This post is not about Adnan's guilt or innocence. It's about setting the record straight about his attorney, Cristina Gutierrez.

I tried to stop caring about this case a long time ago. I am embarrassed at how far I went down the rabbit hole. Even after vowing to drop it after my last post from 2.5 years ago, I kept going. u/FrankieHellis was kind enough to share an unfiltered, unannotated version of the police file with me. Because I’ve been off these boards for so long, I do not know what website people use nowadays for the docs/transcripts. I will cite the police records using the MPIA numbers and provide cites to trial transcripts. If I do not get something 100% correct but it is not essential to the point that is being made, please cut me some slack. My command of the facts is not what it used to be.

Reading the unfiltered police file was eye-opening. It provides insights into behaviors, motivations and facts that brought further clarity to this case. I also did a deep dive into the news stories from the relevant period, went through the original podcast, and endured a re-watching of parts of the HBO doc. Finally, I am ashamed to admit that I took the creepy step of contacting people who were involved in the case to verify some of my conclusions. I will not identify these individuals and will say nothing about them besides the fact that they were extremely gracious with their time and sharing information. Anyway, when I realized how fucking crazy it was that I directly contacted individuals, I dropped this and walked away. What is the benefit of “solving” the case? Hae Min Lee is still dead. The men responsible for killing her are still in jail (yes, I said “men”).

But then I got that goddamn ping. I should have deleted this app 2 years ago. I saw that someone commented on one of my early, half-baked posts about this case. Then I realized that the comment was made because someone else had reposted said half-baked post. It is the shittiest of the long ones. I start thinking, “Well, don’t read THAT one!” Suddenly, my pupils dilated and I was mainlining this case again. This explanation is for the benefit of anyone who read my previous posts, if any of you are still out there. If you have not read my previous posts, the relevant ones can be found here and here, but I support your decision to ignore them and stop reading this post. This is intended for the masochists who are interested in yet another version of my never-ending series of “last words.”

Targeting Sarah

Sarah Koenig is not a bad person. I think she sincerely approached Adnan’s story with a genuine interest in uncovering the truth. She had the reputation of a journalist seeking to expose another tragic case of an innocent rotting in prison because of our imperfect criminal justice system. In 2006, she received a Peabody for her TAL episode titled, Habeas Schmabeas about Pakistani brothers who printed a mock wanted poster in their satirical magazine and would up as terror suspects imprisoned in Gitmo. But that was only part of the reason why Sarah was approached by Rabia Chaudry in 2013.

Early in the HBO documentary, Rabia Chaudry states, “I went to my laptop and I started looking for a reporter who had covered the case in 1999 for the Baltimore Sun. And the first name I came across is Sarah Koenig.” (Emphasis added). Well, I also went to my laptop and looked for reporters from the Sun who covered the case in 1999. This wasn’t a simple google search, mind you. Being a subscriber to newspapers.com gives you access to every issue of the Sun since 1837 making it the go-to source for info about the Know Nothing Riots of 1856. From 1999, I saw articles about the case by Peter Hermann and Young Chang, Amy Oakes and Jay Apperson. Not one article by Koenig. In fact, there is not a single article in the Sun by Koenig on any topic in 1999. It looks like she wasn’t working there until 2000. Well, maybe Koenig covered Adnan’s conviction, right? Wrong. Sarah Koenig never wrote a single story about the murder of Hae Min Lee at any point during her time as a journalist at the Baltimore Sun. What Koenig did write about is the reason team Adnan reached out to her. In 2001, Koenig wrote two articles about the complaints against and the disbarment of Cristina Gutierrez (Baltimore Sun, 6/2/2001, 3B; 7/19/2001, 2B). Nothing is mentioned about Gutierrez’s representation of Adnan in either article. In her initial email to Koenig on August 12, 2013 (PDF of Imgur file) Rabia acknowledged Koenig's 2001 stories about Gutierrez’s disbarment.

Rabia states,

“Of the many client complaints that lead [sic] to her disbarment, one was missing, that of Adnan Syed.”

We will get to the legitimacy of their complaint later. Rabia laid it on thick about how Gutierriez “willfully lost Adnan’s case and that serious prosecutorial misconduct occurred.” Piggy-backing on Koenig's prejudices against Gutierrez because of her disbarment to plant an idea in Koenig's head that Cristina mishandled Adnan's case was some serious Inception shit. Sarah was hooked.

