It is an impassioned, moving, and deeply emotive closing argument. She goes on to name the evidence, Jay’s testimony, the cell tower pings. She reminds them of how Adnan deceived Hae by saying his car had broken down and he needed a ride, and that Hae gave him one because that’s the kind of girl she was.
She describes Hae’s excitement as reflected in her diary, her new romance, her zeal for life, her plans for college, all snuffed out.
She talks about premeditation, and how Adnan planned it, getting a cell phone the day before, giving it to Jay, telling him to wait for his call.
And she talks about why Adnan chose Jay of all people for this job. Of all his friends, he chose the one he barely knew, the one who didn’t belong to his inner circle, to help him cover up a murder. And like Urick did in his opening, she transforms Jay from an inconsistent, incredulous liar to a victim, used because of his lowly socioeconomic status by a manipulative, smart, pretty-boy.
Murphy closes:
“Hey [sic] Lee wrote in her diary May 11th, 1998, ‘When I look into his eyes, know that he loves me. I really love him.’ And again, September 8th, 1999, Hey Lee writes in her diary. ‘I don’t know what I would do without him. He is the sweetest person I have ever met. When life is hard, all I have to do is look into his eyes. Then it’ll all be better.’ Imagine the disbelief and the terror when she looked into those eyes on January 13th, those same eyes that she writes so politely about in her diary, with one purpose: to kill her.”
It is impossible not to wince and feel a deep sense of pain at the closing. The courtroom is pin-drop silent.
After a brief recess, the court reconvenes for Gutierrez to present her closing statement, but before she does, she raises an important issue with the court: Murphy twice referred to the guilt of “someone who didn’t take the stand” in her closing remarks. These are, according to Gutierrez, “outrageous” and prejudicial comments. She asks the court to reinstruct the jury that they cannot hold Adnan’s not testifying against him.
The court says it already did so.
Gutierrez then asks that her law clerk be able to sit at the defense table to hold up notes for her—a clear sign that something is very wrong.
Throughout the second trial there were many moments when it seemed Gutierrez was confused and rambling. But nothing has prepared us for the closing, which begins like this:
As you’ve become aware in the six weeks—this is the only time that you will hear from me. And as I sit down, they get to get up again and say whatever they can to rebut—the Judge talked in instructions this morning about the kind of criminal justice system we have. It is unlike any other system in the world. In many places not in this city, not in this state, not in this country. The minute that Detectives MacGillivary and Ritz made the decision back on the 28th of February to arrest the presumed innocent teenager that would have been it—no one going back to question why did you make that decision.
Gutierrez’s closing was like a storm of hundreds of different points that should have connected, but instead were thrown randomly in no certain order. Separately each point makes sense, there is a purpose to it, but she has no ability to connect them into a story and is barely coherent.
He is sure that nobody else ever, whoever they are, were ever sat in a chair, at a table, in a courtroom like this and asked and put to test as a defendant in the murder of [Hae Min] Lee. Not even—unusual circumstances. Donald Kleindas [sic] was her current boyfriend. He was—as to his whereabouts on the 12th. Ms. Murphy dares to ask you to speculate as to whether or not [Hae Min] Lee spent the night at his house in Harford County the night before, but they didn’t even ask him that. [… T]hey never asked him anything, never asked to account for his whereabouts, the last time he saw her—a map of West Baltimore, and West Baltimore—it doesn’t take rocket science to know that the Crown station that allows people to use ATMs, not credit cards, as they suggested, but ATMs to make purchases, but only if they come inside, that is located—isn’t on the way to any part of Harford County.
She tries desperately to make it clear that the police fixated on one suspect without conducting a thorough investigation, by ignoring important evidence. But her point gets lost in the jumble. Other times she loses a sentence, or changes subjects in the middle of a sentence. Something is happening, she is losing the ability to form sentences right in front of our eyes.
Alonzo Sellers will never be charged. He’s never even been asked, never went down—was there another anonymous call, if there was evidence that shifted it to them, he knew it was already there because on the 26th, which is Friday, remember—that’s how they got to Jen Pusitari [sic]. Something turned them toward Adnan Syed and, once turned, they never turned away.
It was nothing short of distressing to listen to her ramble. I was alarmed, horrified.
We’re not here to decide if he was a good Muslim. Islam is not the only religion in the world that forbids dating and certainly isn’t the only religion in the world that says no sex before marriage. And it certainly—parents who exercise their right—I’m a Catholic not because I chose it. I was born in Catholicism, my parents chose it. If you’re a Methodist, it is likely that’s how you got there. They’re no different in many ways. They’re no different—so that—Ms. Murphy made much of Inez Butler, a very dedicated teacher and molder [sic] of human lives—Ms. Butler on the stand described in detail—except Ms. Butler back then on the 24th—25th of January, less than two weeks from when she was first asked by the Baltimore County Police detective involved in this—she said then that she knew [Hae] wasn’t. Now—correction this. But then when asked about the closest point in time, she says—[Hae] wasn’t coming back.
