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Mar 10, 2019 · His original murder conviction was overturned in June 2016 after a court found that Syed’s trial attorney, Cristina Gutierrez, failed to …
Although Syed's lawyer Cristina Gutierrez didn't make an appearance on the first season of “Serial,” which questioned whether Syed was wrongfully convicted for Lee's murder all those years ago, Gutierrez's voice was heard over and over as host Sarah Koenig played back tapes of Syed's original court case, questioning Gutierrez's job performance.
Dec 05, 2014 · Finally, we get to learn a little more about the curious case of Cristina Gutierrez and her past as a public defender, deepening our general confusion about what her strategy was with Adnan's case.
Sarah Koenig The first thing Cristina Gutierrez, Adnan’s trial lawyer, said in her opening statement about her client, this is in the first trial, was, “Adnan Musud Syed is an American citizen ...
“She had a reputation as being a very, very meticulous and aggressive defense lawyer that left no stone unturned.” However, in 2001, a year after Syed's conviction, Gutierrez was disbarred following allegations she drained a trust account containing client funds, according to The Baltimore Sun.Mar 13, 2020
What do we learn about Adnan's lawyer? After Adnan's trial, his lawyer was disbarred for mishandling client money. Rabia thought that this lawyer had purposely lost (“botched” / “thrown”) the case so she could get more money for the appeal. The lawyer had died a few years later.
She served as trial counsel for Adnan Syed, the Baltimore-area teenager who was convicted in 2000 of murdering his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee and was sentenced to life in prison....Cristina GutierrezChildrenRoberto Gutierrez Micajuela Gutierrez7 more rows
What did Rabia think of Adnan's lawyer, Christina Gutierrez? She loved and respected her. She thought she purposely lost the case to make more money during the appeal.
Gutierrez defended everyone from allegedly corrupt city officials to accused kid killers to serial child molesters to teachers charged with sexually assaulting their students. “ [Gutierrez] had a tremendous reputation,” Petit told Oxygen.com.
Now, HBO’s four-part docuseries “The Case Against Adnan Syed” which premiered on March 10, two days after Syed's conviction was upheld, picks up right where “Serial” left off. Much like the podcast, the Amy Berg-directed film also reexamines Gutierrez's role in Syed's original conviction.
Gutierrez is not around to defend herself, however, because she passed away a few years after the case. Her 2004 death was a result of a heart attack , according to her obituary. She was 52. Gutierrez had been suffering from multiple sclerosis, which some speculate may have impacted her performance on Syed's case.
The podcast Serial changed the way listeners examined the 1999 murder of a Baltimore High School student and created a true crime phenomenon. Robert Chambers Jr. "The Preppy Killer," Explained. For many armchair detectives inspired by the first season of ultra-popular podcast "Serial," the idea of prosecutorial misconduct was key to ...
Syed has long maintained that Gutierrez mishandled his case over her failure to investigate his alibi Asia McClain, who claimed she saw Syed in her high school library at the time of the murder. Syed claimed Gutierrez told him at the time that she had investigated the alibi, but “nothing came of it.”.
However, in 2015, he told The Sun he first noticed the early symptoms of his mother's multiple sclerosis in the late '90s, shortly before she took the Syed case. "If my mom didn't give him a good defense, I hope he gets a good defense," he told Sun reporter Justin George in 2015. "I know that was her intention.
Syed’s attorneys also allege Gutierrez didn’t cross-examine the prosecution’s cell phone tower expert, who placed him at the crime scene using cell phone tower records, which Syed's team now argues is unreliable evidence.
After her son Roberto Gutierrez first listened to Serial -which implies that his mother did not focus on evidence many believe could have kept Syed from being sentenced to life in prison- he defended her in an interview with The Baltimore Sun, noting that she was suffering from health problems like multiple sclerosis and diabetes during the case, which affected her decision-making.
In 2014, Adnan Syed 's controversial case became a national sensation when Serial was released-some fourteen years after he was convicted of murdering his girlfriend, Hae Min Lee, and sentenced to life in prison. His story is now being re-examined in HBO's The Case Against Adnan Syed, which picks up where the immensely popular 2014 podcast left off.
On Friday, 8 March , Syed's murder conviction was reinstated by the Maryland Court of Appeals. The court reinstated Syed’s conviction Friday, agreeing that while his defense was deficient, it “did not prejudice” the case. He will not get a new trial.
Gutierrez was reportedly "disbarred by consent" in May 2001, and none of the negligent client claims were investigated because she willingly signed the disbarment. That was a year after she represented Syed.