Please note, this is nowhere close to the average whopper peddled by team Adnan. It simply demonstrates two things: 1) why Koenig was the perfect mark to sell Adnan’s story; and 2) how easy it is to casually lie about almost anything these days and get away with it. Donald Trump is not the only expert at dispensing falsehoods faster than anyone cares to verify them.

Sarah Koenig’s only prior connection to anything related to this case was that she likely held a negative opinion of Cristina Gutierrez. That was key to sell Adnan’s narrative that Gutierrez was incompetent. Now take Koenig’s 2006 Peabody work, her inherent need to expose injustice, add her bias against Gutierrez, and bombard her with tall tales from Adnan’s family and friends. She did not have a chance.

But look where Sarah landed at the end. Despite her biases that Rabia preyed upon, despite the lies that team Adnan whispered in Sarah's ears, despite Adnan's charm offensive, Sarah landed in the middle. After everything team Adnan threw at her, she could not say one way or the other whether Adnan was guilty. This was incredibly frustrating to Rabia. Those who followed her blog know what I am talking about. She was expecting a puppet in the media that would provide a legitimate voice advocating for Adnan's innocence. When that did not work, Rabia capitalized on the popularity of Serial and launched her own podcast to hammer into our consciousness the lies that Sarah refused to broadcast. And those sympathetic to Adnan's cause ate it up. Given team Adnan's Inception strategy, it is a small miracle that Sarah ended up in the middle. Had she approached the story without being infected by team Adnan, it would have died on the vine and there would be no Serial. This also underscores the dangers of "citizen" journalism picking up where actual journalism leaves off and is addressed in pt. 2 of this post.

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The Shamim Scheme

Koenig was disarmed by Adnan’s mom. Outside the context of her son, Shamim is probably a perfectly nice person. She probably cared about others, and I am sure that she is more regular with her prayers than me. But if her son is involved in any wrongdoing, rational thought goes out the window. Granted, most mothers would do anything for their children. But Shamim is one of those “my son is a reflection of my mothering, I was the perfect mother, therefore my son is perfect” moms. Contrast this with the female lead in Mother India, a Hindi film I was forced to watch in the early 80s. Prime time TV was a foreign concept at my house. My parents were early adopters of VCRs, so every night was Bollywood night until I was old enough to drive. Anyway, the female lead has a son who is a thief, kidnapper and murderer—a complete shitbag. When her son tries to kidnap a bride on her wedding day, his mom abandons her maternal instincts and blows him away with a shotgun for the greater good to protect the village. Why am I bringing this up? Mostly to give purpose to my having had to sit through all 3 hours of that fucking movie as a kid. Also, to illustrate the aforementioned contrast where Shamim would shoot the horses belonging to the posse pursuing her son to help him make a clean getaway.

Several police interviews of Woodlawn students and teachers make reference to the scene Adnan’s parents—particularly his mom—made at the homecoming dance. Recall that Adnan attended the dance with Hae. Because dating is prohibited in Islam, Adnan kept his parents in the dark about it. Some busybody from the Muslim community called his parents while he was at the dance. Did they wait for him to come home to let him have it? No. Did they wait at the school parking lot for a dramatic confrontation? No. They marched into the school and searched the dance floor for Adnan and his date. I’d like to think that if I ever pulled something like this, my parents would think rationally and serve me an ass kicking when I got home. But knowing my mom, she would have bee-lined it to the dance floor and beat the living shit out of me. Did Adnan’s mom attack him? Nope. According to Adnan’s older brother, things went in a particularly weird direction when Shamim tried to dance with Adnan (Defense File, 8/21/1999 Interview, A-0150 – A0152 at paragraph 24). Given the choice, I'd take the ass kicking. Less funny were the accounts of several student witnesses and teachers who said Shamim was looking for Hae at the dance (MPIA 15 459) 346, 819, 926, 995; Serial S1E2). Where was this succubus who bewitched her perfect son? Her pious son who had a strong bond with the youth director at their local mosque. Hae was forced to pretend to be with another guy to avoid Shamim’s wrath. This is important. Shamim danced with her son and blamed his date. None of his actions were his fault. The Homecoming incident is foreshadowing to Shamim being less Mother India and more Ma Barker.

