EvidenceProf Blog

The Serial Podcast: My Interview With Vox.Com & More on Adnan's Chances of Success on Appeal

Here's my interview with Libby Nelson with vox.com about Adnan Syed and the likelihood of him succeeding on his current claim that he received the ineffective assistance of counsel at trial: "We asked a legal evidence expert if Serial's Adnan Syed has a chance to get out of prison." In this prior post, I already fleshed out my analysis of why I think Adnan has a pretty good chance of succeeding if the Maryland Court of Special Appeals considers his claim that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to contact potential alibi witness Asia McClain. So, why did I say in the interview that Adnan has very little chance of succeeding on his claim was ineffective for failing to seek a plea deal despite his repeated requests?

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Federal Advisory Committee’s Electronic Evidence Symposium: Read All About It!

The Advisory Committee for the Federal Rules of Evidence convened a symposium to discuss Electronic Evidence in April 2014.  Materials from this fascinating symposium are now available courtesy of the Fordham Law Review: 

Symposium on the Challenges of Electronic Evidence  [transcript of symposium]

The Court as Gatekeeper: Preventing Unreliable Pretrial eDiscovery from Jeopardizing a Reliable Fact-Finding Process

                by Daniel K. Gelb

The Adverse Inference Instruction After Revised Rule 37(e): An Evidence-Based Proposal

                by Hon. Shira A. Scheindlin & Natalie M. Orr

The Case for eHearsay

                by Jeffrey Bellin

Memorandum: Hearsay Exception for Electronic Communications of Recent Perception

                by Daniel J. Capra

The Serial Podcast, Episode 8: Bad Interrogations & Bad Evidence

I've done thirteen posts

(here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here)

about Sarah Koenig's Serial Podcast, which deals with the 1999 prosecution of 17 year-old Adnan Syed for murdering his ex-girlfriend, 18 year-old Hae Min Lee. This post is about the eighth episode of the Serial Podcast: "The Deal With Jay." This episode deals with Jay, the key witness for the prosecution. In turn, this posts deals with Maryland law regarding the recording of police interrogations and the duty of the police to pursue "bad evidence." 

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Letting the Jury Lie: Supreme Court Finds Jury Impeachment Rule Precludes Inquiry Into Whether Juror Lied During Voir Dire

Today, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Warger v. Shauers. The opinion addressed an issue that I've written about on this blog many times over the years: Does Federal Rule of Evidence 606(b) preclude the admission of juror testimony/affidavit(s) to prove that a juror lied during voir dire? So, how did the Court rule?

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The Serial Podcast, Episode 7: Analyzing Maryland's DNA Law & Its Application to Adnan's Case

I've done twelve posts (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here) about Sarah Koenig's Serial Podcast, which deals with the 1999 prosecution of 17 year-old Adnan Syed for murdering his ex-girlfriend, 18 year-old Hae Min Lee. This post is about the seventh episode of the Serial Podcast: "The Opposite of Prosecution." This episode deals with the efforts of the Innocence Project at UVA in connection with Adnan's case. In turn, this post focuses on the procedural aspects of Maryland's DNA Law that the Innocence Project is trying to utilize.

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An Analysis of the Statute of Limitations in the Bill Cosby Sexual Assault Case

A woman has come forward and claimed that she was sexually assaulted by Bill Cosby in California in 1974 when she fifteen years old. Some of the discussion of this case has focused on the statute of limitations in such cases and why the woman has been able to bring her civil action 40 years later. I haven't come across an article discussing the specifics of the statute of limitations, so I thought that I'd do a post about it.

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The Serial Podcast, Episode 6: What Defense Counsel Could Have & Should Have Done With The Nisha Call

I've done eleven posts (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here) about Sarah Koenig's Serial Podcast, which deals with the 1999 prosecution of 17 year-old Adnan Syed for murdering his ex-girlfriend, 18 year-old Hae Min Lee. This post is about the sixth episode of the Serial Podcast: "The Case Against Adnan Syed."  This episode deals with the strongest evidence that the prosecution introduced against Adnan at trial. In turn, this post primarily focuses on the strongest of those pieces of evidence: The Nisha Call.

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Special Counsel for Police Deadly Force Cases

My column at CNN.com suggesting a more independent approach to investigations of police deadly force cases is available at this link.

The Serial Podcast: A Timeline of Adnan's Trials and Appeals & My Best Guess at the Current Status of His Case

[Timeline updated on February 7, 2015 and additional thoughts added at bottom]

Yesterday, I was contacted by vox.com's  Libby Nelson, who wanted to talk with me today about the Serial Podcast and specifically Adnan's chances of winning his current appeal. That got me thinking that I didn't really know the exact legal status of Adnan's current appeal. So, I did some digging, and this post will detail my best guess as to the current status of Adnan's appeal. In turn, my interview on vox.com will deal with the likelihood that Adnan will succeed. 