As Koenig discussed in Thursdays episode, the Whitmans were among the former clients who ultimately sued Gutierrez for misplaced funds. Ron and Sue Whitman hired Gutierrez to defend their son in 2000, in a horrifically tragic case; their older of their two boys, Zach, was charged with killing his 13-year-old brother Greg, by stabbing him 65 times in the neck with a pen knife. Halfway through the trial, Ron and Sue fired Cristina. In 2003, Whitman was convicted to life in prison. The latest of his numerous appeals throughout the years took place in January of this year, which he lost.
He was found guilty and given four life sentences. Some information in 2010 came out that could've set him free that had to do with an error on Gutierrez's part. According to an article in the Baltimore Sun, prosecutors offered Merzbacher's counsel a 10-year reduced sentence with a plea bargain.
In 1993, Gutierrez represented Laurie Susanne Cook, Anne Arundel, Maryland school teacher who was accused of sexually abusing a 14-year-old male student. Cook was 33 at the time. "We're vehemently denying the charges," Gutierrez told the Baltimore Sun. "It's not unusual... in the context of the hysteria at Northeast, to have created an accusation out of nothing." The hysteria she's referring to is the case of Walter Price, a 49-year-old Social Studies teacher who was convicted of sexually abusing a student at the very same school just a few months earlier. Cook was ultimately acquitted, but subsequently lost her job in 1995.
Finally, we get to learn a little more about the curious case of Cristina Gutierrez and her past as a public defender, deepening our general confusion about what her strategy was with Adnan's case. According to her peers, Gutierrez was apparently a star in her prime.
Sandra & Jamal Craig. Back in 1986, Gutierrez defended Sandra Craig, owner and operator a Clarksville pre-school, was charged with 53 counts of child abuse, molestation and child pornography. Her 16-year-old son Jamal, who worked at the school, was charged with 8 counts of molestation, including the rape of a 6-year-old girl, ...
The hysteria she's referring to is the case of Walter Price, a 49-year-old Social Studies teacher who was convicted of sexually abusing a student at the very same school just a few months earlier. Cook was ultimately acquitted, but subsequently lost her job in 1995.
Jacqueline F. McLean. Gutierrez served as counsel when Jacqueline F. McLean, the first black female to serve as Baltimore's City Comptroller, was charged with numerous fraud and misconduct charges in 1994. McLean was accused of stealing $25,000 from Baltimore tax payers by reporting an employee on payroll who did not exist.
Adnan says Cristina, actually he calls her Miss Gutierrez, that Miss Gutierrez did do some great things for him. She was successful in barring the school nurse from testifying at the second trial for instance, that was the woman who said she thought Adnan was faking his reaction after Hae’s death.
Sarah Koenig. After he finished, the prosecutor, Vicki Wash, took that same crowd, the people Doug Colbert describes as “solid respectable folk, who make sure Adnan does the right thing,” Wash cast them as a room full of aiders and abettors.
Money, money, Shamim said. At one point, Shamim says, Cristina told Adnan’s parents she needed them to bring $10,000 cash to the courthouse to pay for a jury expert. So, it was kind of, you know, strange. But when I told my friend, she said “oh no don’t worry, she’s doing her job you know.”.
But at a hearing on Adnan’s bail status on March 31, 1999, she felt it. The courthouse that day was packed with people from Adnan’s mosque, The Islamic Society of Baltimore. They’d raised tens of thousands of dollars for his defence, they offered to put up their own houses and other properties to secure his bail.
Sarah Koenig. That’s Adnan’s guidance counselor, Betty Stuckey, reading from a college recommendation she wrote for him. Which, incidentally, she printed out for Adnan on January 13, the same day Hae disappeared. She was the last defense witness at trial.
Her main argument there was that the way the State’s expert, Abe Waranowitz, tested the sites wasn’t valid because he used an Ericsson phone to make the calls, a different brand than Adnan’s, which turned out to be a bad bet on her part. The brand of the phone doesn’t matter.
In 2001, Gutierrez was disbarred, with her consent, following multiple complaints from clients who paid her for legal work she failed to perform. At the time, Gutierrez was dying from MS and her health was rapidly deteriorating.
Roberto Gutierrez. Micajuela Gutierrez. Maria Cristina Gutierrez (February 28, 1951 – January 30, 2004) was an American criminal defense attorney based in Baltimore, Maryland, who represented several high-profile defendants in the 1990s. She was the first latina to be counsel of record in a case before the Supreme Court of the United States.
On May 24, 2001, the Maryland Court of Appeals announced Gutierrez had been disbarred (by consent). Gutierrez had agreed to the disbarment, citing numerous health problems including multiple sclerosis (MS). Voluntary disbarment meant the Attorney Grievance Commission dropped investigation into about a dozen client complaints that they had paid for work which she had not completed. The Maryland Clients' Security Trust Fund manages reimbursements for victims of lawyer misconduct and, by mid-July, they received a record-breaking number of claims from Gutierrez' former clients.
