Adnan Syed, whose murder case captivated the nation after it was featured on the true-crime podcast “Serial,” was released from prison Monday after 23 years, his conviction overturned, at least for now , by a judge who found deficiencies in how prosecutors. he had turned over evidence to defense lawyers decades ago.
Acting at the request of Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, Circuit Judge Melissa Phinn ordered Syed off bond in the courtroom and sent home while he waits for find out if prosecutors will seek a new trial or abandon their pursuit.
Now 42, Syed walked out of court to a roaring crowd. Dressed in white with a blue tie, he smiled and waved before being bundled into a car and driven away.
But his continued freedom is not guaranteed.
Phinn said prosecutors have 30 days to decide whether to retry Syed for the murder of his ex-girlfriend, 18-year-old Hae Min Lee. Mosby, the Baltimore City state’s attorney, said after Monday’s decision that his office had not yet found him not guilty, but that he was entitled to a new trial “in the interest of fairness and justice”.
Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh (D), whose office has previously defended Syed’s handling of the case in court proceedings, criticized the Baltimore prosecutor for acting without consulting his office and charged that the prosecutors did not turn over evidence to Syed. defense as they should have “wrong”.
“Neither State’s Attorney Mosby nor anyone in his office bothered to consult with the Assistant State’s Attorney who prosecuted the case or anyone in my office regarding these alleged violations,” Frosh said . “The file in this case was made available to the defense on several occasions.”
While awaiting prosecutors’ next step, Syed will be under GPS monitoring, Phinn said.
Syed has maintained his innocence since he was arrested for Lee’s murder in February 1999, when he was a 17 year old in high school. Investigators at the time determined she died of strangulation, and Syed was convicted of murder in 2000 and sentenced to life in prison. He had long sought to overturn his conviction and get a new trial, but until recently faced opposition from the prosecution.
Syed’s case was featured on “Serial,” which had its first season in 2014. Host Sarah Koenig detailed the events surrounding Lee’s death, raising questions about the handling of the investigation, the conduct of Syed’s defense and whether Syed could have been innocent. .
More than a decade after his conviction, Syed began to see some hope that he would have new legal proceedings.
In 2016, a circuit court overturned Syed’s conviction, citing “ineffective assistance” by a former attorney who failed to investigate an alibi witness, and in March 2018, the Court of Appeals Specials upheld the ruling granting Syed a new trial. But in March 2019, Maryland’s highest court reinstated Syed’s murder conviction.
Then on Wednesday, the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office said in a motion in circuit court that it wanted the conviction thrown out and Syed freed. The office said its own nearly year-long investigation into the case, which was conducted with Syed’s defense, had turned up new evidence of possible suspects, as well as materials that should have been turned over to defense attorneys. that they were not
Read the motion to overturn Syed’s conviction
The move drew widespread praise from Syed’s supporters, who have long campaigned publicly and legally for his release.
C. Justin Brown, a former attorney for Syed who began representing him he in 2009, he released a statement celebrating the ruling, but expressed concern about the length of time it took to reach that decision.
“It has now been revealed that prosecutors were aware of another viable suspect in Hae Min Lee’s murder, but they were on that information for more than 20 years,” Brown said. “While we don’t know how this happened, or if it was intentional, we do know that it is inexcusable.”
But this sentiment was not universal.
Young Lee, Hae Min Lee’s brother, said at the hearing Monday that prosecutors’ motion to overturn the conviction left him feeling “betrayed.”
“This is very hard for me to swallow, and especially for my mother,” he said.
Young Lee said he was “not against the investigation or anything like that,” adding, “Knowing that there could be someone out there to kill my sister; it’s hard.”
“I’m asking you to make the right decision,” he told the judge.
After the hearing, Steven J. Kelly, the family’s attorney, said in a statement: “For more than 20 years, no one wants to know the truth about who killed Hae Min Lee more than her family. The family Lee is deeply disappointed that today’s hearing took place so quickly and that they were denied reasonable notice that would have allowed them to have a meaningful voice in the proceedings.”
Mosby said DNA analysis will help determine whether Syed’s case will be dismissed or whether prosecutors will seek a new trial. He said he understands Lee’s brother’s sentiment, but that Syed is entitled to fairness in the criminal justice system.
“You have some kind of resolution and you think you have closure, and the case comes back up and breaks a whole new wound that you think is healed,” Mosby said. “I understand your frustration.”
Prosecutors have not released the identities of the other possible suspects. But Becky Feldman, head of the state attorney’s office’s Conviction Review Unit, described them Monday as “credible and viable suspects.”
According to court documents, one had threatened to make Lee “disappear” and “kill her,” he said, and alleged that one of them “engaged in multiple cases of rape and sexual assault.” One had relatives who lived near the area where Lee’s car was found.
Feldman said authorities at the time “wrongly cleared” a suspect based on a polygraph test that was “unreliable.”
The prosecution’s filing said the suspects “may be involved individually or they may be involved together” and made references to them throughout the motion as “one of the suspects,” without clarifying which person they were referring to.
The state attorney’s investigation also determined that a key witness in the case, Jay Wilds, was inconsistent in his accounts to police. For example, Wilds testified that he had helped Syed bury Lee’s body. But he gave two different accounts to authorities about where he saw the body and a third to the media, according to the motion. Wilds was a major character on the “Serial” podcast.
Research too found that the data prosecutors used to corroborate Wilds’ account may also have been misleading or inaccurate. Attorneys used data from incoming calls to place Syed at the site of Lee’s body, but the state attorney’s office said in the motion that the type of cell phone data “would not be considered reliable location information.”
“Had this evidence been revealed, Adnan might not have missed his high school graduation or 23 years of birthdays, holidays, family gatherings, community events, everyday moments of joy,” said Erica Suter, the Syed’s lawyer, outside the court on Monday. . “Perhaps the real killers would have been brought to justice.”