Fast forward to October 2012. This was 10 months before Rabia reached out to Koenig. Gutierrez had been dead for almost 9 years. Adnan needed a witness to support his assertion that he received ineffective assistance of counsel. Asia was unavailable to describe her alleged visit to Adnan’s home on March 1, 1999 that she wrote about in letters dated the day of and the day following the alleged visit. Let’s forget for a minute that the letters were fabricated to invent a false alibi. What does Asia say about her visit to Adnan’s home? From the March 2, 1999 letter:

“Your brothers are nice, I don’t think I met your mother, I think I met you [sic] dad; does he have a big gray beard. They gave me and Justin soda and cake. There was [sic] a whole bunch of people at your house, I didn’t know who they were.” (emphasis added).

Did Adnan’s brothers or dad testify to Asia’s alleged visit during the 2012 PCR proceedings? No. Did any of the “whole bunch of people” testify to the alleged visit? No. Did Justin? No. The only person who testified about Asia’s visit was Shamim—the one person Asia wrote one day after her alleged visit whom she did not think she met. If you watched the HBO documentary, you know that of all his family members, Shamim’s English is the worst. Not a knock. Simply a stating a fact. The witness with the weakest command of the English language with the weakest connection to Asia based on the letters was the only person who was willing to testify to have met her. I know several others have previously pointed out that Shamim’s 2012 testimony was complete bullshit, but it is important to look at it from a broader perspective and its impact on Koenig’s involvement in the case and Gutierrez’s reputation.

On October 11, 2012, Shamim laid the foundation about Gutierrez being a scary, money-grubbing bitch. (10/11/12 PCR Transcript at pg. 92 ln. 4 to pg. 93 ln. 4). She then moved on to telling the court about her meeting with Asia (Id. at pgs. 93-98). Because of her aforementioned language issues, Adnan had to clean up the precise timing of that meeting during his PCR testimony to establish that it did allegedly happen on March 1, 1999 (10/25/2012 PCR Transcript at, pg. 27, lns. 21-24 to pg. 28, ln. 1).

A. And she [Asia] told me that she also took it upon herself to visit my family and she spoke to my mother. And, you know, she expressed these things to my mother. So, yeah.

Q. And all that’s in those letters?

A. All of this contained in these letters.

Ok, so we confirmed that Shamim’s testimony is about an alleged meeting that took place at Adnan’s home on March 1, 1999. Just to be clear, at no point has team Adnan pretended (yet) that Asia visited the home after March 1, 1999 and before his conviction almost a year later. Let’s get back to the defense’s direct exam of Shamim that included the following exchange:

Q. Was this the first time you met Asia?

A. Yes.

Q. Was anybody home with you when she came in?

A. No, just me and my daycare children. (emphasis added).

(10/11/2012 PCR Testimony at pg. 93, ln. 23 to pg. 94, ln. 1).

There is a lot to unpack here. Before doing so, let’s take a beat. Shamim is a mom grieving the imprisonment of her beloved son. If that’s where it began and ended, I would have nothing but sympathy for the woman. Unfortunately, when Adnan does wrong, Shamim goes Ma Barker. While her desperate actions may be understandable, they are nonetheless inexcusable. That probably still makes me an asshole for the mockery that follows.

Remember, this meeting allegedly took place one day after the police came to Adnan’s home and arrested him for murder. Close your eyes and take yourself back to March 1, 1999 according to Shamim:

“Hey daycare parents! Don't mind the local news vans! Sure, my son was just charged for murdering his ex, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t watch your kids! What? Do I need time to absorb the fact that the cops just dragged him out of this house? Nah! It’s more important that you get to work on time! In fact, you should feel comfort that there is one less alleged murderer in my house than the last time you dropped off your kids!”

A lesser point: Asia wrote at the top of her March 1st letter that “it’s late” and “I just came from your house an hour ago.” It sounds as though Shamim’s daycare provided an overnight service too! Shifting back to reality, I assume that we can agree that there were no day care kids at Adnan’s house on March 1, 1999.

