By Tom Williams
In the past few years, cases such as Brendan Dassey (Making a Murderer) and Adnan Syed (Serial) have gone from the courtroom to become pop culture phenomena with millions of Americans Monday morning quarterbacking every turn of their trial. Our first inclination is often to say that these are the extreme outliers. That 99% of the time our justice system gets it right. The sad truth, however, is for every Brendan Dassey or Adnan Syed there are dozens of people wrongfully convicted of crimes whose stories will never see the spotlight.
I learned of Ajay Dev and his rape conviction years before I would meet him or his family. The crime seemed horrendous. However, after reading about the gross inconsistencies in the investigation and trial, mostly through www.advocatesforajay.org and the Davis Vanguard, I began to believe that Ajay was innocent and a victim of a terrible miscarriage of justice.
I have since spent time not only with Ajay in prison, but also with his family members, and have been convinced 100% of his innocence. I have seen first hand the impact it has had among Ajay’s friends and family, as well as the Nepali-American community in California. They have done an amazing job at creating a grassroots awareness of Ajay’s case over the years and building support for an appeal.
With Ajay’s oral arguments for appeal scheduled for October 19, I hope and pray that his original verdict is reversed and he will finally be set free. Ajay’s case will never get the national attention of Dassey or Syed, but as a community we must demand that justice be carried out and an innocent man freed. Ajay is a proud family man. He is generous and kind. The scariest thing about his wrongful conviction is that if this could happen to him, it could very well happen to any of us.
Thank you for this update. I pray for Ajay’s complete exonneration and reunification with his family.
The fact that you are not even related to him, yet believe in his innocence and speak so highly of him speaks volumes about this case. It is a travesty of the justice system we all believe in so blindly. I pray that his verdict is reversed and he can finally be freed as the innocent man that he is.
It is interesting how these cases go, and the zeal that “investigators” seem to get “facts” wrong.
In this story, there is no mention of the alleged victim. What does he/she say about this? are there new facts in evidence, gross misconduct, or prosecutor misconduct?
That was part of the concern from the start – is the victim, actually a victim. There was no physical evidence of repeated rapes even though she frequently went to doctors and got birth control. Her stories about incidents were directly refuted by other witnesses. And the only evidence that they produced was a highly questionable translation of a single line in a several hour conversation that meandered from Nepalese to English. I would say her status as victim is very much at the core of the issue.
Thank you Tom and David for keeping Ajay’s case in the news. This case has been such a huge tragedy.
Finally after 7 long years the very first step in the appellate process will soon happen. Oral arguments are set for October 19th and then hopefully the appellate court will reverse this case and fix a tragic injustice.
good luck ajay- like many others i think this is a clear case of a wrongful conviction
Ajay needs all the support he can get. Thank you so much for keeping this story alive, because the difficulty, unfortunately, in overturning wrongful convictions is in the endurance required.
Ajay has spent years in prison, as do nearly all people wrongfully convicted. Continuing to work at this case for this long shows quality of the highest order. Thanks again.
Thanks for keeping everyone updated on Ajay’s case. His case might not get the national attention that Adnan’s or Brendan’s did but thanks to you many more people will know the injustice that is happening to Ajay.