to respond to them, apart from anything else, just to this very condescending kind of like, well, I guess some people just never be happy. Basically what she's saying. She's filed this nolpros and the appeals court has to decide whether or not her basically killing the case in the middle of their appeal should moot it, should keep the case from going forward on appeal. And they find that it shouldn't. They find that because they say that this entire motion to vacate, the way it was handled, was so bad that it was void ab initio, essentially, right? It was void from the beginning.

0:31:12 Matt: So, if you...

0:31:12 Thomas: My favorite Harry Potter law crossover Lord have an issue yeah

0:31:17 Matt: It really does sound like one. Why there's no double jeopardy because they're saying if the original decision was wrong, the null process was wrong. Then, essentially this this conviction should have stood from the beginning, and that's why they reinstated

0:31:27 Thomas: We're just going to like pretend nothing happened because this was so fucking stupid. Is

0:31:28 Matt: It. Yeah, basically, that's the one. Remember, the nullpros is not an acquittal. I want to make that point. A nullpros is a nullpros. It's just saying, for whatever reason, we can't go forward on this case.

0:31:39 Thomas: Yeah, we don't think we could do it. That doesn't mean someone's not guilty. How would you prove, you know, decades later, it's going to be really hard. Is that even worthwhile? Also, again, considering he has served a lot of time, is that something that's really in anyone's interest? So that's far from exoneration.

0:31:55 Matt: And I've seen the word exonerated used a lot here, and it's giving me that same kind of feeling you've been talking about, because to me, exoneration has a very specific meaning and it's not this, so basically

0:32:05 Thomas: I mean it's not that someone's DNA wasn't on a pair of shoes? That's not exoneration? We all know if you murder someone, it's 100% chance that your DNA is on every pair of shoes that's there. Like the ones that she's wearing, the ones they're in the car. And if you don't find it, you've logically proven there's no way.

0:32:09 Matt: Yeah kind of spitting serial killer I guess he just spits on everything I don't know but um now there's more in the major motion vacate as well I'm really glossing over but effectively and sarah candidate said as much in her follow -up episode that she did uh only really new thing that's presented in this entire motion is that one statement which it turns out is probably inculpatory so Yeah. The nullpros entered under the circumstances of this case violated Mr. Lee's right to be treated with dignity and respect. That's quite a finding from the court. It gives the state a mechanism to insulate a defective proceeding from appellate review. So they're saying essentially don't recognize the nullpros, not having it. Then the question turns to the actual thing before the court, which is whether it was sufficient to allow him to appear by Zoom. They said essentially that they can't require somebody to appear remotely if everybody else gets to appear in person, that that's not fair. Now, there's not a lot of guidance to go on because it's a reasonably new statute, and the statute itself just says the word notice, But is what the court did here, and what indisputably was or should have been an evidentiary hearing. That should have been is in parentheses, and that is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Is what the court did here and what indisputably was or should have been an evidentiary hearing. I just want to read that again. So that is some serious shade, saying what should

0:33:28 Matt: Have been. And again, I cannot stress enough how unusual this is. In a motion to vacate, even if it's being brought by the state, evidence was presented. They just summarized what they'd seen, and they didn't put anybody in the stand. They didn't introduce any documents on the record. Didn't have any big bombshell that was actually revealed. They just said, we don't want this to happen anymore. That's not enough. They get this 85-page decision back from the appeals court because of that. And I have to say, I agree with it after reading it carefully. I did not expect the roller coaster ride I was on when I started this decision, but there's really a lot going on.

0:33:59 Thomas: What's weird to me is it sounds like, letter of the law, to me, or I would have thought that there's nothing anyone could do here. Because, like, you've got the people who apparently are vested with this power who are just like, yeah, we're just letting them out. And kind of confused as to how this could even happen because, yes, you have to provide notice, but they technically did and et cetera, et cetera. I was really expecting this just to be a technicality that would be fixed in a second and it would all go back to him going on being free. But it's sounding from what you're saying that they do. Is there some legal reason they have the power to like, well, we're going to take a look at how stupid this all was while we're here. Is that—you know what I mean? Like, OK, that's yeah, that'S kind of what I was thinking.

0:34:38 Matt: It's dicta, it's basically 83 pages of this is dicta, uh, essentially you know it's which you know as you know is just kind of commentary it's just kind of here's some things that we noticed out of all of this, but they're sending an extremely clear message to the lower court, and they're saying essentially if you don't do a proper hearing, if this comes back in front of us, we expect that we're going to have seen that you're going to do something that looks like the law, and not just this kind of fly-by-night thing you were doing.

0:35:05 Matt: The what's-next part of this is a lot more interesting than I thought it was going to be. So I'm going to read you the actual order, the thing that they're telling the lower court to do. Therefore, we vacate the circuit court's order vacating Mr. Syed's conviction and sentence, which results in the reinstatement of the original convictions and sentence. We remand for a new, legally compliant, transparent hearing on the motion to vacate, where Mr. Lee is given notice of the hearing sufficient to allow him to attend in person, evidence supporting the motion to vacate is presented, and the court states its reasons in support of its decision, which they also didn't do, so just a complete do -over now why does that matter? Because essentially they could present the same motion well

0:35:41 Thomas: Well is Mosby gone though she's gone

0:35:43 Matt: Gone it's the same people so she is gone and Becky Feldman, the prosecutor who's really spearheading this, is also gone because Ivan Bates has taken over and he has experience as both a defense attorney attorney, and a prosecutor. He seems somewhat more moderate. And he has said that he would not appeal it if the to motion vacate were granted again. But that's all he said.

