A conviction is a formal declaration that someone is guilty of a criminal offense, issued by the verdict of a jury or by the decision of a judge in a court of law. In February 2000, 17-year-old Adnan Syed was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years. Adnan Syed was a 17-year-old boy who attended Woodlawn High School in Baltimore, Maryland. He was tried and convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Was Adnan Syed wrongly convicted or did he actually commit the murder? The courts had no physical evidence linking Adnan to the crime scene, and Adnan's classmate, Asia McClain, provided him with an alibi. Without the courts having any physical evidence to link Adnan to the crime; they relied solely on the testimony of Jay Wilds. Jay's testimony changed every time it was told, thus making him a non-credible source. Since Jay's testimony was not entirely credible; I believe Adnan was wrongly convicted of a crime he did not commit. On the day Hae Lee was murdered, Asia McClain, a classmate of Adnan's, remembers seeing and talking to him in the library. According to Serial (2014) Asia McClain tells Sarah Koenig, the podcast host, that she remembers seeing Adnan around 2:30 that day, but was never contacted by his lawyer during the trial. Sarah tells Asia that the moment she says she saw him in the library is also the same moment they “say he was in the car with her” right before she was killed” (Koenig, Serial, Eps. 1). Something isn't right if Asia says she saw him and spoke to him at that moment, while the State says he was murdered at that moment. According to Serial (2014) Sarah tells Asia "If you're saying you saw him at that time, that means the state timeline for the whole theory of the case doesn't make any sense." If Asia says she saw Adnan at the time he supposedly killed Hae, then that automatically rules him out. With Asia establishing Adnan's presence anywhere near the crime scene; there is no way he was convicted of her murder. Since Adnan was not present at the scene of the murder and had an alibi, he was wrongly convicted. Please note: this is just a sample. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay Those who believe that Adnan got the sentence he deserved may say that Jay's testimony was enough to help convict Adnan. Jay Wilds, an acquaintance of Adnan, tells investigators that Adnan told him about his plan to kill Hae. He tells investigators that Adnan told him he was going to kill Hae, but Jay didn't think much of it. According to Jay, Adnan left his cell phone and car with Jay so that Jay could pick him up after killing Hae. He says Adnan calls him from a pay phone outside Best Buy. This isn't possible because when Sarah Koenig and Dana Chivvis went looking for the phone booth, they didn't find one. In fact they even looked at the store plans and there is no phone booth anywhere. In the podcast, Serial, “They found a photo of the store, from 2001, with no phone booth or pay phone… They looked for blueprints of the store when it was built in 1995, nothing” (Koenig, Serial, Eps. 5). If there had been no phone booth, how could Adnan have called Jay to pick him up? Another flaw in this argument is that Jay's story is inconsistent; changes every time.
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