I keep looking at the jury’s expressions. Some have looks of studied boredom while others sit with scrunched foreheads, trying to figure out what Gutierrez is trying to convey.
Judge Heard eventually has to stop her.
“I hope what I’ve said has been helpful to you.… [O]nly you can send him home.”
This was not the closing argument of a nationally renowned criminal defense attorney. The closing was a disaster. The Judge should have been as alarmed as the rest of us and stopped her, realizing she was not able to defend her client at this point.
Instead, the court grants the State thirty minutes to rebut, and this time Urick takes a turn.
He makes a measured argument for the importance of circumstantial evidence and lays out, in this case, how much circumstantial evidence there is, and how to draw reasonable inferences from it.
He draws a conclusion about the hair evidence that is not at all what expert Bianca testified to, stating that Adnan was not excluded from the hair analysis but that there weren’t enough characteristics to be able to determine there was a match. Gutierrez objects, saying “That was not Bianca’s testimony,” but the judge lets it go.
He points to the fact that Adnan’s name is misspelled in the phone company’s bill—spelled as “Adrian,” implying this was done deliberately to cover for the murder he was planning. He talks about the “I’m going to kill” note and the fact that Adnan is a trained EMT, training not for the purpose of saving lives, but for the purpose of learning how to kill someone.
He proffers that Jay’s testimony about being in Leakin Park at 7:00 p.m. and the cell phone tower pings in the park at that time “mesh,” coming together as overwhelming evidence.
At the very end, Urick picks up a dummy head, holding it with his hands wrapped around the neck as he paces the courtroom and says,
“It took 15 seconds, by the way, to kill Hey Men [sic] Lee. Have you ever thought about how much you can think about in 15 seconds? And the person who did this had a lot to think about because this was an intentional, deliberate killing.”
I feel shock and disgust, and just like that it is over.
Adnan sits with his back to us, his head straight. I wonder where his eyes were when Urick was demonstrating the fifteen seconds it took to strangle Hae. I look around at othe
rs, at my aunt sitting with a prayer book from which she has not looked up the entire time, at Adnan’s mother sitting stone-like.
Judge Heard dismisses the jurors, letting them go for lunch and instructing that they return afterward to begin deliberations.
Adnan gets up, stretching slightly and looking back at us as he is cuffed to be led out. He gives the room a weary smile. He is exhausted; he hasn’t slept in a few days. The pressure of the trial has begun to get to him. His days have been extremely long; he has had to get up and be ready hours before every day of the trial, sitting in waiting rooms with other defendants for hours, sitting in the hard wooden chair in the courtroom for hours. He is stiff, achy, tired.
But after the jury is released for lunch and deliberations all the tension from his body and mind melt away. He is taken to his holding cell and finally, after numerous slumberless nights, almost immediately falls into a sweet, deep sleep.
We also feel collective relief, after weeks of prayer and anxiety, that the result is now in God’s hands. There is nothing more to do. It is a Friday afternoon and we assume we will not be hearing from the jury until next week, or maybe the week after. The trial lasted almost six weeks. There was a tremendous amount of testimony, confusing documents, and dozens of exhibits to review.
We bustle out of the courthouse. It is a crisp day, sunny and cloudless but cold. We split up, some people heading home, others looking for food. I want to walk a bit; my legs sore from the wooden benches. After a few slow circles around the block I call my mother, who wants to know how the closing went.
We speak for about half an hour. She tells me all the prayers she’s been reciting during the day and lets me know what to recite now that it is time for a decision. I listen obediently but am mentally checked out because of stress and hunger.
Finally I get off the phone and go inside a Subway, glad to be out of the cold. I am still eating when I get a call from Adnan’s mother. The jury has reached a verdict and we have to return to the courthouse. I can’t believe my ears; only a couple of hours have passed.
There is no way a jury could have reached a guilty verdict this quickly in a murder-one case with only circumstantial evidence. No responsible jury could do that, and no court could accept it. Even in cases with physical evidence tying a defendant to a crime, juries take days to deliberate, knowing their responsibility, knowing this decision is permanent.
I am almost giddy with excitement as I quickly take a last few bites and head back to the courthouse.
Many of the others have returned too, including my brother, Tanveer, Aunty Shamim, friends, aunties and uncles from the mosque. We take our seats.
Adnan comes back in, shackled but looking more refreshed. His blissful sleep had been interrupted when he was told the jury had a verdict. He is bewildered but also feels a rush of hope, as we all do.
We rise as Judge Heard comes in, and then the jury.
CHAPTER 7
LIFE PLUS THIRTY
Avoid legal punishments as far as possible,
and if there are any doubts in the case then use them,
for it is better for a judge to err towards leniency than towards punishment.
Prophet Muhammad, Sunan al Tirmidhi
Adnan was convicted on Friday, February 25, 2000, of first-degree murder, kidnapping, robbery, and false imprisonment. After the jury had passed their verdict, we shuffled out of the courtroom and I ended up in the elevator with Aunty Shamim and Gutierrez. It was tense and silent. No one said a word until the doors opened. Before exiting Gutierrez said, “I’ll need $50,000 for the appeal,” and walked away, leaving us stunned.