0:36:02 Matt: So he doesn't have any obligation whatsoever to bring that same motion. And in fact, I don't think he will. I don't think he can after this order.

0:36:01 Thomas: Interesting well yeah because you'd have to put your name to it right I mean that would be you being like all right I'm gonna do the same stupid thing they did for some reason wow

0:36:15 Matt: And now it's all going to be out in the open. And this note, if that's what you're willing to rely on, yeah, no. So So I think

0:36:18 Thomas: Attention on it yeah oh shit yeah I see what you mean wow

0:36:22 Matt: That Adnan Syed might really be facing an actual reconviction, like straight up. I think this might be final. Because they didn't give the guy seven days to show up in court, all they had to do was listen. Just listen to the guy when he said, I'd like to be heard. I'd love to hear from you. I'd really like to have a chance to actually sit down and think about this before you plunge on, right?

0:36:26 Thomas: That's crazy right and to I think I want make something clear because because it's say we thought Adnan was innocent. It's not the case, that this means like, oh, well, because of this technicality, that means the innocent person will have to rot in prison forever. If he was really innocent, and there was good evidence to do this, then you would expect the person who replaced Mosby, and everybody you just talked about, would just do it again, right? And then they would be like, okay, we'll do it correctly, we'll give the notice, we will provide the actual evidence, because it is an evidentiary hearing, and then it'll be fine, right?

0:37:09 Thomas: I just want to make very clear that people listening don't think like, oh, so he really is innocent, but he's only going to stay, you know, the conviction only stand because of some minor technicality. It's like, no, it's—in broad strokes, let me know if I have this right. Mosby and whoever did a really stupid, shitty thing. And then there was a bit of grounds to appeal it based on this notice thing, and that's sort of like the—don't want to say excuse, but like that's like the grounds on which to say hey, you need to go redo this essentially and do it right. But the real reason that he might stay convicted is you didn't do it, because it's bullshit, like if you had to do the thing correctly, you could just—they could just redo it. Okay.

0:37:09 Matt: You would think, but that would require evidence.

0:37:47 Matt: I have to think if this were DNA evidence that were absolutely getting us to another suspect, this might have gone a little differently.

0:37:52 Thomas: Well, they just redo it.

0:37:54 Matt: Could have a flash hearing. It could be very quick and easy. But I think that everybody involved has to be very concerned at this point that the state doesn't want to look stupid and the defense very much wants this thing to be upheld. It's already been reversed. It's complicated because, again, we have to listen to victims, but we have to make sure that they don't interfere with the process either. And that the due process is complete with everybody. And I do want to give the counterpoint, which is in the amicus brief filed by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. And I think they make a very good point, and it's something I've been thinking about as well. I'll start with, this is actually in the appeal from the defense lawyer. Victims do not prosecute charges. They do not decide which witnesses to call. They do not cross-examine those witnesses. Giving appellant what he wants will not just result in the re-imprisonment of Syed for a crime he did not commit, it will wreak havoc on our criminal justice system. So that's from the defense side, saying essentially that if every victim was allowed to participate

0:38:43 Matt: To this degree, then we'd have a giant wrench in everything. But I find this to be a little more compelling from the NACDL. Vacatur, which is what we call it when you vacate a case, is a limited proceeding where a victim's allocution has no bearing on the key issue of whether newly discovered evidence calls into question the integrity of the conviction. By contrast, sentencing is a holistic inquiry. The victim's right to be heard has long been recognized as an important part of that inquiry. So essentially saying that there's a time and a place for victims to be heard, and it's not necessarily at a motion to vacate hearing. And I have to agree with that, because a motion to vacate is being brought on legal or factual grounds that don't have anything to do with the victim usually.

0:39:19 Matt: It's not really the time to hear from their opinion, and I have to agree with it. But at the same time, he was asking to be heard, and the court actually did find against him to this degree, and said you don't actually have a right to be heard. You have a right to be there. But the judge in this case was kind enough, and I think appropriately, allowed you to be heard for a few minutes to make sure that your position was on the record. But that's not a strict legal requirement. It's just that you were denied your chance to be there in person. So I do have to agree that there is a time and place for victims to be heard, and that is at sentencing for the most part.

0:39:40 Thomas: Interesting. Mm-hmm.

0:39:50 Matt: Any other time that there's a victim impact, it's going to be available. But I don't know. This is such a mess. There's no no other way to say it and I I can't disagree with this outcome at all when you look at the whole picture, and wouldn't have disagreed if they'd just given him the Juvenile Restoration Act reduction if they just allowed him not you know as we talked about up front but

0:39:56 Thomas: It really is. Yeah yeah. Mm hmm. Of Um, do you want to offer any kind of predictions, or is there a timeline, at least, people can be keeping an eye out for? When will we know, you know, if you're predicting that maybe this conviction will just kind of stand, when will we know that?

0:40:20 Matt: It's going to be a while, because he's certainly going to appeal. So he can appeal this to the Supreme Court of Maryland, which I'm sure he will. I don't know why he wouldn't. And assuming that they agree with this court, it, which I have to think they would, it'll be sent back for the full hearing that's been demanded, and that will be news when that happens, because who knows what happens at that point. I really don't even want to predict what's going to happen there. We do know is it will be a full hearing, and it'll been everything that it wasn't before. So that's at least something to look forward to.

0:40:48 Thomas: Is there a chance—so you talked about this new guy that's in there that's going to be possibly making that decision? He could just still do it, right? But just come up with some other grounds, or maybe, you know, who knows if there's like the popular kind of outcry about this. Maybe he would, I don't know, make a similar decision, or could he do it based on reasoning of like, all right, this guy's been in prison long enough. Or is there specific requirements that he has to fulfill in doing this thing?

