After serving 23 years in jail for the death of his girlfriend Hae Min Lee, Adnan Syed’s murder conviction has been overturned as a result of a Baltimore court decision on Monday.
Syed’s conviction for the 1999 murder was overturned in Baltimore’s Circuit Court after an extensive hearing that lasted many hours.
As the court-mandated a new trial, he is now being released to home detention. Judge Melissa M. Phinn of the Circuit Court said that her choice was made “in the interest of justice.” The jury chamber erupted in cheers when the judge’s decision was read aloud.
After being found guilty in 2000 of murdering Lee by strangulation and interring her corpse in a shallow grave in Baltimore’s Leakin Park, Syed, 41, was already serving a life sentence plus 40 years. High school classmates Syed and Lee had dated.
Syed was prosecuted as an adult even though he was just 17 at the time of the murder. He has always insisted on being innocent.
Syed will now stand trial again in the matter. The trial date has not yet been determined as of this writing.
According to Justin Fenton of the Baltimore Banner, once the judge’s decision was announced, Syed sat at the trial table grinning with his lawyer, Erica Suter, who was inconsolable.
More cheering greeted him as he left Baltimore’s Circuit Court. He didn’t say anything. As he made his way to freedom, Syed was dressed in a shirt, tie, knit cap, and blue Georgetown University folder.
State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby informed the reporters that Syed’s status as a “innocent guy” had not yet been determined by her office. She did reaffirm the necessity for Syed to have competent legal counsel in a second trial.
Mosby did not go so far as to suggest that the charges against Syed will be dropped by her office. In accordance with Maryland law, her office has 30 days to re-charge him with killing Hae Min Lee.
Steven Kelly, a lawyer for Lee’s family, launched a scathing assault on the State’s Attorney’s office prior to the decision to overturn the murder conviction, calling the hurriedly scheduled hearing “outrageous.” Kelly said that the family’s preparation for the hearing was not given enough time.
One of the causes of the fury was the fact that Young, Lee’s brother, wanted to go to the hearing but was unable to because of his employment.
My heart is sort of beating right now, Young said as she addressed the court. Personally, I wanted to be present. I’ve had this for maybe twenty years or more. Every day, just when I think it’s done or over, it comes back. I’m dying from it. It’s incredibly difficult.
He also discussed how tough it is to realize that other suspects are now at large, despite always believing the proper person was behind bars for the murder of his sister.
This is not a podcast, Young Lee continued. This is reality. It’s been a nightmare for more than 20 years.
Syed got his shackles taken off before entering the courtroom and showed up wearing a shirt and tie.
Becky Feldman, the head of the State’s Attorney’s Office’s Sentencing Review Unit, spoke in the courtroom.
Since June 2022, Feldman has been looking into Syed’s case.
One of her discoveries was that, despite prosecutors being aware of another potential suspect’s prior threats to kill Lee, the information was never given to Syed’s defense.
One of the potential suspects has a history of assaulting women, including being found guilty of many rapes.
In a public statement, Feldman referred to AT&T’s claim that the mobile data used to locate Syed near Lee’s grave at the time of the murder was unreliable.
She continued by criticizing Jay Wilds, a former acquaintance of Syed who gave a false testimony as a state witness in the case. He provided the authorities with two conflicting stories of where he observed the victim’s corpse, according to Feldman.
Feldman concluded in her report that “it is in the interests of justice and fairness that these convictions be vacated and that the defendant, at the very least, be allowed a fresh trial.”
Erica Suter, Syed’s attorney, said at the outset of her statements, “My client is innocent.” “Mr. Syed’s conviction was founded on a defective investigation,” she continued.
The application to overturn Syed’s conviction was filed on Wednesday. According to the state’s attorney for Baltimore City, fresh evidence calls into question the validity of Syed’s conviction.
The request also included a recommendation from the State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby’s office that Syed, who is presently serving a life sentence in prison, be freed on unconditional parole awaiting retrial.
Prosecutors are not claiming that Syed is innocent in this instance, according to the request, but rather that “the State no longer has confidence in the integrity of the conviction.”
The federal trial for Mosby’s alleged involvement in mortgage fraud and perjury was set to begin on Monday. Now, the trial won’t begin until March 2023. The Syed case is unrelated to the delay.
It comes after a year-long investigation by the prosecution and defense that turned up fresh material about the potential participation of two different individuals.
The two suspects were known to the first investigators in 1999, according to the prosecution, but they were not completely ruled out.
Due to the integrity of the investigation, the motion, which was originally reported by the Wall Street Journal, omitted the names of the two more suspects.
Although it’s unknown who the other suspects are, the podcast Serial identified one as Ronald Lee Moore, who had been released from jail days before Lee died and had committed previous crimes that were similar to her murder.
Police claimed Moore was a suspect in a slew of burglaries, unresolved sexual assaults, and murder investigations in Maryland in 1999. Moore committed himself in 2008 while doing time for unrelated offences.
Additionally, according to the complaint, in what is known as a Brady violation, the prosecution neglected to provide the defence team with crucial information throughout the trial as required.
A witness statement concerning threats made against Lee by one of the other suspects, including a threat to murder her, was among the material that was concealed.
Additionally, the state’s use of mobile phone data and records as a primary piece of evidence in the first trial was questioned by the prosecution.
In a statement, Syed’s public offender’s office attorney Erica Suter noted that given the “staggering lack of credible evidence accusing Mr. Syed” and the “growing evidence pointing to other possibilities,” “this unfair conviction cannot continue.”
Suter, who is also the Director of the Innocence Project Clinic, said, “Mr. Syed is glad that this material has now seen the light of day and looks forward to his day in court.”
The “Serial” podcast’s premiere season in 2014 set podcast streaming records and brought attention to the case that prompted further legal action.
The podcast has been criticized by Lee’s family, who accuse Syed of killing Lee and claim it forced them to “relive a horror we believed was behind us.”
A court issued an order for the case’s evidence, including the victim’s rape kit, to be subjected to DNA testing in March of this year using methods that were not feasible at the time of the murder.
It’s unclear if the motion submitted on Wednesday took the findings of that testing into consideration.
It happens after a number of procedural ups and downs in the case.
Syed’s demands for a fresh trial based on allegations of incompetent legal representation were previously denied by two courts.
Cristina Gutierrez, his attorney during his first trial, neglected to get in touch with Asia McClain, an alibi witness who claimed to have seen Syed in a library at the time that the prosecution claims he murdered Lee in 1999. Later, Gutierrez passed away.
However, the Maryland Court of Appeals refused Syed a new trial in a 4-3 decision in 2018, while agreeing that his trial attorney’s performance was subpar.
According to the state’s supreme court, there was little probability that the result would have been different had Gutierrez followed the proper protocol.
The US Supreme Court then denied Syed’s request for a fresh trial in 2019.
The evidence against Syed was “overwhelming,” according to a statement made at the time by Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh.
He said, “We remain confident in the jury’s finding and are delighted that justice has been served for Hae Min Lee.”