Serial - the podcast *spoilers*

But multiple articles refer to Urick "testifying" -- when did he testify?

xxxpost
It's unbelievable to me that Urick made up Asia's recanting, invented a reason (pressure from Adnan's family) and Adnan's defense team seemingly took his word for it and stopped trying to contact Asia, even though she never signed anything recanting her affidavit. Maybe I have something wrong here. Maybe Adnan's second lawyer was bad too.

I'm sure Urick didn't want her to testify, but how could he tamper with her exactly. By telling her that Adnan was guilty? By convincing her that she didn't see what she said she did?

also wasn't there something about her boyfriend not wanting her to get involved?

Ok, this clears some things up:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/blog/bs-md-adnan-syed-alibi-20150120-story.html#page=1

man alive: Urick testified at the appeal. There was a clip from it in Serial episode 1. Also, consistently going off the rails is kinda the most lawyerlike thing in the world, imo ;)

Keyes: Adnan's defense team only knew what Urick had to say at trial, so it could never be said that they 'took his word for it'. At that point it was already too late. They tried to find her, they found her, she didn't want to talk to them. And she never knew that her testimony tore apart the prosecutions case. In her letters, she says that if she'd stayed with Adnan, perhaps none of it all would have happened. Seeing as her testimony doesn't disprove that Adnan did it, there is no reason as to why she should believe him innocent?

The fact remains that Christina Guttierez chose not to call Asia McClain at trial. That was before Urick allegedly discouraged her from testifying, which happened only during the appeal process. The only question for appeal is whether Christina Guttierez provided ineffective assistance by failing to call Asia McClain. The appellate court found it to be a strategic decision. I'm not sure how the new affidavit would impact that finding.

but how did she make the decision not to call her as a witness when she never even contacted/spoke to her?

Well, the appellate court ruled partly based on Uricks testimony - and got several other things wrong. As far as I understand, the question for the state court is whether or not the original appelate decision was faulty, and this does seem to help that case. Though I can't say I have high hopes.

but how did she make the decision not to call her as a witness when she never even contacted/spoke to her?
--just1n3

She could make the decision that because Asia's alibi didn't cover entire period where crime was committed that it wasn't likely to contribute to a strong defense.

Reading Rabia's writing about Urick is positively surreal. You'd swear she was talking about a deranged person not a seemingly lucid and logical prosecutor.

Asia's version of events is straight weird. I mean of course Urick is going to say they got the right guy. Also it's odd that on two separate occasions she's basically said "I'm done talking" only to come back again.

Rabia is pretty much a propagandist

rabia took Asias first affidavit herself. Was she representing Adnan at the time? Otherwise it's a bit odd.

I can def. buy that Asia was feeling pressure from Adnan's family if that's the case

Well she says that's not the case. But it's pretty peripheral, Urick's impressions of why Asia didn't testify and whether they were wrong.

Asia went and talked to Adnans family day after arrest, and wrote first letter same day, second the day after. When are they supposed to have pressured her?

The affidavit with Rabia was taken after Adnan was convicted, has nothing to do with Asia's original letters.

Yeah after trial, before appeal.

Urick said Asia told him she had written the affidavit, post-conviction, to get Adnan's family off her back. If Rabia was the one taking the affidavit then that does not seem like a wild tale.

did Urick even claim that she was claiming the affidavit wasn't true? It sounds more like she was trying to make it go away so she wouldn't have to testify at an appeals trial

Well, to TheIntercept Urick says it's about the letters and that he testified to that. He is almost as untrustworthy as Jay.

Or Rabia.

I don't think he knew whether she was talking about letters or an affidavit: "She definitely told me that she wrote what she wrote, was to appease the family, to get them off her back … that's what I recall, the gist of the conversation, that she wrote something to get the family off her back, which can be interpreted that she was getting pressure."

He says the letters but it's pretty obvious he means the first affidavit, which was 2000, or else he's just getting mixed up. I feel like you're missing the point that this is a guy being interviewed about testimony he gave (I think) three years ago about events that in turn happened fifteen years ago. He has presumably not been obsessively rereviewing every detail of the case since then. So him getting the send date of the letters wrong would not make him "untrustworthy"

I don't think he would have even known about the letters when he spoke to her. It's not like Adnan shared them with the prosecution.

it is a bit comical that Slate and other sites have headlines like "Serial Witness Reverses Her Testimony" when SK mentioned in the last episode that Asia stands by her affidavit

Isn't the post-conviction hearing 2012? Rabia's indicating that the she/the family hasn't contacted Asia for 15 years but when did the PI contact her? Somehow that doesn't count towards the 15 years??!??!

Rabia has a link to Urick's testimony. It's unequivocally clear that he's talking about the affidavit, not the letters.

This is the denial of post-conviction relief:
http://www.courts.state.md.us/cosappeals/pdfs/syed/baltcityccmemorandumopinion.pdf

The decision on the McClain issue does not appear to rely in any way on Urick's testimony about the matter, so I'm not sure what difference it makes.

But calling what Urick said "perjury" is really irresponsible. Perjury has to involve knowingly false statements. The kinds of things we're talking about may just be characterizations and impressions. For example, Asia calls Urick, she says "I'm trying to decide if I should testify. I don't know. The family really wants me to. They really pressed me to give that affidavit back in 2000 too. I just want to do the right thing. Is there much evidence against Adnan?"