0:41:14 Matt: He has to, because right now, this is a conviction from a jury verdict, and you can't just nullpros that. You have to get it reopened first, which is what happened before. So he's got to come in with something that looks like a very thorough case at this point. It's what he's been demanded to do. So I don't see it with the evidence that's here. I don't see it with the sort of cloud of suspicion and everything else that's been put around by the industry that sprung up around this case. Nothing has compelled me to think that the fundamental facts of this case don't still support a guilty finding.

0:41:41 Thomas: That. Well, we'll keep an eye out. Thanks for the breakdown. Wow. That is not what I expected at all. I Well, that was great. We, we were so much younger then and we wore bell bottoms and our hair was long and all that stuff. Okay. Where, how do we want to begin? Where are we now?

0:41:57 Matt: But A lot happened since the time that we recorded, because a few things happened between then and what we're going to talk about now. First of all, Marilyn Mosby, as we were talking about just a moment ago here, was up for federal charges at the time we were recording, and she actually since that time was convicted on two separate federal cases.

0:42:11 Thomas: Way.

0:42:12 Matt: One of them was for lying on a mortgage application, which honestly was a very dinky case. The other one was a lot worse. It was for lying about financial hardship during COVID so that she could withdraw tax-free from a special deferred compensation fund. She was receiving her full salary of $274,000, but still thought that she could go ahead and apply for this, even though it was supposed to be for people who had been out of work or furloughed during COVID. So that was pretty bad. For an elected DA, that's especially bad. I understand the pushback about how she wasn't up for re-election at that point. She already lost the primary, but this is the last thing that she was going to do in her career. She knew she was done as a lawyer at that point. So why not go out strong, right? That makes sense to me that you would do that. And that's how you're going to be remembered. So one other thing is that Sarah Candid came out a couple weeks ago and said that she really did not want people to be doing what they did with Serial. And I think this is an important thing to note for those who to Serial and thought they got the whole picture. She said that she feels bad, that she basically created true crime podcasts as we know them, and that she never meant to put out a puzzle, that's the way she put it. In fact, in the episode here I referred to a puzzle box, which is the way that it seems to have been presented to some people, who thought they were getting like a complete package of information that they could sort through and come to their own conclusions, and that's just not how it was ever supposed to be, that

0:43:15 Thomas: I disagree with her on that, because not only did they do the podcast, but they had the website back in the day, hey, go to the Serial website and you can see the evidence that we've seen and here's the maps and here'S the whatever like sure she can say that now um also I it's what's done is done I don't know that there's that much of a different way she could have presented it I mean, short of just not doing it, um, would have prevented people from doing this. People, people very clearly seem to want and like to do this kind of thing. And the, of her podcast, maybe, um. Not regardless of, of her, of, uh, of the podcast, but regardless of precisely how she did it, like had she packaged it a little different, I don't know that would have changed anything, because people want to go do their online sleuthing. It's fun. I don't, I—I don't even really blame people. It's like, it's—it's a hard thing to not want to do.

0:43:59 Matt: It's, uh, you also don't have the complete picture. There was a six-week jury trial, and honestly, if I were her, the thing I would really regret is giving Adnan Saeed that much time. I should also note, we were saying Saeed all the way through. Having now listened to him talk, I realized he pronounces his name Saeed, so I'm going to do my best to pronounce it that way. I don't think that she did it that way during the show. Maybe he's changed it recently. But it's his own words, so I want to make sure to honor the way he pronounces his own name. He was given a lot of airtime on the podcast, and that was the thing that I thought was the most inappropriate, because again, hold out the possibility that this person actually viciously strangled his girlfriend to death, and then has been lying about it for all of these years. That's a pretty terrible thing to do, to give him a platform like that. So, what—on the 30th, the Supreme Court of Maryland came down to a 4-3 decision, which we're going to go through now, and they reinstated the conviction pretty much along the lines of exactly what I said was going to happen. I'm not sure how else to say that.

0:44:49 Matt: I was really looking at their commentators at the time. I don't know who was predicting what, but it seemed very clear to me that they were going to uphold the appeals court, because what the appeals court had done was so reasonable. And you've just heard the complete discussion of that, and we won't rehash. But let's talk about how this came down and how it differs from the appeals court's. There's some interesting places here. So first of all, this whole thing, just like in the previous decision, it comes down to two things. There is the victims' rights statute in Maryland, and there is the effect of the NOLPRAS. So let's just go through these one at a time. I'm going to start with the victims rights, because that's where they begin. And they go through a very detailed history of victims' rates. It's almost actually a good little history lesson and something I hadn't really considered because this isn't my sort of specialty. Victim's rights are a very narrow specialty because they're not really criminal defense and they're not

0:44:46 Thomas: Fascinating yeah yeah hmm yeah

0:45:28 Matt: Really civil. They're just kind of an interesting in between thing. In American history, and as in common law countries everywhere, victim's rights were a private matter and you could bring a private prosecution against someone who had wronged you. And that was the default, is that you would pay someone and you would get an investigation going. By the end of the thing, you could maybe have any number of outcomes, anything from the death penalty to you could sell them into indentured servitude. That could be an option that you had at the end. I know, it's very dramatic, to civil forfeiture or whatever else. The court makes the point that we shifted that. The pendulum swung all the way the other way to having society handle everything and having public prosecution become the default. And there were things that we lost along the way, right? Because in the 20th century, we tried to rectify some of this. But in the 60s, this victim's rights started to pick up. They talk about some of the history of the different statutes that came into being. In Maryland, they added Article 47 to the Constitution, which we talked about in the course of discussing the appeal decision. The Supreme Court is being called upon to determine, first of all, whether somebody needs to be physically present to meet the terms of the statute, and also how much right you have in a vacatur hearing, or vacatur. I'm never really sure how to say these things, honestly. I think different people say different ways. As we discussed, there is a right to be present at a sentencing hearing when you're giving a victim impact statement, but is there a right to be there when they're presenting new evidence and going through new arguments? And how much right do you have to be heard to speak? So

0:45:28 Thomas: Interesting wow Wow. Yeah.

