The family of 18-year-old Hae Min Lee, whose passing was detailed by the well-known podcast Serial, is contesting a Baltimore judge’s decision to free Adnan Syed.
Syed, now 41, was freed on September 19 when the prosecution overturned his conviction for killing Lee by hanging her and burying her corpse in a shallow grave. He had served more than 23 years in jail for the crime.
The Baltimore Sun was informed by lawyers for the Lee family that they did not have enough notice to prepare and that they thus filed a notice to challenge his release on Wednesday morning.
According to Lee family attorney Steve Kelly, “the fact that they were kept in the dark makes it hard for them to swallow.” They put their confidence in the state, yet it turned so quickly without talking to them first.
The court rejected Young Lee’s plea to postpone the hearing so that he could fly in from California. Young Lee is Hae’s brother.
Instead, he participated electronically in the hearing by using Zoom to communicate with the judge and the prosecution.
Young Lee said at the hearing – cameras are not permitted in Maryland courtrooms, but reporters were there – that “going through it again is like a living nightmare.”
The family’s appeal, according to Kelly, is “the initial step in requesting review of alleged breaches of Maryland’s victim’s rights legislation in connection with the hearing by the Maryland Court of Special Appeals.”
Young Lee submitted the notice of appeal on the grounds that his family’s right to effectively participate in the hearing on the request to overturn Adnan Syed’s conviction on September 19, 2022, had been violated.
Syed’s September 19 hearing was announced to the Lee family on September 16, less than a full working day before he was scheduled to appear before the court.
Young Lee had asked the court to postpone the hearing so he could fly in from California, but the court declined to do so.
The day before the hearing, Lee’s family filed a lawsuit, claiming they were not given enough time to prepare.
Kelly claims that the Maryland legislation protecting victims’ rights was broken by the quick procedure.
However, the law does not specifically state how much time should be provided to a family before a hearing.
Prosecutors refuted Kelly’s allegations, stating that they informed the family about the hearing in advance and had spoken to them before the request was even filed.
According to Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby in an interview with TMZ, “We went out to the family last week, met with the brother of Hae Min Lee, issued a copy of the motion, my attorney supplied her cell phone number—we provided counseling assistance.”
When we learned on Friday that the hearing was scheduled for Monday – the court scheduled it for Monday – we immediately took action and informed them, according to Mosby.
Additionally, we went as far as to petition the court for a Zoom connection so they could participate in the proceedings. “And not only did we go so far as to inform them so that they might come,” the statement said.
Syed, who dated Hae Min Lee while still in high school, has been behind bars since the teen’s murder conviction in 2000.
The now-41-year-case olds gained considerable attention in 2014 thanks to the “Serial” podcast, which looked at the evidence both in favor of and against his innocence.
Judge Phinn has given the prosecution 30 days to decide whether to drop the allegations against Syed or proceed with a fresh trial.
Last week, Mosby said that they were awaiting the results of the DNA testing before formally dropping the charges against the Maryland man.
The recently analyzed DNA evidence includes touch-DNA from items like fingernails, fingernail clippers, pubic hairs, undergarments, bras, and shirts, according to a news statement from Mosby’s office.
The press announcement said that while some of these tests revealed “trace-level male DNA,” “no meaningful typing findings were achieved from this investigation.”
The DNA extracted from the shirt swab was also “so minimal it would not likely provide any findings,” according to the testing.
According to Mosby, who spoke to Baltimore station WJZ News, “If that DNA comes back inconclusive, I will declare that he is innocent.” “If there are only two potential suspects left, I will vouch for his innocence.” The state is still in a position to pursue the case if it involves Adnan Syed.
Prosecutors were contacted by The DailyMail.com to inquire about the status of any fresh DNA testing that would help determine whether or not a new trial should be instituted, but no answer was received right away.
After spent more than 23 years in prison, Syed could be eligible for compensation from the state if he is found not guilty.
All of this is related to fresh information, such as the naming of two more suspects in the murder of Hae Min Lee. At one point, one of the two suspects even made a murderous threat on the case’s prosecutor.
The failure to provide such information to Syed’s defense lawyer eventually led to the filing of the request to vacate.
The Lee family, represented by Kelly, released a statement immediately after the decision to overturn Syed’s conviction, expressing their “disappointment” at how quickly the hearing was concluded.
Kelly released a statement saying, “The Lee family is profoundly dissatisfied that today’s hearing transpired so fast and that they were denied the appropriate notice that would have allowed them to have a significant participation in the proceedings.”
On September 20, the show’s creator said that she had mixed feelings about how long it took for authorities to act on information that had been there for a while.
A new Maryland legislation pertaining to juvenile sentencing created a framework for reexamining the case, and the local prosecutor established a section to evaluate sentence after the Serial podcast in 2014 transformed the case’s specifics into an obsession for numerous amateur sleuths.
Mosby hailed the judge’s ruling as a triumph for justice right away, but Syed’s victory served as a sobering reminder to many who had been aware of the flaws in the case for years.
The majority or all of the material presented in the prosecution’s request to reverse the conviction been accessible since 1999, according to presenter Sarah Koenig of the latest episode of “Serial” that aired on Tuesday.
The majority of the information the state included in that petition to vacate, including all of the actual evidence, was either known or knowable to police and prosecutors in 1999, Koenig said. “Yesterday, there was a lot of rhetoric about fairness,” he said.
“So it’s difficult to feel encouraged about a victory of justice, especially on a day when the administration openly acknowledges its own failures,” said the author.
We created a system that requires more than 20 years to self-correct, so why. And just in this particular instance.
According to Koenig, the evidence against Syed was withheld from his defense team and contained “just about every chronic fault” in the legal system, including inaccurate witness testimony.
Syed was ordered to be released on Monday after Circuit Court Judge Melissa Phinn in Baltimore overturned his conviction for the 1999 murder of Lee, a high school student and Syed’s ex-girlfriend.
Although Syed has always maintained his innocence, his request for a fresh trial was denied by the state’s highest court in 2019.
Koenig referred to Mosby’s move to overturn Syed’s conviction as a “firework” since it came from the same office that had urged a jury to convict Syed in the past. Mosby took office in 2015 and submitted the motion in early September.
Evidence found by a team Mosby’s office established to investigate instances in which young offenders were handed life sentences was crucial to Monday’s conclusion.
This went hand-in-hand with a Maryland statute passed in 2021 allowing a person convicted as a juvenile to request a reduced sentence after serving at least 20 years.
When Lee was slain, Syed was 17 years old.
The unit was overseen by prosecutor Becky Feldman, who discovered notes from one of her predecessors documenting two phone conversations in which someone provided them with information prior to Syed’s trial about a person who had a purpose to hurt Lee.
Prosecutors claim that material was withheld from the defense at the time; Phinn claimed that this breached Syed’s rights.
Even though Koenig and the police who looked into Syed 20 years ago both knew who these two new possible suspects were, she chose not to identify them since they had not yet been prosecuted.
One of the suspects was being looked at at the time and had undergone a few polygraphs. As far as I can gather, the other was also probed, although not as thoroughly, she remarked.