A choose on Monday accepted a movement by prosecutors to vacate the homicide conviction of Adnan Syed, the topic of the primary season of the favored “Serial” podcast, who has maintained he's harmless within the 1999 slaying of his ex-girlfriend.
Baltimore prosecutors filed the movement final week asking for a brand new trial for Syed, who has been serving a life sentence after he was convicted of first-degree homicide, theft, kidnapping and false imprisonment in connection to the killing of Hae Min Lee.
In explaining her determination to vacate, Baltimore Metropolis Circuit Choose Melissa Phinn cited materials within the state investigation that was not correctly turned over to protection attorneys, in addition to the existence of two suspects who could have been improperly cleared as a part of the investigation.
Her ruling was met by cheers and tears within the courtroom. Syed — who attended the listening to sporting a white button-down shirt, a darkish tie and a kufi cap — was not handcuffed, however his toes had been. After the ruling, officers uncuffed his ankles, and shortly after, Syed walked out of the courthouse to cheers and applause from supporters. He didn't cease to talk to reporters as he bought right into a automobile.
“We’re not but declaring Adnan Syed is harmless,” Baltimore Metropolis State’s Legal professional Marilyn Mosby mentioned Monday following the choose’s ruling. “However we're declaring that within the curiosity of equity and justice he's entitled to a brand new trial.”
Prosecutors have 30 days to determine whether or not to pursue a brand new trial, and they're ready for DNA evaluation that they're making an attempt to expedite to find out whether or not Adnan’s case is dismissed or the case is ready for trial. However that mandate, Mosby mentioned, is “separate and aside” from the investigation into who killed Lee.
Within the meantime, Syed will put on an ankle monitor with monitoring, in keeping with Becky Feldman, chief of the Sentencing Evaluation Unit of the Baltimore Metropolis State’s Legal professional’s Workplace.
Twenty-three years after he went to jail, “we now know what Adnan and his family members have at all times identified, that Adnan’s trial was profoundly and outrageously unfair. Proof was hidden from him, proof that pointed to different individuals because the killers,” Assistant Public Defender Erica Suter, Syed’s lawyer and director of the Innocence Challenge Clinic, mentioned in an announcement following the ruling.
The listening to comes practically eight years after the “Serial” podcast dug into his case, elevating questions concerning the conviction and his authorized illustration. In doing so, the podcast reached an enormous viewers and set off a true-crime podcasting increase in addition to additional examinations of the case, together with the HBO docuseries “The Case Towards Adnan Syed.”
Prosecutors moved to vacate Syed’s conviction following a virtually year-long investigation, they mentioned in a information launch final week. On the time, Mosby mentioned prosecutors had been “not asserting, at the moment, that Mr. Syed is harmless” however that the state “lacks confidence within the integrity of the conviction” and that Syed ought to get a brand new trial.
The reinvestigation of the case revealed proof concerning the attainable involvement of two suspects apart from Syed, together with an individual who mentioned they'd make Lee “disappear” and that “(h)e would kill her,” prosecutors mentioned. Syed’s attorneys mentioned he and his authorized group had been unaware that data existed till this yr.
Protection attorneys praised the prosecution’s movement to vacate the conviction as righting a mistaken.
“Given the beautiful lack of dependable proof implicating Mr. Syed, coupled with rising proof pointing to different suspects, this unjust conviction can not stand,” Suter mentioned in an announcement final week.
Maryland public defender Natasha Dartigue in a information launch known as the case “a real instance of how justice delayed is justice denied. An harmless man spends many years wrongly incarcerated, whereas any data or proof that would assist establish the precise perpetrator turns into more and more tough to pursue.”
What we all know concerning the case
Adnan and Lee had been seniors at Woodlawn Excessive Faculty in Baltimore County in January 1999 when she disappeared. Her strangled physique was found in a metropolis forest three weeks later.
Syed and prosecutors in March filed a joint movement for post-conviction DNA testing, saying that for the reason that crime occurred greater than twenty years in the past, “DNA testing has modified and improved drastically.”
The March movement requested that the sufferer’s clothes be examined for contact DNA, which was not obtainable on the time of trial. Objects now being examined weren't beforehand examined in 2018 — when the Baltimore Metropolis Police Lab examined numerous gadgets for DNA — apart from the sufferer’s fingernail clippings, Mosby’s assertion mentioned.
Mosby mentioned the movement to vacate was filed together with Sentencing Evaluation Unit Chief Becky Feldman. Syed was a juvenile when convicted.
The choice suspects had been identified individuals on the time of the unique investigation “and weren't correctly dominated out nor disclosed to the protection,” in keeping with Mosby’s assertion.
The state isn't disclosing the names of the suspects however mentioned that, in keeping with the trial file, one among them mentioned, “He would make her (Ms. Lee) disappear. He would kill her.”
The investigation additionally revealed that one suspect was convicted of attacking a girl in her automobile, in keeping with the assertion. The second suspect was convicted of partaking in serial rape and sexual assault, the assertion mentioned.
A number of the data was obtainable on the time of the trial, the assertion mentioned, and a few got here to mild later. It isn't clear when these assaults came about.
Lee’s automotive was positioned “instantly behind the home of one of many suspect’s members of the family,” the assertion mentioned.
Attorneys for Syed introduced the case to the eye of the sentencing overview unit in April 2021.
Syed’s attorneys “recognized vital reliability points relating to essentially the most crucial items of proof at trial,” Mosby’s assertion mentioned.
Within the 2019 HBO docuseries “The Case Towards Adnan Syed,” an lawyer for Syed mentioned his shopper’s DNA was not discovered on any of the 12 samples retrieved from the sufferer’s physique and automotive. That testing was not a part of the official investigation by authorities. HBO, like CNN, is a unit of Warner Bros. Discovery.
At trial, prosecutors relied on testimony from a good friend, Jay Wilds, who mentioned he helped Syed dig a gap for Lee’s physique. To corroborate his account, prosecutors introduced cellphone information and knowledgeable witness testimony to put Syed on the website the place Lee was buried.
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