In fact, Enright added eight students to the case-five from the project’s for-credit clinic and three from the pro bono clinic. “It’s a lot of leg work, if we had a team of five students we could get those things done with people who are being supervised, so think about that,” Enright tells her. Their conversations form the bulk of Episode 7, titled “The Opposite of the Prosecution.”ĭuring the episode, Enright makes Koenig an offer to help track down some of the unanswered questions. This led Serial co-creator and narrator Sarah Koenig to interview Enright about those similarities and to hash out with her some of the unusual aspects of the Syed case.

Syed read in prison about Justin Wolfe, a Virginia death row inmate who had a defense team that included the Innocence Project, and saw similarities to his own case. The clinic’s efforts to investigate questionable convictions have made news in the past. So, this level of interest feels really hopeful to me, like maybe we’re underestimating people’s interest in the system.” “If you would have told me last year that 5 million people would want to know what we do every day, I would say they clearly don’t care what we do every day, because there aren’t funds for representing people post-conviction,” Enright said. “We thought maybe it was going to be one episode of This American Life,” Clifford said.Įnright said the level of interest was a surprise in light of the traditional lack of funding for post-conviction relief. “Zero idea,” said Innocence Project Director Deirdre Enright ’92, with her students echoing agreement. But members of the Virginia team said they never predicted how popular or expansive the reporting would turn out to be. Produced by the makers of This American Life, the serialized re-examination of the murder case became an international sensation, with Apple reporting that the podcast became the fastest to reach 5 million downloads and streams in iTunes history.

Despite apparently lacking a strong motive, Syed was sentenced to life in prison for her murder. “We feel like we’re making a difference in something that the whole nation’s looking at,” said Katie Clifford ’15, who was featured on the podcast.Īdnan Syed was a 17-year-old Baltimore high school student when his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee, was found strangled to death in a park. Whatever the final results of that investigation turn out to be, the students involved in the effort say it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

The school’s for-credit clinic and a related pro bono clinic give students who participate the chance to investigate, and potentially to litigate, wrongful convictions that may lead to exoneration.

The podcast closed with the promise that the Innocence Project would seek DNA testing and investigate further.

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