@treemaven - there is a huge amount of legal/logical sleight of hand going on in that blog post at viewfromll2.com – to start with, the statement, “The “Leakin Park calls” that Urick’s case was so dependent upon do not even show by a preponderance of the evidence that the cellphone was in Leakin Park at 7:15 pm that night, let alone show it beyond a reasonable doubt.” is completely misrepresenting the prosecution’s case and the law.
Urick did not have to prove that the cell phone was in Leakin Park that night, let alone prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. A prosecutor does not have to prove every piece of evidence in a case beyond a reasonable doubt - the prosecutor has to prove the legal elements of the case (essentially that Hae was murdered and that Adnan was the one who killed her), beyond a reasonable doubt, and to do that he builds a case based on cumulative consideration of all the evidence. But no one piece of evidence needs to stand on its own – the jury could very easily have decided that the cell phone evidence was too complicated or too iffy and disregarded it, and still convicted.
Again, in this case, the linchpin of the prosecutions case was the direct witness (accomplice) testimony.
I’d add that I doubt that the prosecutor ever even claimed that there was evidence to prove that the cell phone was in Leakin Park… all it could ever have shown is that the phone was near Leakin Park – but that’s fine as a piece of circumstantial evidence to be considered along with all the other evidence.
Finally-- a point that a lot of people seem to miss – the absence of cell phone ping evidence at or near Leakin Park doesn’t prove that the possessor of the cell phone was not at Leakin Park – all that the phone evidence can show conclusively is that the cell phone user was not in the vicinity of Leakin Park at the specific times that outgoing calls were made which pinged cell towers that were in other, more distant location. It’s entirely possible that the burial could have taken place at a different time, when no cell phone calls were made.
So again, those cell phone records are a relatively minor piece of evidence, introduced probably both to provide a small piece of corroboration, and also to provide some sort of reckoning as to time line, given that it was fairly obvious that Jay’s recollection of specific times was way off. (Understandable, given that he wasn’t interviewed until about 6 weeks after the murder, and that he had been using drugs that day, so unlikely to have an accurate perception as to passage of time.) I think that Urick’s claim that the cell records were corroborating Jay’s time line are equally disingenuous-- but again, the time line isn’t the point. It doesn’t matter whether Jay can remember the times accurately – it matters that the events he described took place. The cell records provide some indication that Adnan - or whoever had his cell phone at that point- was in the general area of Leakin Park at some time that evening – that’s all.
The other thing that I find odd about the viewfromll2.com blog post is the focus on the calls around the time track practice ended -and the claim that “Urick discredited Adnan’s alibi based on a false representation to the jury. Because the 5:14 pm call was not Adnan checking voicemail,…” — but Adnan did not testify at trial, so there was no “alibi” evidence from that time frame to discredit – and Jay’s testimony was that he had taken Adnan back to school for track practice and picked him up again later – so whether or not Adnan had actually attended track practice was not in any way exculpatory.