On February 9, 1999, the body of Hae Min Lee ( Korean : 이해민 ), an 18-year-old student at Woodlawn High School in Baltimore, Maryland, was found in Leakin Park. Lee's ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed, was arrested on February 28, 1999 and charged with first-degree murder. His family retained Gutierrez to represent their son.
In 1993 Gutierrez was made a partner in the firm, and its name was changed to Murphy and Gutierrez. On January 15, 1995 , The Baltimore Sun reported that Murphy and Gutierrez split, with Gutierrez describing the decision as amicable.
After a six-week second trial, Syed was found guilty of Lee's murder on February 25, 2000 and sentenced to life in prison, although he continued to maintain his innocence. Syed's new attorney, C. Justin Brown, has appealed the case on the basis of mistakes made by Gutierrez prior to and during the trial.
She served as trial counsel for Adnan Syed, the Baltimore-area teenager who was convicted in 2000 of murdering his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee and was sentenced to life in prison. The controversial case gained renewed national attention in 2014 after being the subject of the first season of the podcasts Serial .
Almost all long, high-profile murder trials have some level of attorney error. More often than not, in these substantial trials, colorable arguments can be made that the errors are serious attorney error, rising to the level that requires a new trial. These are post conviction proceedings.
It’s not surprising that Adnan Syed trusted Tina. She was tenacious and, despite her own issues, was relentless for her clients. She had an extremely high give-a-shit-factor. Syed’s love and affection for her do not surprise me.
Although Adnan retains affection for his lawyer, Christina Gutierrez, who was once a force to be reckoned with in the Baltimore area, he acknowledges that “she never really mentioned what her plan would be. I never really knew what it would be.” As Koenig plays more and more tape from both trials, this becomes painfully apparent. Inasmuch as she had a strategy at all, it boiled down to four words: “Someone else did it.”
Koenig says, without exaggeration, that if Gutierrez had not lost her temper at that moment, Adnan’s entire life could have been different. 3. Why the Second Trial Was Even Worse. It is astonishing in Koenig’s recordings how inarticulate and borderline incompetent professionals can sound in real life.
“Serial” is the podcast of the year, an absorbing, deep dive into a closed case, told in roughly 40-minute weekly installments. Hae Min Lee, a Korean-American teenager in Baltimore, Maryland, was strangled to death in January 1999. Based almost exclusively on the testimony of a fellow high-school student named Jay, her ex-boyfriend Adnan Syed was sentenced to life in prison for the crime. Relitigating the case before the people’s court of public radio is host Sarah Koenig. Today, we discuss Episode 10.
But the evidence of Adnan’s case seems to indicate that, while representing him, she was already in decline, health- and career-wise. She died of a heart attack in 2004 after suffering from complications from diabetes and MS. There is, at least, the glimmer of a silver lining.
Adnan’s bail hearing was recorded, which means we can listen to a prosecutor promising the judge that “if you issue him bail, you are issuing him a passport, under these circumstances, to flee the country.”.
In the first case, Gutierrez might have been able to use reasonable doubt to Adnan’s advantage. Gutierrez’s law clerks polled the jury afterwards and discovered that, even after hearing the bulk of the state’s case, the jurors had not been persuaded of Adnan’s guilt. Unfortunately, the jury never got to deliberate.
Later, she has to send a letter of correction to the judge admitting that she spoke based on incorrect information, though Koenig points out that there is a factual error even in her apology. The prosecutor isn’t the only one carried away by visions of honor killings. Koenig hears the same from at least two jurors.
Since Jay’s credibility was the State’s case, Adnan’s attorney, Cristina Gutierrez, tried to rip it to shreds. That essentially was her defense. She uses the words “truth” and “lie” as often as possible in her cross-examination. There were many exchanges like this one.
A period of time before the tape recorder is turned on. When the cops first bring Jay in on February 28th, they talked to him for about an hour before the tape went on.
Anyway, he hung out with some of the magnet kids because his girlfriend Stephanie was in the program. People told me contradictory things about Jay.
Serial is a new podcast from the creators of This American Life, hosted by Sarah Koenig. Serial will follow one story – a true story – over the course of a whole season.
Serial is a new podcast from the creators of This American Life, hosted by Sarah Koenig. Serial will follow one story – a true story – over the course of a whole… Read More
Again, Woodlawn was a fairly black neighborhood, black community, black-- predominantly black high school, and at seventeen, anything different from you is weird. Sarah Koenig. So Jay didn’t look like the other kids at school and he also didn’t act like the other kids at school.