Urick could hear that as "the family is pressuring her to testify, she did the affidavit just to get them off their backs" whereas she might not characterize it that way. That's not the same thing as perjury, just as saying "I don't think you should bother testifying, it's a very strong case against Adnan, there's a lot of evidence" would not necessarily be "witness tampering" or "obstruction of justice," assuming that's even what he said, since this is very much a one person's word/recollection of a conversation against another's.

I think a lot of the confusion stems from the fact that the appeal was about the letters and not the afidavit, so if Urick only testified about the afidavit, it wasn't relevant to the case and shouldn't have been allowed. So I can see why everyone, including Urick himself, of course, seems to think he testified about what the case was about.

Considering Urick is a guy who relied on coached witness statements from a witness he then got a pro bono lawyer, and who bullshitted TheIntercept all throughout his interview, I think it's way more likely that he knew exactly what he was testifying to, and exactly what he was implying.

Yeah or none of that bullshit you just said is true.

xp That's not correct. The letters were the underlying subject of the appeal, or rather, Guttierez's failure to adequately investigate the potential alibi based on the letters. But the affidavit was a basis for the appeal, and was submitted as an exhibit by Syed's counsel, so it was absolutely a relevant subject for testimony:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByTc5P7odcLHclA3Q0VidWl2bFk/view

(listed as exhibit on the first page)

Funny. According to your document, the state was arguing that the letters were made under pressure from the family. The same thing everybody thought Urick was testifying to - including Urick himself, twice, this last month.

He says "affidavit" in his testimony. I don't know what more you want.

I can see how the states attorneys argument might have confused you, but when she says "statements" were obtained under pressure she means the affidavit not the letters. She is making an argument about the documents "coming into evidence" at that hearing. The letters are not coming into evidence at that time, at least as far as I can tell. The affidavit is.

I'm just trying to explain where the confusion comes from. Why people, including Urick himself, seems to think that he said something he didn't. Why people are angry at him. And the attoryney is talking about the letters. Read further down, it is the letters she don't want to include in the case. Either that, or she's incompetent and unable to explain what she's talking about.

So up above where you implied that Urick was a sleazy lawyer who had intentionally mislead the court you were just explaining the confusion?

Shut up you obnoxius troll.

No I think not.

Stop being a child Freddy

omg

Keyes: I wrote upthread that I would answer exactly what I answered if he kept on doing what he has now been doing for weeks. He's been trolling me constantly. Why the fuck should I show him any kind of respect when he clearly has none for me? He's been trolling me about my nationality, he's been trolling me for answering other peoples questions. He's a piece-of-shit troll, and he'll get nothing but abuse and ridicule from me, because he clearly deserves nothing better, and I've argued extensively as to why that is the case. I was having a perfectly reasonable discussion with man alive, trying to get to the facts of the appeal, and once again he butts in with rude and dismissive remarks. Wasting everyones time, not just mine, but yours as well. I've made a perfectly reasonable proposition: He stops writing to me, and I'll stop attacking him, but he's too much of a pathetic loser to agree to that.

Ok I kind of hate even getting hung up on such an inconsequential point, but you are clearly reading the transcript wrong and taking the mention of the letters out of context. If you read the whole transcript, Syeds counsel is trying to introduce four exhibits - the ones listed on the first page. The state is objecting to those. The four exhibits presented do not include the letters.

The state attorney does bring up the letters in context of arguing the affidavit should not be admitted. But it cannot be that she is trying to block the letters because Syeds counsel is not trying to admit the letters. In context of the hearing, her argument is clearer and does not strike me as "confused". She is discussing the letters in explaining why she thinks the affidavit is not reliable.

I'll grant that I have been snide in response to you so obnoxious (pot meet kettle to be sure too). Trolling not so much (also don't remember much Dane mocking but I can believe I made a joke about it--have to scan later to see if it was funny one.)

She clearly says 'I respectfully ask that the Court not admit those letters' on page 12. So I guess I'm just assuming that the text of the letters are somehow included in the affidavit or in the correspondence to Ms Gutierrez?

xpost Fine, Frederik. But I would suggest either ignoring him in the future or just writing "..." or something archly dismissive.

Hmm, I guess that's possible. It's a little unclear. I assumed "correspondence to Ms. Guttierez" meant letters to Guttierez.

It's a bit confusing, looking at page 11 of the opinion, it sounds like they were admitted later (they were Exhibit 7, the exhibits in the transcript are 1-4), so maybe we are both correct -- they were not presented that day but admitted later, and the subject had come up so part of the argument was about the letters themselves.
http://www.courts.state.md.us/cosappeals/pdfs/syed/baltcityccmemorandumopinion.pdf

I still think the part about pressure from the family refers to the affidavit -- it says "statement".

It hardly matters, because the letters were admitted, and the reason the judge found them unpersuasive as to ineffective assistance had nothing to do with whether they were written under pressure.

And again, the "witness tampering" and "obstruction of justice" and "perjury" claims are absurd. Remember, again, Urick is no longer even an attorney for the state at this point. His only hypothetical interest in the case is "protecting the win" -- in a 15-year-old case where there's only a miniscule chance of things getting overturned. So what motive does he have to deliberately "obstruct" a witness from testifying? And again, giving someone your opinion as to whether it's worth testifying is not the same thing as tampering, which generally at a minimum has to involve some kind of intimidation.