0:46:42 Matt: They decided that this is a very expansive law. They looked at the statutes surrounding the victim's rights in Maryland. They looked at the constitutional obligations. They look at the case law. And this big swing, I have to say. I mean, this is more than I expected, is along the lines of what I expected. They found that not only did Young Lee have the right to be there, but his attorney had the right to be heard, and that he should have been there in person. And they are relying on a number of different statutes here. The constitutional provision is that the victim has the right to be heard at a criminal justice proceeding. So that's already something the court's going to have to interpret, because Does that mean sentencing? Does that mean post-conviction? They found that it means at any stage in the proceedings, which is more along the lines of what you have in California, which was called Marcy's Law. I don't know if you're familiar with that, but that passed in 2008. broad protections for victims there, but it only passed by something like 52%. And actually, very similar provisions to Marcy's Law have already been found unconstitutional in Montana and Pennsylvania, for reasons we can talk about another time. I do want to do some more time on victims' rights, because this is raising all kinds of questions for me about things I want to dig into. But in Maryland Statute 11 -403, the court, if practicable, shall allow the victim or the victim's representative to address the court under oath before the imposition of sentence or other disposition. So the question becomes, what is other disposition?

0:47:52 Matt: And they spend a lot of time on statutory construction, the history of the statute, trying to understand what it meant and why it was passed.

0:47:52 Thomas: Yeah, not, not for nothing. This is just a reason why originalism and the strict textualism is so bullshit. In my opinion, we don't have to do it now, but like this idea that like what conservatives want to do, they just want to use the words. They just want to just interpret the words what liberals want to deal with. They want to, and it's like, like, yeah, okay, what's a procedure justice, like, what is all that? What precisely does that mean? How do you define it? It's a reason we have judges that need to do judgy stuff, you know?

0:48:27 Thomas: Dissent disagrees. That's so weird. That'd be a weird, I don't know how to explain that one. Yeah, they're yeah.

0:48:22 Matt: Yeah, for sure. For I mean, they're taking this very seriously. They know they're establishing new law. They know that they're striking out a new direction here. So they're really being careful about it. They also do what the appeals court did. And they go through and tell you about why he's guilty and what the evidence shows. That's not really what they're here for. But remember, this is not an appeal on the merits of anything to do with the motion.

0:48:54 Matt: This is an appeal if the motion hearing was properly conducted. And then they're finding that it wasn't. Exactly the lines that I thought they would, which is that even if it doesn't say reasonable notice in the statute, obviously one business day is not reasonable notice. Hours, really, is what it came down to, of notice for Young Lee to prepare. By the time he actually knew that he was going to be asked to speak at this hearing, he had 30 minutes of notice or something. And that's just not acceptable. So I'm with him on all that. I think that makes sense. Really go through in this decision the entire legislative history. And this is a law that's recent enough that they can find contemporary writing and letters and things of people talking about what it means, public statements. And they decide it should be expansive, that it should cover as much as possible. And that especially in a case like this, that if the victim's family is not coming in and saying something, nobody's going to, because

0:49:36 Thomas: Yeah.

0:49:36 Matt: The defense and the prosecution have already made a closed-door agreement about what's going to happen with the judge. They are sending this back, by the way, to a different circuit court judge. They specified that. So that's a good thing in this case, too. We'll get to, of course, where this is all going. The other issue that I think is just really interesting is about the nolpros, because that was a major issue in appeals. They went out of their way to nolpros as quickly as possible, and Young Lee actually went to the appeals court and tried to get it stayed in a way that would keep them from dropping the case before he had a chance to appeal. And the court talks a lot about this. And I think this is very strong. I think it's a very strong case. This makes a lot of sense. And this is kind of how I felt about it, that there's a competing provision here because null process is a very broad power. The state should have the power to drop its own cases anytime, but there have to be some limits on that because you do have corruption. You

0:50:19 Matt: You do have mistakes. You have people that act out of motives that are not entirely appropriate, as I think happened here. And there's a case called Hook from 1989 in Maryland, which it's interesting right, in this

0:50:29 Thomas: I love that movie. Around that time, too. What happened on the set of Hook? Beloved classic.

0:50:35 Matt: So the—wow, where'd I get that from? Pulled that out of my brain.

0:50:38 Thomas: I wasn't sure you were going with me on this one because of the little bit of age difference.

0:50:42 Matt: I'm with you.

0:50:42 Thomas: But yeah, okay.

0:50:43 Matt: Movie.

0:50:43 Thomas: Bangarang.

0:50:43 Matt: No, the entry of a nullpros generally lies within the sole discretion of the prosecuting attorney, generally. But they also found that under the concept of fundamental fairness with respect to a trial in a criminal case, the broad authority vested in a prosecutor to enter a nolpros may be fettered in the proper circumstances. Now, in Hook, the circumstances were that... Sorry.

0:51:02 Thomas: I remember, yeah.

