On January 13th, 1999, Hae Min Lee, a beautiful, athletic senior left Woodlawn High School in Baltimore, Maryland, and was never seen alive again. On October 3rd, 2014, journalist Sarah Koenig released the first episode of the podcast Serial, a spin off of This American Life, that immortalized "Hae's" story and completely captivated listeners.

In the early hours of February 28th, 1999, Adnan Syed, Hae's ex-boyfriend, was arrested from his home. He has yet to return. Represented by "bulldog" defense attorney Christina Gutierrez, Syed was convicted of first-degree murder on February 25th, 2000 and sentenced to life in prison, plus thirty years.

Serial is a wildly popular podcast, and for good reason. Sarah Koenig is a great journalist, and much of that stems from her ability as a storyteller. Over 12 episodes, Koenig weaves a tale that she describes multiple times as "Shakespearean". She compares Adnan and Hae to Othello and Desdemona, or Romeo and Juliet, tragic couples who are separated because of their hamartia, or fatal flaws. Koenig goes so far as to say that if Adnan is innocent he has to be "the single most unlucky guy in the world."

This line alone demonstrates Koenig's tendency to ignore the issues, and focus on the narrative. There are thousands of "the most unlucky guy(s) in the world." For Adnan, or anyone else to be wrongfully convicted, the police need to make the wrong arrest, the state needs to charge the wrong person, the defense needs to fail, the jury needs to come to the wrong conclusion, and the judge needs to give the wrong sentence. That's pretty unlucky, but worse, that's pretty common.

Now that season one of Serial is over, the case of Adnan Syed is fading into the background. There are reasons that we need to talk about it, and they extend beyond the halls of Woodlawn High School. It's less fashionable, now, to care about the exoneration of a convicted murderer as his social media presence dwindles. But there are issues at play that contributed to Adnan's conviction that have existed, and will continue to exist until the general public cares enough to demand change. That being said, here are five reasons why you should still care about Adnan Syed, and why you should be angry with the current state of our justice system:

1.) Because 100,000 innocent people are falsely convicted every year.

If you do believe in Adnan's innocence, he is not the first to be falsely accused, and he is certainly not the last. A survey of 188 judges, prosecuting attorneys, public defenders, sheriffs, and police chiefs revealed that the American justice system imprisons approximately 100,000 innocent people every single year. Experts claim that this number is still conservative. Most of these convictions are based off of eyewitness accounts, which are known to lawyers and judges to be unreliable, but to juries, these accounts often seem infallible. The case against Adnan Syed, centering around an eyewitness' testimony is an excellent (if extreme) example of this.

2.) Because 149 people were exonerated in 2015.

For a defendant to be exonerated, a defense team would need to prove that there was either misconduct, flawed forensic evidence, faulty eyewitness identification, or a false confession after the defendant has already been convicted. It is incredibly difficult for a defendant to be exonerated. Part of this stems from the state's need to defend their case, they are often more focused on defending their reputation as particularly "tough on crime" than freeing an innocent man or woman. Out of 100,000 people who were falsely convicted last year, 149 were exonerated. That's unacceptable.

For those of you who are still following Adnan's case, you know that his defense team is still actively pursuing exoneration. In early 2016, Adnan's lead attorney, C. Justice Brown, was able to prove in a post-conviction relief hearing that Adnan received ineffective assistance of council (layman's terms: Christina Gutierrez did a shitty job defending him). Winning these kinds of trials are a huge deal-- it doesn't happen often, and when it does, it means that the defendant is normally released or, at the very least, given a retrial (the judge deemed that Adnan would receive a retrial). Rather than giving Syed his day in court with an effective legal counsel, the state is attempting to appeal this decision.

3.) Because it is still legal to interrogate suspects without recording the conversation.

As the Serial podcast explains, Jay was interrogated for three hours before detectives turned on the cameras. Listeners of Serial and Undisclosed will know that his story is riddled with inconsistencies, and the audio recording reveals some strange tapping sounds during long pauses, after which Jay is able to recall his story. Had Jay's entire testimony been video recorded, it's possible that Adnan never would have been convicted. There is no reason to not record a suspect. If the goal of law enforcement is to find the perpetrator, not necessarily the easiest conviction, recording a suspect is more helpful than not.

4.) Because most juries view a confession as true, no matter what

To some juries, there is no moving past a "false" confession. It makes sense that a person would think, "if they didn't do it, why confess?" That's actually a complicated question with some complicated answers. Innocent people could confess falsely thanks mostly to the threat of a harsh sentence. Police are often able to convince innocent people during interrogation that the case against the suspect is so strong, they will be convicted, and the path of least resistant is to confess to "their" crime. It's possible that this was a strategy that was used against Jay when he was interrogated.

5.) Because we target the vulnerable to please a vengeful public.

We as a society should be angry when a crime like this is committed. Hae should have had a full life ahead of her. She should be alive right now, maybe married, maybe even a mother, with a dynamic and interesting career and a Wikipedia page that focuses more on what she does, rather than what has happened to her. It's right to want justice when something horrible happens.

But something horrible can happen to people who are convicted, too. Adnan Syed was turned into a monster by the state's defense. He was somehow a "good Muslim" extremist who would kill to defend his honor, and a "bad Muslim" who lied, cheated, stole, drank, had sex, smoked pot, and could maintain a double life with little to no suspicion. Here's what Adnan was when he was convicted: a seventeen year old ethnic minority, religious minority, who's "accomplice" was given too sweet of a deal for his crime, and who had an attorney who has been proven in a court of law to do an ineffective job. These signs all point to the fact that he was more than "unlucky." Adnan Syed was the perfect target. His arrest made an excellent story. Adnan was in a vulnerable position that our justice system took advantage of.

Adnan Syed made an amazing narrative for the state, and an amazing story for Koenig. But we did not build a justice system on the backbone of fairy tales or Shakespearean tragedies, we built it off of the presumption of innocence, and the idea that if there is reasonable doubt, a defendant should never be convicted. The justice system failed Adnan Syed, Hae Min Lee, Jay, and every other man or woman who was falsely convicted off of flimsy evidence that would fit neatly into a blog post or newspaper article. Our defendants and our victims deserve better. Let's strive to give them that.