What happened to the “whole bunch of people” at Adnan’s house? I doubt that Asia was referring to a bunch of sleep-deprived toddlers from Shamim’s daycare stumbling around. And what about Adnan’s brothers that Asia supposedly met or his big grey bearded dad? Recall the postscript in Asia’s March 2nd letter where she stated, “Your brother said that he going [sic] to tell you to maybe call me…” Yet Shamim, who Asia specifically stated that she did not think she met, claims to have been the only one home. Well…her and the late night preschoolers who frequent the homes of recently charged murderers.

After allegedly learning of Asia’s bullshit alibi, Shamim claims that she and her husband ran to Gutierrez the next day—which would be March 2, 1999—to tell her about the bullshit alibi and allegedly left Asia’s number (Id. at pg. 95, ln. 19 to pg. 96, ln. 12). That is quite a trick because Gutierrez’s representation of Adnan did not begin until April 1999 at the earliest. Here is the actual contract for legal services dated April 18, 1999. Did Shamim and her husband accidentally barge into Gutierrez’s office thinking it belonged to Chris Flohr or Doug Colbert who were representing Adnan at the time? I took my research of this to an absurd level a couple of years ago to demonstrate how Gutierrez worked on the other side of town from where Flohr and Colbert would have been located. Thus, Adnan’s parents popping into Gutierrez’s office even by accident was extremely unlikely. That extra mile of research was less to be funny and more to head off people who would actually ask that question.

A quick note on when Gutierrez’s representation of Adnan began. As noted above, the official contract for legal services was 4/18/1999 but the earliest preliminary discussions were about 11 days before that. We have billing records which show that the earliest anyone from Gutierrez’s firm billed any time to Andan’s case was her colleague, Mark Martin, on April 7, 1999 when he and Gutierrez had their initial meeting with the leadership at Adnan’s mosque (Defense File, A-0369). Cristina did not bill any time to Adnan’s case until June 2, 1999. Note that just because she didn’t bill her time does not mean that she was not working on it from April 7, 1999 onward. For example, other notes indicate that both Cristina and Mark Martin participated in the initial meeting on April 7th, but she did not bill her time. We will definitely be revisiting Gutierrez's billing practices.

What? We should ignore all this because Adnan’s mom is an unsophisticated woman and was confused? Fine. Let’s see what Adnan had to say in his PCR testimony. Remember that in 2012 he was no longer a frightened 17 year-old boy. He was a 30 year-old man. On October 25, 2012, Adnan testified that he received both of Asia’s letters within the first week of being arrested (10/25/2012 PCR Transcript at pg. 28, lns. 13-15). Adnan was arrested on February 28, 1999, so he claims to have received them by at least March 7, 1999. Then we have the following exchange (Id. at pg. 31, lns. 7-13):

Q. And after receiving the letters form Ms. McClane, did you notify Cristina Gutierrez?

A. I immediately notified her.

Q. How did you notify her?

A. Well, it would have been, the next time that I saw her on a visit, I showed her the two letters and she read them.

So he immediately notified Gutierrez after receiving the letters? The next time he saw her? The first fucking time he saw her was on April 16, 1999 when she visited him in prison (MPIA 15 459 152). So, Adnan immediately showed Gutierrez letters after March 7th when she wasn’t even his attorney for another month? Ok, but do you know who Adnan did see between March 7, 1999 after he claims to have received the letters and April 16, 1999 when Cristina first visited him in jail? His two attorneys, Chris Flohr and Doug Colbert. Several times. Look at the visitor log info yourself (MPIA (15 459) 152, 156).

• 3/12/1999 Doug Colbert
• 3/19/1999 Chris Flohr
• 3/23/1999 Doug Colbert
• 3/26/1999 Chris Flohr
• 4/7/1999 Chris Flohr
• 4/13/1999 Chris Flohr

So Adnan sat on the Asia letters and did not say anything during his six meetings with Colbert and Flohr because he as saving them for Gutierrez who he didn’t even know existed?

These people had over a FUCKING DECADE to come up with a lie and this is the best they could do???

Of course, the only witness who was willing commit perjury (besides Adnan) was Shamim. The entire narrative of Asia’s letters had to be modified to remove Adnan’s brothers, his dad and the “whole bunch of people” from the equation. If Shamim said that anyone else from her family was there, they could be subpoenaed and testify under oath. Same for any individual identified as being among the “whole bunch of people.” No one else was willing to lie under oath. Not Adnan’s dad. Not his brothers. Not the whole bunch of people. Not even the late night toddlers. Only Shamim. Because she is still dancing with her son and directing her rancor at the unfair criminal justice system. Because like Hae, it is the system that is evil. In her deranged mind, any lie she tells is necessary to reverse the gross injustice that has been imposed on her perfect son.

