BALTIMORE (AP) – As a hearing enters a third day for the convicted killer at the center of popular podcast “Serial,” the focus of testimony has shifted away from an alibi witness toward cell tower data that defense attorneys contend was misleading.
Prosecutors used cell tower data during the first trial of Adnan Syed, saying it placed him at the scene where the body of Hae Min Lee was found in 1999.
Attorneys for Syed, who was convicted of killing his high school girlfriend in 2000 and is serving a life sentence, have said cell tower data presented during his first trial was given to a jury without a fax cover sheet warning that the data referred only to outgoing calls, and any information about incoming calls is unreliable.
Syed is seeking a new trial, both because of the tower data and because he alleges his trial lawyer was ineffective.
On Thursday, Gerald Grant, a cell tower expert, told the court that the warning is crucial in order to accurately read the data.