Who Made the Decision to Mail Subpoenas to Witnesses in the Adnan Syed Case?

In a post two days ago, I noted how a mistake by one of Cristina Gutierrez’s law clerks led to the subpoena for track teammate Will being sent to Woodlawn High School despite the fact that Will had graduated earlier in the year. You might wonder why the defense mailed a subpoena to Will instead of personally serving him. I’ve posted the memo that Gutierrez’s clerk sent to her about the track team members before, but I had never noticed the language at the bottom of that memo. Susan Simpson, however, pointed it out to me a few days ago.

As points of reference: (1) Drew was the private investigator working for Gutierrez on the case; and (2) Mike was a law student/clerk working on the case. So, while the private investigator wanted to personally serve witnesses, such as Will, he was overruled by a law student who recommended mailing subpoenas. And that might have been okay, except for the fact that another law student failed to realize that Will had graduated from Woodlawn and would not receive the subpoena. Something similar happened with Krista, with someone on the defense team failing to realize that her subpoena was sent to the wrong city and zip code. And something similar happened with an assistant track coach. It’s also quite possible that any number of other witnesses never received their defense subpoenas.

-CM