Reading the transcript of the prosecution’s cross of Shamim left me wondering why they didn’t tear her apart. She admitted during direct that a professor was initially hired when Adnan was arrested and that he introduced Adnan’s family to Gutierrez (10/11/2012 PCR Transcript at pg. 84, lns. 1-17). On cross, the prosecution did not clarify when Gutierrez was hired nor did they nail down the fact that Asia allegedly visited Adnan’s home on March 1, 1999. I thought the prosecution might have held back on Shamim out of pity. But two weeks later when Adnan clarified that his mom’s bogus meeting with Asia did take place on March 1, 1999, the prosecution did nothing with it. That was a huge miss. Then again, the prosecution does not have the luxury to spend countless hours on their cases. They have deadlines and other cases on their docket that require their attention. These types of things are easier to pick up for obsessive lunatics like myself and many others on this sub. Sarah Koenig also immersed herself into this case spending an inordinate amount of time over the course of a year to create her marvelous, blockbuster story. How did something so obvious get past her?

This is where the case should have died. The demonstrably false story that Adnan and his mom peddled during the PCR proceedings is in the public record. It should have been detected by a half-wit journalist with a shred of objectivity. With Sarah Koenig, team Adnan had an above average journalist with no objectivity. Team Adnan obviously concealed the timing of Gutierrez’s representation and Koenig never thought to ask. Why would she? Based on her 2001 reporting, she was preprogrammed to believe that Gutierrez was a shit attorney. There was no need to question the timing because in Koenig’s mind, Gutierrez was already wrong. Koenig’s 2006 work to expose the ridiculous injustice suffered by the Pakistani brothers imprisoned in Gitmo also blinded her to the obvious flaws in Adnan’s bullshit alibi. His narrative of being a persecuted minority resonated with her. Like Fox Mulder, Sarah wanted to believe.

One of my favorite interviews from TAL was one that Sarah did in 2009 with her father, Julian Koenig. He is a fascinating guy who made quite a name for himself as an advertising exec. He is the man behind some of the most famous ad campaigns. The interview was a sweet homage to her dad about how in his twilight years he was increasingly concerned about his legacy. He wanted to get credit for work he did that was claimed by others. These were beefs dating back at least 3 decades. He seemed to let it roll off when others took credit for his work when he was younger. I raise this because there was something that he said during the interview that was a prescient warning that Sarah did not heed. He spoke of a fabricated story that his former partner included in a book about an ad that was actually created by Julian. The exchange was as follows:

Sarah: But his makes a better story.

Julian: His is a marvelous story! George is a talented storyteller with a vivid imagination. The only thing that could exceed it is the truth.

Although she ribbed her dad a bit about caring too much about getting credit, it was nice that Sarah could help him set the record straight while he was still alive. Now if Sarah can only do the same for a dead lawyer after she was manipulated into pissing on CG's grave.

The Legacy of Cristina Gutierrez

My previous post on the topic of Asia’s alibi went into more detail on how it was fabricated. Some were not convinced by the facts and conclusions. That is fine. But simply understanding how team Adnan tried to sell the story during the PCR proceedings described in this post (and likely previously by others) unequivocally demonstrates that it is complete bullshit. “Oh, it had been so long they forgot some details.” They testified under oath. CG’s legal services agreement and invoices--which team Adnan had--directly contradict their perjured testimony. Dad didn’t testify. Brothers didn’t testify. Not even the one who “said that he was going to tell you [Adnan] to maybe call me [Asia]." Here is some free criminal advice (they wouldn't know what to do with legal advice) for team Adnan:

Always begin by taking inventory of who is willing to commit perjury before making up a bullshit story.

The only person who was willing to lie for Adnan was his mom. The one person in Adnan’s family who Asia said in her March 2, 1999 letter that she did not think she met. To destroy Gutierrez’s reputation, Shamim became the only person Asia met on March 1st. To destroy Gutierrez’s reputation, they shifted the date of her representing Adnan by more than a month. They invented a meeting that never took place with Asia at Adnan’s house. They invented a meeting with Adnan’s parents that never took place at Gutierrez’s office. They invented a “next” meeting between Adnan and Gutierrez before there was even a first one. Those are all details that they hoped that everyone else forgot.