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The Eric Garner Case & the Legal Standards That Apply to New York Grand Juries

There's been a lot of discussion in the wake of the grand jury's decision not to indict an NYPD officer in connection with the death of Eric Garner. Having worked at an appellate court in New York for two years, I thought I would do a post laying out the legal standards applying to the case.

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The Serial Podcast, Episode 10: The Supreme Court's Framework for Prosecution Witness Plea Bargains

I've been getting a lot of e-mail today about a prior post of mine entitled, "The Serial Podcast, Take 4: Did the Prosecution Violate the Brady Doctrine in Connection With Jay's Plea Deal?" It seems that the impetus is this morning's tenth episode of the Serial Podcast, "The Best Defense is a Good Defense," which touches upon this very issue. I have not listened to this episode yet, so I don't have any insight into what specifically happened at Adnan's trial. What I do know is that, in Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S. 264 (1959), "[t]he Supreme Court established a framework for the application of Brady to witness plea agreements...." State v. Oulette, 989 A.2d 1048, 1056 (Conn. 2010). For now, I'll leave it to readers to decide where the prosecution's behavior at Adnan's trial falls within that framework.

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The Serial Podcast, Episode 5: The Admissibility & Discoverability of the Cell Tower Evidence

A woman is manually strangled, and her body is dumped in a park. The defendant, who had been in a relationship with the victim, becomes the suspect. There's nothing more than circumstantial evidence connecting the defendant to the murder, but two pieces of evidence are especially important: two cell phone calls whose pings tend to pinpoint the defendant's cell phone in the park when the victim's body was likely dumped there. The defendant is convicted. In 2014, more than a decade later, the defendant seeks post-conviction relief, alleging the ineffective assistance of counsel. Part of the claim is that trial counsel failed to contact a potential key witness who would have helped the defense. Part of the problem is that trial counsel has died. An alternate suspect emerges. DNA testing of crime scene evidence is done. The case I'm talking about is Roberts v. Howton, 13 F.Supp.3d 1077 (D.Or. 2014). The result? The defendant's conviction was reversed. 

I've done eight posts (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here) about Sarah Koenig's Serial Podcast, which deals with the 1999 prosecution of 17 year-old Adnan Syed for murdering his ex-girlfriend, 18 year-old Hae Min Lee. This post is about the fifth episode of the Serial Podcast: "Route Talk."  This episode deals with the prosecution's use of cell tower pings at trial to establish the general location of Adnan's cell phone on the day of Hae's murder. In turn, this post deals with the admissibility and discoverability of evidence regarding these pings.

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Brave New World of Police Body Cameras

Body cameras worn by police officers have become a common policy proposal in response to the NYC Stop and Frisk litigation and recent events in Ferguson, Missouri.  A recent story from Washington State suggests some of the unanticipated consequences of such cameras.  Apparently, open records requests for police body camera footage have put such a burden on state workers that cities throughout the state have postponed plans to implement broader body camera policies.  The problem is that the footage cannot simply be copied and produced:

“Due to privacy concerns, the department can’t simply turn over video, which may show crime victims, abused children and bloody crime scenes, but must scrub it of certain information, police officials say.”

One fix is to exempt this footage from public records requests.  Something that Washington State is scrambling to do.  Other issues on the horizon are the handling of litigation-related discovery request for similar footage, something that may be harder to handle; and after that, of course, the evidentiary implications of police body-camera videos.

The Serial Podcast, Episode 4: How the Defense Could Have Used Jay's Police Statements at Trial

I've done seven posts (here, here, here, here, here, here, and here) about Sarah Koenig's Serial Podcast, which deals with the 1999 prosecution of 17 year-old Adnan Syed for murdering his ex-girlfriend, 18 year-old Hae Min Lee. This post is about the fourth episode of the Serial Podcast: "Inconsistencies."  This episode deals with inconsistencies in the different versions of events relayed by Jay, the key witness for the prosecution. In turn, this post deals with the admissibility of these different accountings at trial.

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The Serial Podcast, Episode 3: Evidentiary Issues Related to Mr. S's Indecent Exposure(s) & Failed Polygraph

I've done six posts (here, here [now updated], here [now updated], here, here, and here [now updated]) about Sarah Koenig's Serial Podcast, which deals with the 1999 prosecution of 17 year-old Adnan Syed for murdering his ex-girlfriend, 18 year-old Hae Min Lee. This post is about the third episode of the Serial Podcast: "Leakin Park." This episode deals with Mr. S, the man who discovered Hae's body in Leakin Park. In turn, this post deals with two issues: (1) the admissibility of evidence that Mr. S apparently had prior convictions for indecent exposure; and (2) the discoverability of the fact that Mr. S failed an initial polygraph exam about his discovery.

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