State v. Syed

• Decision Date: 08 March 2019
• Docket Number: No. 24 Sept. Term, 2018,24 Sept. Term, 2018
• Parties: STATE of Maryland v. Adnan SYED
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

463 Md. 60

204 A.3d 139

STATE of Maryland

v.Adnan SYED

No. 24 Sept. Term, 2018

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

March 8, 2019

Reconsideration Denied April 19, 2019

Argued by Thiruvendran Vignarajah, Special Asst. Atty. Gen. (Brian E. Frosh, Atty. Gen. of Maryland, DLA Piper LLP(US), Baltimore, MD), on brief, for Petitioner/Cross-Respondent.

Argued by Catherine E. Stetson (James W. Clayton, Kathryn M. Ali and W. David Maxwell, Hogan Lovells US LLP, Washington, DC; C. Justin Brown, Brown Law, Baltimore, MD), on brief, for Respondent/Cross-Petitioner.

Amicus Curiae Maryland Criminal Defense Attorneys' Association, Maryland Office of the Public Defender, and Individual Criminal Defense Attorneys in Support of Respondent: Andrew V. Jezic, Esquire, Jezic & Moyse, LLC, 2730 University Blvd., West #604, Wheaton, MD 20902, Erica J. Suter, Esquire, Law Offices Erica J. Suter, LLC, 6305 Ivy Lane, Suite 700, Greenbelt, MD 20770, Rachel Marblestone Kamins, Esquire, Offit Kurman, 8171 Maple Lawn Blvd., Suite 200, Maples Lawn, MD 20759, Steven M. Klepper, Esquire, Louis P. Malick, Esquire, Kramon & Graham, P.A., One South Street, Suite 2600, Baltimore, MD 21202-3201.

Argued before: Barbera, C.J., Greene, McDonald, Watts, Hotten, Getty, Sally D. Adkins (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned), JJ.

Greene, J.

In the present case, we are asked to reconsider the decision of a post-conviction court that granted the Respondent, Adnan Syed, a new trial. That decision was affirmed in part and reversed in part by our intermediate appellate court with the ultimate disposition—a new trial—remaining in place. The case now stands before us, twenty years after the murder of the victim, seventeen-year-old high school senior Hae Min Lee ("Ms. Lee"). We review the legal correctness of the decision of the post-conviction court and decide whether certain actions on the part of Respondent's trial counsel violated Respondent's right to the effective assistance of counsel.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

We shall not endeavor to replicate the thorough, carefully-written and well-organized Opinion, penned by then-Chief Judge Patrick Woodward, of the Court of Special Appeals in this case. For a more exhaustive review of the underlying facts, evidence presented at trial, and subsequent procedural events involving Respondent's (hereinafter "Respondent" or "Mr. Syed") conviction of first-degree murder of his ex-girlfriend, we direct readers to the Opinion of that court.

Syed v. State , 236 Md. App. 183, 181 A.3d 860 (2018) (" Syed "). For purposes of our review of the issues before us, we shall include relevant facts as necessary as well as an abbreviated recitation of the significant procedural markers in this case's sojourn.

On February 25, 2000, a jury sitting in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City convicted Mr. Syed of first-degree murder, robbery, kidnapping, and false imprisonment of Ms. Lee. Mr. Syed challenged his conviction on direct appeal. In an unreported opinion, the Court of Special Appeals affirmed his conviction on March 19, 2003. Syed v. State , No. 923, Sept. Term 2000. On May 28, 2010, Mr. Syed filed a petition for post-conviction relief, which he supplemented on June 27, 2010. In that petition, Mr. Syed alleged that he received ineffective assistance of counsel and in so alleging lodged claims against his trial counsel, sentencing counsel, and appellate counsel. In the post-conviction petition, Mr. Syed argued nine bases for his claim that he had received ineffective assistance of counsel. Syed , 236 Md. App. at 206-07, 181 A.3d at 872-73 (listing the nine bases on which Mr. Syed claimed his trial counsel or appellate counsel were ineffective). Of relevance to our inquiry is that none of the nine bases was a claim that his trial counsel failed to challenge an alleged Brady¹ violation regarding the admission of evidence that potentially undermined the reliability of cell tower location evidence that was used as part of the State's case.²

Mr. Syed did raise and argue that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to investigate or call Asia McClain ("Ms. McClain") as an alibi witness. After a two-day hearing on October 11, 2012 and October 25, 2012, the post-conviction court issued an order and memorandum in which it denied post-conviction relief on January 6, 2014.