The ineffective assistance claim could have been raised before Gutierrez died in 2004. Instead, team Adnan waited until the statutory deadline to do it. What, they needed a decade to carefully orchestrate the absurd shitshow described above? But why wait another five years after CG passed away? Remember, there were associate attorneys and clerks at Gutierrez’s firm who also worked on Adnan’s case. These people were still around after Cristina died and could have called bullshit if the ineffective assistance claim was raised soon after her passing. So, team Adnan waited as long as possible and gambled that none of CG’s former colleagues would chime in with the obvious flaws in their depraved strategy.

Recall how Gutierrez was portrayed by team Adnan as a money-grubbing bitch. I do not remember if it was in the original podcast or the documentary, but Shamim and Rabia talked about how CG demanded payment in cash. We are expected to believe that Adnan’s parents cartoonishly plopped down a large sack marked with a dollar sign on CG’s desk. That would obviate the need to produce any attorney invoices or cancelled checks. Remember, that Adnan’s defense was bankrolled by the local Muslim community. We are expected to believe that the custodians of those funds sent bags of cash out the door with no questions asked.

We know that Gutierrez had some problems managing her legal practice after Adnan’s conviction per Sarah Koenig’s reporting. Again, Koenig's articles were limited to CG’s problems, mind you. They were not about Adnan’s case, which Koenig never wrote about while at the Sun contrary to Rabia’s lie in the HBO doc. CG’s management problems were related to health issues that she encountered after she no longer represented Adnan. Team Adnan backdated CG’s health and management problems to push the "incompetent, money-grubbing bitch" narrative. Why not? They obviously backdated her representation of Adnan for the PCR proceedings.

Unfortunately for team Adnan, we have some pages of his legal bills. I have only seen the invoices from March through June of 1999. The March invoice is only for the investigator, Drew Davis, who worked on behalf of Adnan’s original attorneys, Colbert and Flohr. I have not seen any bills for Colbert and Flohr’s time. Whether the rest of the invoices were produced, burned, or withheld is irrelevant to the following point. Look at what Adnan was billed by Gutierrez from April – June of 1999 (Defense File, A-369 to 370, A-0374). 7.25 hours. The first time she billed any time to his case was June 2, 1999. Does that mean that she didn’t do any work for Adnan until that date? Fuck no. Take a look at Drew Davis’ invoice (A-0-374). Line item 4 shows that he billed 6 hours (and 49 miles) on March 4, 1999, for his sole visit to Adnan in prison (MPIA 15 459 155). The visitor log corroborates that Davis did, in fact, visit Adnan only on that date. Now look at Gutierrez’s visits to Adnan during the period covered by the April – June 1999 bill (MPIA (15 459) 152, 156).

• Did she bill any mileage or time for her visit to Adnan on April 16, 1999? NO.
• Did she bill any mileage or time for her visit to Adnan on May 28, 1999? NO.
• Did she bill any mileage or time for her visit to Adnan on June 5, 1999? NO.
• Did she bill any mileage or time for her visit to Adnan on June 8, 1999? NO.
• Did she bill any mileage or time for her visit to Adnan on June 26, 1999? NO.

Flohr and Colbert’s investigator billed Adnan 6 hours for a single prison visit. Gutierrez did not bill a single minute for five fucking visits. This is the same lawyer that Shamim testified under oath during the PCR proceedings that was so focused on money that she threatened to take their family home (10/11/2012 PCR Testimony at pg. 90, lns. 17-25). The lawyer who would only talk about money with Adnan’s parents. “Money, all the time. You know, money.” (Id. at pg. 92, lns. 10-11). Yeah, Shamim. We know.

Gutierrez’s ridiculous UNDER-billing of her time is consistent with what I learned from speaking directly with one of her former associates (hereinafter, “FA1”). Yeah, being creepy yielded some interesting insights. FA1 told me that Gutierrez dedicated herself entirely to Adnan’s case. FA1 said that the attorneys at the firm were not getting paid because Gutierrez was so singularly focused on freeing Adnan and ignored the firm management part. So, “money, all the time” is supported neither by the record nor by those who actually worked with Gutierrez. The only “proof” that she was all about the money are the words of team Adnan who repeatedly and unequivocally prove that they are lying sacks of shit.

