Adnan Syed, the man whose legal saga spawned the hit “Serial” podcast, walked away from a Baltimore courthouse on Monday uninhibited after 23 years.
He smiled as he walked down the steps of the courthouse to loud cheers, presumed innocent in the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee.
Baltimore Circuit Judge Melissa Phinn overturned Syed’s murder conviction after prosecutors raised doubts about his conviction due to the revelation of other suspects in the homicide and the unreliable evidence used against him At the trial.
Claiming his decision was in the ‘interests of justice and fairness’, Phinn ordered Syed’s release on a GPS monitor while the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office chooses to drop his charges or to try him again for murder in the death of his ex-girlfriend. Prosecutors have 30 days to make a decision.
Prosecutors said a year-long investigation alongside Syed’s attorney, Erica Suter, showed authorities knew at least one other suspect before his trial and withheld that information from his defense. Despite the developments, prosecutors said they weren’t ready to find Syed innocent.
Lee, 18, was strangled to death and buried in a clandestine grave in Leakin Park. Authorities at the time said they suspected Syed, her ex-boyfriend, had struggled with her in a car before killing her. State theory? The popular Woodlawn High School student couldn’t take it when Lee broke up with him. He was 17 when he was arrested and has been behind bars ever since.
Syed, now 41, has always maintained his innocence. Suter declared his client innocent in court and lamented prosecutors for withholding evidence that could have proven it for decades.
“If this evidence had been leaked, perhaps Adnan wouldn’t have missed out on his high school graduation, or his pre-med plans, or 23 years of birthdays, vacations, family reunions, community events and daily joyful moments,” Suter said after court. .
Syed was stoic when Phinn ruled; her family members were panting, crying and hugging each other. The public gallery erupted when the judge adjourned the court.
The hearing took on a tense tone after an attorney representing Lee’s relatives requested a postponement, saying his clients, who live on the West Coast, had not been given enough notice to attend the hearing. Phinn denied the motion, but suspended proceedings for 30 minutes so Lee’s brother could find a private place to tune in to the hearing via video.
Allowed to speak in front of the lawyers, Young Lee said he felt caught off guard and betrayed by the prosecution’s decision to wrong Syed’s conviction. He choked up talking to the judge.
“It’s not a podcast for me. This is real life,” Young Lee told Phinn.
Lee said he respects the criminal justice system, but described lasting grief for him and his loved ones. He said Syed’s conviction should stand.
“Every day when I think it’s over…it always comes back,” he said. “It kills me.”
Assistant State’s Attorney Becky Feldman said in court that prosecutors’ decision on how to handle Syed’s case hinged on an ongoing investigation focused on alternate suspects. Baltimore police have reopened their investigation into Lee’s homicide, and Feldman has promised his office will allocate all possible resources.
“We have to make sure we’re holding the right person accountable,” Feldman said.
In the state’s motion to overturn his conviction, prosecutors wrote not that they believed Syed was innocent, but that they no longer had confidence in the integrity of his conviction.
“It is in the interests of justice and fairness that these convictions be overturned and that the accused, at a minimum, be given a new trial,” wrote Becky Feldman, head of the conviction review unit. sentences from the state attorney’s office.
Syed’s first trial in 1999 ended in a mistrial. In 2000, a jury found him guilty of murder. The judge imposed life plus 30 years in prison when handing down the sentence.
Although they have fought to uphold the conviction in years past, prosecutors now say Syed may not have been Lee’s killer. According to their motion to have his conviction overturned, the state has known since 1999 of two “alternate suspects” who may have killed Lee.
One of the suspects had threatened her, saying “he would make her disappear.” He would kill her,” prosecutors wrote.
The state did not disclose alternate suspects to Syed’s defense before the trial, meaning his attorneys could not use that information to plead his innocence in front of a jury.
Prosecutors described one of the suspects as a serial rapist, saying the suspect was convicted of a series of sexual assaults after Syed’s trial. Police discovered Lee’s car near the residence of one of the suspects, the state’s motion said.
Syed was convicted, in part, because of cellphone location data that has since been shown to be unreliable, prosecutors say. They also pointed to inconsistent statements by his co-defendant, Jay Wilds, who testified against him.
“Given the overwhelming lack of reliable evidence implicating Mr. Syed, coupled with growing evidence pointing to other suspects, this unjust conviction cannot stand,” said Suter, Syed’s attorney and director of the clinic. Innocence Project at the University of Baltimore Law School.
Syed’s conviction became a subject of international intrigue after “Serial,” a 2014 podcast that pioneered the true-crime genre, raised new questions about Lee’s death. Since then, her legal journey has been the subject of books, other podcasts, and TV documentaries that have spawned new legal filings in her case.
The courts rejected all of his appeals, the latest in 2019, when the Supreme Court refused to hear his case.
Things were quiet until this spring.
Behind the scenes, Suter had been working with prosecutors in hopes of reducing Syed’s prison sentence in light of a new state law allowing those convicted of crimes before the age of 18 to apply court to change their sentence.
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While reviewing the case, prosecutors agreed to request new DNA testing for material collected as evidence of Lee’s murder.
Phinn ordered the tests in March, but the results have so far been inconclusive, according to court documents. Tests for a few of the items are pending.
Lee’s family have maintained their belief that Syed is guilty and have struggled with the publicity and support Syed receives.
“It remains difficult to see so many people running to defend someone who committed a horrific crime, who destroyed our family, who refuses to accept responsibility, when so few are willing to speak up for Hae,” Hae said. the family in a 2016 statement released by the Maryland Attorney General’s Office.
“Unlike those who find out about this case on the internet,” the family said then, “we sat and watched both trials every day – so many witnesses, so much evidence.”
The Lee family had not spoken publicly about the case since then until Monday.
This story will be updated.