ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Adnan Syed’s murder conviction still stands after the highest court of Maryland ordered a redo of the hearing that freed him. The court ruled that the previous process violated the rights of the victim’s family, marking the latest development in a legal saga that gained public attention through the hit podcast “Serial.”
The 4-3 ruling upheld an appeals court decision that reinstated Syed’s conviction last year. It’s about 11 months after the court heard arguments in a case that has been fraught with legal twists and split verdicts since Syed was convicted in 2000 of killing his former high school girlfriend Hae Min Lee.
Justice said Syed, who is due to be released from prison in 2022, could remain free as the case goes to a new lower court judge to reconsider whether his sentence should be thrown out.
The court considers the extent to which the victim can participate in the hearing where the conviction can be vacated. The majority of judges concluded that, in an attempt to correct what they saw as an injustice against Syed, prosecutors and the lower court “did an injustice” to Lee’s brother. The court ruled that Young Lee was not treated with “dignity, respect, and sensitivity,” as required under Maryland law, because he was not given adequate notice of the hearing that acquitted Syed.
The court said the deficiency would be rectified until the new trial.
But the next steps remain unclear, in part because Baltimore is electing a new prosecutor in 2022, which could change how the office handles cases. State’s Attorney Ivan Bates said his office is reviewing the decision and declined to comment further.
In her dissenting opinion, Judge Michele Hotten said the issue was moot because the underlying allegations no longer existed.
“This case exists as a procedural zombie,” Hotten wrote. “It has been revived, even though it has expired. The doctrine of mootness was designed to prevent such judicial necromancy.
The sprawling case has recently pitted efforts to reform criminal justice against the legal rights of crime victims and their families, whose voice is often at odds with the growing movement to acknowledge and correct systemic problems, including historical racism, police misconduct and prosecutorial misconduct.
David Sanford, a lawyer representing the victim’s family, said the decision “recognizes what Hae Min Lee’s family has been saying: Crime victims have the right to be heard in court.”
Syed, 43, has maintained his innocence and has often expressed concern for Lee’s surviving relatives. The teenage girl was found strangled to death and buried in an unmarked grave in 1999. Syed was sentenced to life in prison, plus 30 years.
He was released from prison in September 2022 when a Baltimore judge overturned his conviction in response to a request from Baltimore prosecutors who said they found flaws in the evidence.
However, in March 2023, the Maryland Court of Appeals, the state’s intermediate appeals court, ordered a retrial that won Syed’s freedom and reinstated his conviction. The court said the victim’s family did not receive enough notice to attend the trial.
Syed’s attorney Erica Suter argued that the state fulfilled its obligations by allowing Young Lee to participate in the trial via video conference.
Syed appealed to reverse his conviction, and Lee’s family also appealed to the Supreme Court of Maryland, arguing that crime victims should be given a greater role in the process.
Syed remains free as the latest appeal winds its way through the state court system.
During oral arguments last year, his lawyers argued Lee’s family’s appeal was moot because prosecutors decided not to re-charge after his conviction was vacated. And even if the brother’s rights were violated, the attorneys argued, they have not shown that the alleged violation would have changed the outcome of the hearing.
This isn’t the first time Maryland’s highest court has weighed in on Syed’s long-running legal odyssey.
In 2019, a divided court ruled 4-3 to deny Syed a new trial. A lower court ordered a retrial in 2016 on the grounds that Syed’s lawyer, Cristina Gutierrez, did not contact alibi witnesses and gave ineffective counsel. Gutierrez died in 2004. In November 2019, the US Supreme Court declined to review the Maryland high court’s decision.
Most recently, Baltimore prosecutors are reviewing Syed’s file under a Maryland law targeting “juvenile disease” because he was 17 when Hae Min Lee’s body was found. Prosecutors found many problems, including alternative suspects and unreliable evidence presented in court.
Instead of reconsidering his sentence, prosecutors filed a motion to vacate Syed’s conviction. He later chose not to refile after receiving the results of a DNA test that was conducted using a more modern testing technique than he did. DNA recovered from Lee’s shoes excluded Syed as a suspect, prosecutors said.
Syed’s case was told on the “Serial” podcast, which debuted in 2014 and attracted millions of listeners who became armchair detectives as the series analyzed the case. The show, hosted by veteran radio producer Sarah Koenig, revolutionizes the true crime genre as it breaks down podcast-streaming and downloadable footage, revealing unknown evidence and raising new questions about the case.