Let’s take a moment to fully appreciate Rabia Chaudry’s hubris and the part she played in convincing the world that Gutierrez was an incompetent lawyer who only cared about money. Take a deep breath reader, here comes a run on sentence. Documentary footage of yourself taking photos of your beautiful new home that was bought and paid for with the ill-gotten gains from the proceeds of a bullshit story that includes deliberate falsehoods about Adnan’s dead attorney being a money-grubbing bitch is the very definition of irony. Watching the first five minutes of the documentary, you would think that the director was trying to make Rabia look like a daft, tone-deaf asshole. But she was one of the producers. The optics of Shamim leaving the modest home where Adnan once lived to visit Rabia at her mc-mansion built on Adnan's lies was striking. Rabia should have toned it down a bit and dressed like this when she answered the door. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a class warrior who has a problem with people making money. But we can all agree that it is despicable to make your money by telling lies about the dead.

The planet-sized irony of accusing Gutierrez of avarice is eclipsed only by Rabia accusing Gutierrez of incompetence. Rabia never misses an opportunity to boast about being an attorney doing national security work. That’s not very reassuring given how she doesn't even fucking know how waiver of privilege works. Yeah, those legal bills mentioned earlier were privileged documents from the defense file and normally would not be produced. Rabia selectively disclosed information she thought was favorable to Adnan’s case on her blog, including privileged documents, resulting in the forced production of other, less helpful privileged docs. Maybe she was visiting Adnan in prison the day they taught privilege waiver in law school. Based on the anemic defense file, she was busy chasing down Asia when they taught about spoliation.

Unfortunately, the legion of fuck-tards who follow Rabia on twitter will forever be convinced that Gutierrez was an incompetent attorney who was driven by greed. The few dozen individuals left in this world who have patience, appreciation for nuance and the ability to process more than 280 characters at a time, know otherwise. Ok, “fuck-tards” is admittedly too harsh. I’ll clean that up in the “Final Thoughts” section in the second part of this never-ending post.

There is one final note about Gutierrez that I learned from another former associate (hereinafter, "FA2") that I need to share. In my previous posts about the Asia alibi, I wrote about how Gutierrez sniffed out team Adnan’s plot to fabricate his alibi and hated them for it. I thought Cristina could not bring herself to even look at Adnan for having attempted to make her party to a scheme to manufacture evidence. Boy, was I wrong. I was projecting how I would have felt. Cristina was a professional. Even after she was fired, she continued following Adnan’s case and would not tolerate anyone in her office speaking ill of him. FA2 was initially reluctant to confirm my conclusions. I asked if FA2 was hesitant because I misread some facts. FA2 agreed with the conclusions and was hesitant to comment because they were afraid that Cristina would climb out of her grave and come after them if they said anything that would hurt Adnan’s case. Those were the FA’s words. Words that were spoken almost two decades after Adnan’s conviction. Words spoken with full knowledge of what these slanderous pieces of shit said about Cristina. I asked, “you think she would still come after you despite the fact that team Adnan waited until she was dead to tell lies about her?” The FA2 said, “Absolutely.” I am unable to process that. But I also have not forgiven my cousin for throwing gum in my hair almost four decades ago.

It takes a special kind of person to be a criminal defense attorney. Your client’s innocence or guilt does not factor into your representing their interests. You take for granted that your client probably lied to the cops, lied to the court and is lying to you. Knowing all that, you must nevertheless be a zealous advocate. I could never do that. If I were in Gutierrez’s shoes and knew that Adnan and his merry band of morons were trying to fabricate evidence, my focus would be on withdrawing from representing him, not preparing a strong defense. If all defense attorneys thought like me, our imperfect criminal justice system would collapse. As this scene demonstrates, there is no room in a criminal defense attorney's mind for passing moral judgement on their client. I liked that scene a lot more before we learned that the guy Ron Silver played hung out with Jeffrey Epstein. Criminal defense attorneys get a bad rap in our society, but the role they play in the system is essential. Some can be heroes. Fuck Rabia, Adnan and his family for what they did to her. Cristina Gutierrez was a hero.

On to part 2...