0:51:03 Matt: I mean, there were a lot of crimes committed in Hook. I've got to think about it. But in this particular case, it was a man who was drunk and shot two people. And they went out of their way to no -pro the second degree murder charge, I believe sometime either in the middle of trial or beginning of trial, because second degree would have been his best option there with an intoxication defense. The appeals court found that was improper because they were denying him the opportunity to have a finding of a lesser culpability, right? It was a violation of his rights in that case to nolpros one of the pending charges. You wouldn't think about that because usually you want pending charges noprosed, right,

0:51:03 Thomas: Sorry. Yeah, it's true. Oh yeah, you You take take away something that can make it worse for the defendant. Interesting.

0:51:35 Matt: This case, as we've discussed already, is extremely unusual because you have the prosecution pushing to drop it for reasons that are inappropriate. That's very, very strange. It doesn't happen.

0:51:43 Thomas: Sorry. The Hook case or the, I don't know. Yeah, yeah. Okay,

0:51:44 Matt: So moving on to today, yes. In the Hook case, it was also inappropriate though, because they were trying to make sure they convicted that man of first-degree murder. In this case, they're trying to get him out of first degree murder in the most hurried and fly-by-night way possible. And I have to wonder if they even considered the possibility this wouldn't survive because it was so poorly done, as we've discussed already. That's the court's main concern here, is that the vacatur had to be void from the beginning because the whole thing was done in such a rushed manner. Because they could have just given him, as we've discussed, the seven days that he asked for. If they If they had just given them those seven days to prepare to come out to Baltimore, we wouldn't be here, probably. Probably.

0:52:14 Thomas: Isn't it weird that they didn't

0:52:20 Matt: It is. It is, they had their press conference ready to go. They were fully prepared to do what they were going to do. They weren't letting anything stop them. They had the closed-door hearing with the judge on Friday, and they come in on Monday, and that's it. And at some point, I want to try to get audio of that hearing. We can do some gavel -gavel on it, but we'd love to.

0:52:35 Thomas: Hey everyone, we're gonna do gavel gavel on this for real. Like Like, I've been wanting a place to just do the serial Adnan did it thing, but really in -depth way. Like, you know, I wouldn't do it unless it was going to be something that was different and more in - depth than you might have heard before. So who knows when that will be, but we will do that.

0:52:51 Matt: That's right. Yeah. That is a goal, and I'd love to have people hear what the jury heard, because that's not what you heard in Serial. Here, they found that nolpros was invalid, which is a really extreme measure. But in this case, it makes sense because there's a direct competition here between two different provisions. To me, again, I find it to be interesting just as somebody who does post-conviction work. I've never seen anything like this before. Rule 4-333(I) requires that the state in 30 days either nolpros the case or take other appropriate action, which would usually be just retrying him, moving forward with a new trial. At the same time, the victim's rights statute allows victims 30 days to appeal. So they note that there's a direct conflict of competing interests here, because what you're doing is divesting the victim of the right to appeal what the victim contends is an unlawful vacatur order, if you're allowing the nolpros to enter the day after the case is reopened, right? You're going to drop it. So I'm just going to read a little bit of what they said about this, because I found this to be very compelling. The following. We're concerned about a scenario in which a victim and a prosecutor who decides to nolpros vacated counts find themselves in a race to see who can act first after the entry of the vacatur. Will the victim note an appeal before the state's attorney can go to court and enter a nolpros, or vice versa? In our view, the course of action that treats the victim with dignity, respect, and sensitivity—that's the language from the Constitution of Maryland—is for the state's attorney to confer with the victim prior to entering a nolpros to determine whether the victim intends to note an appeal during the 30-day period. That makes a lot of sense. Just check in. And

0:54:09 Matt: That's the problem all the way through this thing, is they were not properly checking in the way that they're required to by Maryland law. And if the victim indicates that they want to take the appeal, the state's attorney should hold off on the nolpros. And that just makes sense because this looked so bad. The fact that he had to go to the appeals court and say, I think she's going to do this to undermine the case in the first place, the fact that he even knew that was going to happen and then that it did happen, makes everybody involved look pretty bad. If there's a right to appeal, you can't just completely deny it to the victim's family. And that's what they did here. So that to me is a very strong argument about this, because I will tell you in general, I'm conflicted about a lot of this, just pulling back from anything to do with Adnan Saeed, just as a defense-minded person, and as a post-conviction-minded person. I want the state's nolpros to be respected. I wanna make sure that when they go to drop a case, that is it. But I also understand that there is something like the Hook scenario or something like this on the other side of it. You can have situations in which people things

0:55:03 Matt: For the wrong reasons.

0:55:02 Thomas: Imagine a MAGA, you know, election stealer situation, situation, you know, like I—I can imagine there being it's a little different but something like that

0:55:10 Matt: It's abusive. Yeah, you there's all kinds of ways to abuse your power as a prosecutor. And it's strange to think of dropping cases as being one of them, but it is. That you're causing additional stress to defendants, because that's one argument that Syed was making in appeal, is that you are causing extra sort of delay and wonder about what's going to happen. They find that this additional waiting period is necessary to vindicate victims' constitutionally protected rights. And at the end of the day, you're talking about 30 days when you've potentially had years of litigation over this. The other very, very strange thing about what happened here, probably the strangest thing, is that Adnan Saeed is not in prison right now.