On Monday, February 28, three days later, I visited Gutierrez’s office with Tanveer and Adnan’s mother. Until this time I had not just taken a back seat, I hadn’t even really been involved in Adnan’s defense. Busy with my studies, I had just been there for moral support, trusting that this very expensive, experienced lawyer had it all under control. But I could no longer stay on the periphery, I had to figure out how to fix what had just happened. So as loathe as I was to see Gutierrez, I went along. It would be the last time I ever saw or spoke to her.
March 2000 memo written by Rabia to mosque committee.
I left Gutierrez’s office disgusted with her, but not only because of the way she treated Adnan’s family, or her incessant demands for more money, or her lack of humility at having lost this case. But also because by this time I’d had a conversation with Adnan that made me suspicious of what, if anything, she had done to prepare for his defense.
* * *
Adnan and I remember that time completely differently. My memory is that, having taken a couple of hours to gather myself after the verdict, I went to visit him where he was being held for the duration of the trial, at the Baltimore City Detention Center (BCDC). I remember a plastic or mesh divider, which meant you had to stand to see each other and talk.
Adnan remembers that he called me the weekend after the verdict.
Either way, we talked.
“The prosecutor’s closing remarks,” I said to him, “they were all about the twenty-one minutes after school that day. They said Hae was dead by 2:36 p.m. Where WERE you, Adnan, how could you guys not figure out where you were for that little bit of time?!”
Adnan began explaining, beginning a conversation we had never had before. In the year of his incarceration, as he awaited trial, I had never probed him about the facts of the case. I knew that calls were recorded, and that he might be prohibited by his attorney, but I also didn’t want to talk about serious things. He was a kid, a seventeen-year-old kid. When he called or we visited we kept things light, caught up on what was going on with family, on TV, joked around, teasing him about getting a break from school.
But now I had to figure out what had just gone wrong.
“So what happened? How was Gutierrez not able to find out where you were for just half an hour that day?”
By the time Adnan had been arrested, he explained, almost six weeks had passed since Hae disappeared. The police questioned him and he told them what he remembered: he was at school all day, though he had gone to give Jay his car and then come back after lunch. He stayed at school the entire time because he had track practice, and then Jay picked him up, and they went out so he could get some food and break his fast.
At 2:36 he was still at school, he had never left. He had until 3:30 to get to track practice, so he usually hung out with friends, went to the library to check e-mails, did some schoolwork, or would sometimes pop over to his house to change and come back. But that day he didn’t because he didn’t have a car.
“Do you remember specifically where you were right after school?” I asked.
Adnan explained that at first he wasn’t sure, but then soon after he was arrested he received two letters from a classmate, a girl named Asia McClain.
Asia, he said, had a really clear memory of seeing him at the public library, where he often hung out along with other Woodlawn kids. She remembered talking to him as she waited for her boyfriend to pick her up. The letters jogged his memory; he had a clear recollection of running into her and even speaking to her boyfriend when he showed up.
“So why wasn’t she at the trial?”
He had given the letters to Gutierrez and over the course of the past year, before the trial started, asked her and her law clerks a few times about Asia. At some point Gutierrez told him she had contacted Asia, and Asia didn’t have her dates right—she had seen Adnan a different day, not on January 13th.
After that Adnan dropped it; he never wrote Asia back because of Gutierrez’s instructions, and never asked anyone else to contact her.
It must have been my skepticism and distaste for Gutierrez, the way she treated the family, her erratic performance in court, that made me want to check Asia out myself.
“Do you have copies of her letters?”
Adnan said yes.
“Ok, send them to me as soon as possible.”
A couple
of weeks later I got the letters.
Either one of the letters or the envelope had Asia’s grandparents’ phone number—she apparently lived with them at the time she wrote the letters. I called and spoke with someone but was told Asia was away at college and would be around on the weekend.
What happened next is another example of the fallibility of human memory. I recall speaking with Asia and arranging to meet her, but she recalls me showing up at her house. Saad was definitely with me, but today Asia doesn’t recall him being there.
Nonetheless, we met on March 25, 2000. I remember I simply asked her what she recalled of January 13, 1999. She recounted much of what she had said in the letters, her memory still sharp about that day for a number of reasons—her boyfriend got mad she was talking to Adnan, there was a big storm that night, and school was closed the next two days. She was sure that her boyfriend and his friend would probably remember the incident.
I asked her why, if she remembered it so vividly, did Gutierrez say she had her day wrong. She blinked at me. She didn’t know who Gutierrez was.
Adnan’s attorney, the lawyer who contacted you, I pressed.
Asia shook her head.
“No one contacted me.”
I thought I heard her wrong and asked her to repeat that.
“No one, not a lawyer, not his family, not Adnan, not the police, NO ONE contacted me after I sent those letters.”
I have felt a lot of anger over this case, but certain moments of absolute rage stand out. This was one of them. Gutierrez had not only utterly failed to do what a first-year law student would have done immediately—contact an alibi witness—she had also lied to Adnan about it.
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