Thereafter, Mr. Syed filed a timely application for leave to appeal, which presented the issue of his trial counsel's failure to interview or investigate Ms. McClain as a potential alibi witness.³ Subsequent to his filing of an application for leave to appeal, Mr. Syed supplemented his application for leave to appeal and requested that the Court of Special Appeals remand the case for the post-conviction court to consider an affidavit from Ms. McClain.⁴ The intermediate appellate court granted Mr. Syed's request and issued a limited remand order in which it afforded Mr. Syed "the opportunity to file such a request to re-open the post-conviction proceedings" in the Circuit Court. See Syed , 236 Md. App. at 210, 181 A.3d at 875 (reciting the Remand Order in relevant part).

Upon remand by the Court of Special Appeals and as part of his request to the Circuit Court to reopen his post-conviction proceedings, Mr. Syed filed a request for the Circuit Court to consider, for the first time, a new basis for his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel related to a purported Brady violation concerning the cell tower location evidence. Mr. Syed continued to maintain his argument that his trial counsel's failure to pursue Ms. McClain as an alibi witness amounted to ineffective assistance of counsel. The Circuit Court granted Mr. Syed's request to reopen his post-conviction proceedings to review both of the aforementioned issues.

After a five-day hearing, the post-conviction court issued an order, accompanied by a thorough memorandum, in which it denied relief to Mr. Syed on the issue of his counsel's failure to investigate Ms. McClain as an alibi witness. The post-conviction court concluded that although Mr. Syed's trial counsel was deficient for not contacting Ms. McClain, counsel's failure to investigate Ms. McClain's claim did not prejudice Mr. Syed. Next, the post-conviction court concluded that Mr. Syed waived his claim of a Brady violation with respect to the cell tower location evidence because he had not raised the claim in his post-conviction petition. Finally, with respect to Mr. Syed's claim of ineffective assistance of counsel concerning his trial counsel's failure to challenge the cell tower location evidence, the post-conviction court first determined that Mr. Syed did not knowingly and intelligently waive this claim. Then, the post-conviction court reasoned that Mr. Syed's trial counsel's failure to challenge the cell tower information was in fact deficient and that this deficiency prejudiced Mr. Syed. As a result, the post-conviction court vacated the convictions and granted Mr. Syed a new trial.

In its review of the post-conviction court's order, the Court of Special Appeals reversed the rulings in two respects. With regard to the claim that Mr. Syed suffered ineffective assistance of counsel due to his trial counsel's failure to investigate a potential alibi witness, the Court of Special Appeals applied the tenets of Strickland v. Washington , 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), and concluded that Mr. Syed's trial counsel's performance was deficient and that this deficiency resulted in prejudice. Specifically, the intermediate appellate court determined that Mr. Syed was prejudiced by the absence of Ms. McClain's testimony because of the State's timeline of the murder and the fact that the State was required to prove that Mr. Syed caused the death of the victim in order to secure a conviction for first-degree murder. 236 Md. App. at 281, 181 A.3d at 916. The court explained that, "the State had to establish that [Mr.] Syed ‘caused the death’ of [Ms. Lee], and the State's theory of when, where, and how [Mr.] Syed caused [Ms. Lee's] death was critical to proving this element of the crime." Id. The court characterized the State's case as a circumstantial one that "did not directly establish that [Mr.] Syed caused [Ms. Lee's] death sometime between 2:15 p.m. and 2:35 p.m. in the Best Buy Parking lot on January 13, 1999." Id. at 282, 181 A.3d at 916. By contrast, according to the intermediate appellate court, Ms. McClain's testimony would have been evidence that could have supplied " ‘reasonable doubt’ in at least one juror's mind leading to a different outcome[.]" Id. at 284, 181 A.3d at 918. The Court of Special Appeals, thus, determined that Mr. Syed was entitled to a new trial.⁵ Id. at 286, 181 A.3d at 919.

In addition, the Court of Special Appeals considered whether Mr. Syed had waived his right to a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel on the basis that his trial counsel failed to challenge the cell tower location evidence. Id. at 230, 181 A.3d at 886. Heeding the collective guidance of the reasoning in Curtis v. State ,⁶ Wyche v. State ,⁷ and Arrington v. State ,⁸ the intermediate appellate court ruled that because Mr. Syed had previously raised the issue of ineffective assistance of counsel in his petition for post-conviction relief, he was precluded from raising the issue again on a totally different ground, namely, the cell tower location ground. Id. at 237, 181 A.3d at 890. Specifically, the intermediate appellate court explained that Mr. Syed's post-conviction petition, "advanced seven claims that trial counsel's representation^{[9 ]} was constitutionally inadequate, each on a separate ground. The cell tower ground was not one of those grounds. Consequently, the question of waiver regarding the failure to raise the issue of ineffective assistance of trial counsel is not present here." Id. at 236-37, 181 A.3d at 890. The Court of Special Appeals further held that the theory relative to the reliability of the cell tower location evidence was a...