Maryland’s highest court orders redo of hearing that freed Adnan Syed in ‘Serial’ case
ANNAPOLIS, Maryland — A 2022 trial that freed Adnan Syed from prison violated the legal rights of the victim’s family and must be retried, the Maryland Supreme Court ruled Friday. It marks the latest development in the ongoing legal saga that gained worldwide attention years ago through the popular podcast “Serial.”
The 4-3 ruling comes about 11 months after the court has heard the arguments last October in a case plagued by legal twists and divided court rulings since Syed was convicted in 2000 of murdering his high school ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee.
The court concluded that in attempting to redress what it saw as an injustice to Syed, prosecutors and a lower court had committed “an injustice” against Lee’s brother, Young Lee. The court found that Lee had not been treated with “dignity, respect and sensitivity” because he had not been given reasonable notice of the hearing that resulted in Syed’s release.
The court ruled that the remedy was “to reinstate Mr. Syed’s convictions and remand the matter to the trial court for further proceedings.”
“These proceedings will be continued before another judge of the district court,” the court ruled.
The court also said that Lee would be given reasonable notice of the new hearing, “sufficient to give Mr. Lee a reasonable opportunity to attend such hearing in person,” and that he or his counsel would be heard.
The final issue in the case, which recently Criminal justice reform efforts undermine the legal rights of crime victims and their families, whose voices are often at odds with the growing movement to acknowledge and address systemic issues including historical racism, police misconduct and prosecutorial failures.
The panel of seven judges considered the extent to which victims of crime have the right to participate in hearings in which a conviction can be quashed. In doing so, the court considered whether a ruling of the lower court of appeal in 2023 in favor of the Lee family. It reinstated Syed’s murder conviction a year after a judge granted a request by Baltimore prosecutors to throw it out due to flawed evidence.
Syed, 43, has maintained his innocence and has often expressed concern for Lee’s surviving family. The teenage girl was found strangled and buried in an unmarked grave in 1999. Syed was sentenced to life in prison, plus 30 years.
Syed was released from prison in September 2022, when a Baltimore judge overturned his conviction after city prosecutors found flaws in the evidence.
However, in March 2023, the Maryland Court of Appeals, the state’s intermediate appellate court, ordered a retrial of the hearing which freed Syed and reinstated his conviction. The court said the victim’s family had not been given sufficient notice to attend the hearing in person, violating their right under state law to be “treated with dignity and respect.”
Syed’s attorney Erica Suter has argued that the state met its obligation by allowing Young Lee to participate in the hearing via video conference.
Syed appealed the resentencing, and the Lee family also appealed to the state Supreme Court, arguing that crime victims should be given a greater role in the process of overturning a conviction.
Syed has remained at large while the latest round of appeals are heard through the state court system.
During oral arguments last year, his lawyers argued that the Lee family’s appeal was irrelevant because prosecutors decided not to re-indict him after his conviction was overturned. And even if her brother’s rights had been violated, the lawyers argued, he had failed to show that the alleged violation would have changed the outcome of the hearing.
It wasn’t the first time the Maryland Supreme Court had taken up Syed’s lengthy legal odyssey.
In 2019, a divided court ruled 4-3 to deny Syed a new trial. A lower court had ordered a new trial in 2016, arguing that Syed’s attorney, Cristina Gutierrez, failed to contact an alibi witness and provided ineffective counsel. Gutierrez died in 2004.
In November 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the decision of Maryland’s highest court.
Recently, Baltimore prosecutors reexamined Syed’s case under a Maryland law that targets so-called “juvenile lifers” because he was 17 when Hae Min Lee’s body was found. Prosecutors found numerous problems, including alternative suspects and unreliable evidence presented at trial.
Instead of reconsidering his sentence, prosecutors filed a motion to vacate Syed’s conviction entirely. They later opted not to charge him after receiving the results of DNA tests conducted using more modern testing techniques than originally used. DNA found on Lee’s shoes eliminated Syed as a suspect, prosecutors said.
Syed’s case was chronicled in the podcast “Serial,” which debuted in 2014 and attracted millions of listeners who sat behind the bench as detectives as the series analyzed the case. The show transformed the true-crime genre by shattering podcast streaming and download records, revealing little-known evidence and raising new questions about the case.