0:55:41 Matt: I'm okay with that, as we've discussed. I have no problem with him being out. What I'm concerned about is whether or not he should stay unconvicted of murder. They have not tried to put him back in. The appeals court noted in a footnote, note, he was sentenced to life plus 30, and the court vacated the conviction and sentence, but there was no discussion of the conditions of release. That just didn't come up because the state would have to raise it. So although the effect of this opinion is to affirm the appellate court's decision to reinstate Saeed's convictions pending further proceedings, we shall order no change to Mr. Saeed's conditions of release. So he gets to remain out, a free man, and he gets the press conferences he wants to. And again, I have no problem with that. I know plenty of people are looking for blood here. They want him back in. We talked about this already. He did the 23 years or whatever. I think that under the Juvenile Restoration Act that he would have been eligible for in the first place, which would have probably ended up freeing him if he'd taken any responsibility, he'd be out anyway. Anyway, and

0:55:46 Thomas: Interesting that's The thing is, if he took responsibility, I'd want him out yesterday, if

0:56:32 Matt: Absolutely, yeah, that

0:56:32 Thomas: He doesn't, I—I mean I guess it's still the just thing would be he should be out at some point, I don't know when that would be, maybe by now, but it is a little tough. It's like, hey, just admit you did it, then we're done here. Yeah.

0:56:43 Matt: It would really be a lot better here, because again, I want people to consider what it might be like—even if you are absolutely convinced that he's innocent, think about the possibility that he is not—and think about the fact that he has made an entire career, literally a career, because he was hired by Georgetown, he got a job out of this when he came out, yep, and he has made it his life's definition that he was an innocent man and that he had nothing to do with this, which even if you think he's not culpable for this, it's hard to believe he didn't know any of this. It's one of those situations, very much like with Scott Peterson or OJ, where if there is a God, he hates you. He really does not like you very much, because he framed you for murder. So there's another way to put that.

0:56:57 Thomas: Away yeah yeah in an possibly elaborate way that could not have happened by coincidence but yeah yeah

0:57:25 Matt: That would be enough to turn me atheist, frankly. Is, it's such again, an unusual situation in so many different directions. And there's so much more to talk about, but I do want to talk About what's going to be coming next. As we discussed in SAO, there's a new state's attorney. His name is Ivan Bates. He's been hedging a bit about what he wants to do because he made some promises on the campaign trail that he was going to to try to respect the state's intent vacate this conviction. But at the time, of course, he didn't have any responsibility over it, and now he does. So I found an interview with him a couple of days ago, which I want to play here. I've sent you.

0:57:57 Clip: After a 30-day time period but I think it would only be fair for us, you know, we're a whole, you know, we don't necessarily understand all the issues of the vacatur in terms of what the previous administration had done. So without a doubt, it just takes time. The first thing we have to do, we have to reach out to the Lee family, which my team is doing, and we shall talk to them, understand what's going on. Then we also have to make sure that we speak to to Mr. Syed's attorneys to try to understand from their point of view, that we have to totally always understand all the evidence. Because to do a vacator, what are the rules, what must we prove, all of that. And so, you know, we're not going to, we were just going to look at it from a fresh point of view, fresh eyes. And we don't know what we're going to do. I think it's unfair to speculate one way or another until we really have the opportunity to look into all the evident. Well, and that is three days, or could possibly longer? Be Oh, that's going to be longer than that. I mean, because there are, my understanding, there are almost 20 separate boxes of evidence. And so, you know, look, my team, we've talked, we have our own plan on how to look and how to proceed. But this, it's going to be lengthy. Does that mean he's going have to go back to jail? No,

0:59:05 Clip: No, no. He's free. So his opinion said that he would stay free and he would be free. And so we just need to look at the evidence. I mean I think that it's hard for us to say we're going to do this, we're doing that. We're going be as fair and transparent as possible. This is a very important case to everybody, but it's also very important to the judicial system to make sure that we get it right.

0:59:05 Matt: Oh. There we go. So, I think he's hedging a little there. I mean, it's the most famous case that his office has. I'm sure he's familiar with it. I think it's familiar with the basis of this motion. And now they are, as we discussed before, are going to have to decide how much they want to put their own names to when they go back into a hearing. And they already what the wishes of the family are because they've been clearly stated. It's the entire purpose of this appeal. For example, if you want to actually get that note in that you think is, or that the previous state's attorney thought was exculpatory or somehow might've been a Brady violation, you're going to having to bring in the prosecutor that wrote the note and he's going to tell you what he remembers it meaning. So it's going to be a mess. So the other question though, which I think is just so fascinating, because I don't remember anything like this happening. I've heard of it happening by accident, but I've never heard of this actually happening on purpose, is that at this point, the state's attorney is agreeing they're not going to be seeking to put him back

1:00:08 Matt: In, and that they're just going to let him out and keep him free. So you're talking about a man convicted of first -degree murder who was sentenced to life plus 30, who's been released. And if the state doesn't move to do it after a certain period of time, I don't know what that period of time is in Maryland, but after some reasonable period of time they just can't anymore because they've given up their rights to execute that order. And conditions of release at the time were that he'd be released on a GPS bracelet, which, as we discussed, wasn't even activated when he left the courthouse. Was it. I I don't know what his conditions of relief are right now. But so very, very strange outcome.

1:00:34 Thomas: Wait what are you saying he's not are you you saying no matter what he's not going back oh

1:00:38 Matt: Unless they ask for it. The state is responsible for asking and executing it, right? So even if he's got the sentence hanging over him, if they never actually act on it. And I've heard – there was a case a while back where just a murder conviction wasn't properly recorded in whatever system, and somebody went around for 20 years without ever doing a sentence on it. And that's – yeah, I know. And at that point, you can't. Can't do anything about it. Free. So, honestly, I think it's an ideal outcome if he remains legally responsible for the murder and continues to be free. I think that's fine with me. The ideal outcome would be that he actually takes responsibility for what he did. But I want to stress again that this completely different. Analysis here is I'm looking at the factual situation as we know it, the evidence presented. I believe that on a jury I would have voted to convict based on the evidence that we have. The extent that I'd be able to to vote convict anybody for first -degree murder, I'm just saying theoretically. Legal issues are real. And if I were post -conviction counsel on this, I'd Be fighting on the same arguments that his attorneys were, because I think they were absolutely right to raise the issues they did. I think these were open questions. I agree with the way the court resolved them. But these of these issues on this appeal are unprecedented in Maryland and pretty much everywhere. So So that that is. Dissents, just to acknowledge them very quickly, essentially said that the null process is a null process, it has to be final, and that the victim's rights statute should not be read to include pretty much what the appeals court said

1:01:50 Thomas: Rights

1:01:50 Matt: That it doesn't necessarily require. Yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah. Not to the extent that the majority is saying. Found some of the dissent to be pretty compelling, to be honest.

1:01:50 Thomas: Sorry yeah yeah that's the thing this having actually gone through a lot of the original documents and filings and spoken to you about it and all that I am virtually certain that this guy did it because when you actually look at the evidence and the timing of what happened when, especially very early on, it's key, there's not really any other explanation that makes any sense at all. Aside, well, more on that at another time. That aside. Is separate from this victims rights issue, this appeal issue. And I feel conflicted. I'm glad you say that. I feel conflicted about this. I The one thing that I do hold on to from, you the SIO is I wonder, like if victims rights mean something, then there has to be some penalty or some, consequence um, for handling things in this horrible shitty way that the prosecutor handled it when they just dismissed all this. If there's absolutely no consequence for that, that matters, then I don't understand how there would be any victims rights again. Like if, if there's no, you know what I mean? Like why it sort of nullify whatever rights you have if when they're violated, nothing happens?

1:02:59 Matt: Exactly why 11 -103E2 provides that the court can find if a victim's rights weren't considered, that they can grant relief. It doesn't say what that relief is, but I think this is appropriate relief here, provided that it doesn't violate double jeopardy, of course. Yeah, Maryland has strong law, as 34 states do, to protect victims, and it has to mean something. Thing. And I think that defense attorneys, and again, I'm sort of like a part -time defense attorney. I specialize in immigration law, but I do a lot of curmigration work, I think, as listeners know. And it's too easy sometimes for defense attorneys who are rightfully very concerned about their clients' rights and nothing else to write off the rights of victims. And I want to be careful not to do that. And try to put yourself in that situation of knowing for 24 years that this man killed your sister and then finding out a day before that the state's about out to let him out, out For

1:03:42 Thomas: Really terrible reasons, by they're like, oh yeah, actually they found the murderer's, you know, DNA um, and and uh fingerprints and the web like yeah okay maybe different story like I might feel differently but like part of the the hell of being the victim's family in this case is probably you're pretty familiar and have read through like matt has and like I have the actual quote unquote evidence that they're saying came out and it's nothing that would be frustrating what

1:04:07 Matt: And one that Syed said in his press conference was that he thought that it was these corrupt attorneys who had convinced the family that he did it. I just think that's a really offensive and condescending thing to say to a family that has been through this, who is better familiar with the evidence than anyone else. Think I've said my my piece about that. But

1:04:16 Thomas: What? Yeah. Another, like, of how complicated the law is and how human the law is, because were it not for this specific famous case and what's going on, like I I don't know that we'd be here. And so I don'T know that like would have this same, what you're describing as could be pretty pretty like important ruling in victims' rights all because of this, this weird sequence of things that's happening. I you, talked about how they put the evidence in of how he's definitely guilty and they talk, talk about that. I Wonder how much like, logically speaking, don' don't, maybe that should be an entirely separate issue, but also maybe not. Maybe it's the kind of thing where it's like, yeah, well, here's the problem. There's a, there's a qualitatively different, um, of factors when you're releasing an innocent man versus releasing a guilty man. Though maybe letter of the law, that shouldn't be true. I wonder how much that would have affected the reasoning here. What do you think?

1:05:14 Matt: Mean, as a matter of discretion, it has to, right? If they thought that a true injustice had been done, that someone was spending the rest of his life plus 30 in prison for no reason, I think that they could find a different outcome here. Yeah, no, it certainly is a matter discussion. It has to. The Court of Maryland didn't spend as much time as the appeals court did. Though, they have to explain why this This hearing was so incomplete, and that hasn't changed. This hearing wasn't complete. And they just went a little further than the appeals court did in finding that he had the right to be there, and he had a right to have an attorney speak for him and to speak himself. So we'll be following this. It'll be interesting to see where things go. Going to predict, I guess, maybe just because I'm a little too bold here because I've already correctly predicted this one, but I think that Ivan Bates is going to have a real uphill climb here to try to bring a motion that looks like something that could could actually clear the because the appeals court was certainly very clear in its order that they wanted to see a real motion. They result.

1:06:01 Thomas: To let him to to essentially yeah

1:06:04 Matt: Going to have to justify it because there's no way you can introduce that note without calling Kevin Urich to come and talk about what he meant when he wrote it down. The court can certainly give him credit. Whether or not you think he's telling the truth, they can find it credible that He's talking about statements that Adam himself made. Otherwise, there's just nothing. There's no slam dunk. There's nothing in here that at all resembles the kind of thing you would usually call exoneration.

1:06:23 Thomas: Really he's not talking about the other unnamed person who for some reason said I'm gonna kill this high schooler that would just be some like some random person not connected he's Not talking about some one -armed man who was like I'm going to go kill this high -schooler why

1:06:40 Matt: Much, but there was a thread recently that I had to left where someone was like, so help me out with this theory because I'm really struggling. I know that he's innocent, but I'm struggling to understand why this guy would act alone because it is a struggle. Alcoholic.

1:06:50 Thomas: Look, I'll grant it. The node is a little ambiguous and it's hard to read quite right. But here's the other thing about like, when you're writing down notes, when someone is talking, when You're not also never in a million years, anticipating that this is going to become the subject of all this, like scrutiny down the road, your handwritten note. Sometimes you might, you a few seconds in what they said and write something that doesn't make make perfect exact sense. So like the exact thing that this note would have meant, are arguing against the person who wrote it. Like if I, if I'm talking about my shopping list and people are like, what the hell does that mean? I'd be like, ah, yeah. So I am crazy and I write things weird. And what I actually meant was this. And when you're taking live notes of an interview and you say, yeah, this is who I meant. And it's the only thing that makes any sense, sense just like globally otherwise you think there's some person random at the mosque that adnan that was so mad on his behalf that they were going to kill hay like an adult man like it's just it doesn't

1:07:47 Thomas: Yeah it doesn'T make any sense at all what makes more sense is that oh maybe the guy left out a word or two and how he was writing his handwritten notes while the person was talking yeah

1:07:46 Matt: Alone, by himself. Yep. And that statement was being made by the same person who wrote I'm going to kill on the back of a breakup note that he'd received from the victim. Could be the sameperson who actually killed her. This is another issue that I have with the entire thing. It almost always is the boyfriend. And that's just a universal truth of criminal defense.

1:08:10 Matt: So especially at a time when the boyfriend is trying to get back together because he's very jealous about her just having gotten with somebody else.

1:08:09 Thomas: It's like yeah you don't understand though. He said on the podcast that he was, he was totally cool with it. Like he was fine. That's what I've gone down this argument. That's where people bring up. No, you don't understand. He was fine with the breakup. How do you know that from when he said it on the podcast that was trying to exonerate him years later?

1:08:23 Matt: I know that has... Yeah, right. Right. Yeah, he

1:08:33 Thomas: Yeah. I would probably say that too. When I was in high school, I probably was super like not happy about a breakup and now I'd be like, oh yeah, it's fine. Totally cool. Especially if a murder conviction rested on it.

1:08:42 Matt: Didn't do it. And, that's what everybody says in the situation. And, I guess, as I think I talked about before, there's the shock of hearing somebody say that. That. I've heard people say that, where absolutely not true, because that's the thing that people say. Again, we've gone long here. I think you've got the idea. But this is going to be something to watch.

1:08:57 Thomas: So to make extra clear what you're talking about what's going to happen. So now this new prosecutor guy has to either decide I'm going to 100 percent follow through on the same thing and try to like get process or whatever it is, whatever that stuff is using. But based on this decision, he would have to actually present the evidence in the right way, in a complete way. Right? The evidence being, you know, these other quote unquote suspects and this note and all that stuff. And you're saying he would have to decide if he wants to do that, which is again, hard decision to make because it sucks. The evidence isn't real. So like it that the conflict or what's the other thing? What if he does nothing? Is it just like Adnan is still technically convicted, but just free forever.

1:09:36 Matt: The court has ordered that it be remanded for further proceedings related to the vacatur motion. So those proceedings could be that the state's attorney shows up and says, we're done. We're dropping this motion. That would be the proceeding. And then he stands convicted, and that's it. Could say, we'RE not challenging conditions of release, but we're just going to leave it where it is.

1:09:50 Thomas: So then he would still be released, but guilty. Guilty. So interesting for him yeah I

1:09:55 Matt: Fortunate. That would be the outcome. But think it is.

1:09:58 Thomas: Like that's what's gonna happen like I honestly I feel likethat's the most annoying outcome that leaves everything ambiguous for everybody and add on out so I feel that's my that'smy guess is that was that your prediction what do you think they have it's

1:10:05 Matt: I think so. Is what I was thinking from the beginning, is that they wouldn't show up and not be able to do the motion because there's just not enough to go forward to put a serious case together if you have to present it. So at stands, conditions of release aren't renegotiated and that's it.

1:10:15 Thomas: Not defensible yeah wow that's that would be crazy huh

1:10:23 Matt: The U.S. Supreme Court takes it, which they certainly could, but I don't know that that's going to happen. So we'll see.

1:10:28 Thomas: Wow well fascinating it does legally speaking, incredibly fascinating. And of the reasons like knew Matt, be you'd so good at this job was, you knocked out of the park with that SIO. And it was the kind of thing where it's the most popular position online, but it's also 100 % the correct position. And it's like, I like being willing to have people be kind of upset said at you for the sake of the truth. Like that is something that I value I personally value, um, I'm not going to like compromise or not talk about it or whatever. Your coverage coverage was great. And your prediction turned out to be correct at that time, which is like, I don't know how many other people were even talking about it in that same way.

1:11:00 Matt: I'm glad passed the audition. And I felt great about talking to you about it as well, because I had exactly the same feeling about where you were coming from. We hadn't even really talked about the case much before this came up. So as so

1:11:13 Thomas: Not at all. Yeah. Right. Well, thanks, Matt. Really Uh, really fascinating. We'll keep an eye on it. And someday, someday we may be able to bring you a gavel gavel series that is, is worthwhile on this. Uh, promise it anytime soon because of obviously so much that we're doing, but it's something I'll never let go. Cause I, I can't stand everybody being wrong about a murderer who's free and is like claiming to be the victim. That's a hard thing. My, I will never let that go. So someday. All right. Thanks so much, everyone. Um, we'll see you on Wednesday. Please support the show, patreon.com/law and take care.

1:11:35 Matt: I'm with you thanks again all

1:11:45 Clip: This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media, LLC, All Rights Reserved. It is produced and edited by Thomas Smith, who also provided the fabulous intro and outro music used with permission.