Maryland Supreme Court reinstates Adnan Syed’s convictions

BALTIMORE – The Maryland Supreme Court in a ruling Friday reinstated the convictions of Adnan Syed and remanded the case to Baltimore District Court.

The order essentially restarts the trial after Baltimore prosecutors filed a motion to overturn Syed's conviction in the 1999 killing of Hae Min Lee. Hae Min Lee was strangled to death and buried in a secret grave in Baltimore's Leakin Park, citing a violation of her brother Young Lee's right to attend the subsequent hearing.

“Upon remand, the parties and Mr. Lee will begin where they were immediately after the prosecutor filed the motion to vacate,” the court wrote in a statement posted online Friday morning.

The decision came nearly 11 months after state Supreme Court justices questioned Syed and Lee's lawyers at an oral hearing on October 6.

Syed's legal saga gained international exposure with the hit podcast “Serial,” which premiered in 2014. The show investigated the murder of Hae Min Lee and the subsequent prosecution of Syed, her former high school sweetheart.

A jury found Syed guilty in 2000 of murder and related charges in connection with Lee's death. A judge later sentenced Syed to life in prison plus 30 years. The convictions withstood numerous appeals by Syed, who maintained his innocence as he turned from years to decades behind bars.

His break came in 2021, when Baltimore prosecutors began reviewing his case in light of a new law that allows people convicted of crimes before their 18th birthday to ask a court to retry their sentences. The review led to a comprehensive reinvestigation of the case, which prosecutors said revealed alternative suspects in Lee's murder that had not previously been disclosed to Syed.

The revelation caused prosecutors to lose faith in the “integrity” of his decades-old conviction. They sought to have the convictions overturned and Syed was released in September 2022 after 23 years in prison.

However, there were many questions surrounding the hearing to overturn Syed's convictions.

Late Friday afternoon, the presiding judge scheduled the hearing for the following Monday. Prosecutors then informed Hae Min Lee's brother, Young Lee, and said he could watch the hearing via Zoom, but a lawyer for Young Lee insisted that his client, who lives in California, wanted to be there in person and did not have enough time to travel.

Although he was allowed to speak at the hearing via Zoom, Young Lee appealed before prosecutors dropped charges against Syed in October of that year, arguing that the short time limit violated his rights as a crime victim. The Maryland Court of Appeals sided with Lee and in March 2023 ordered Syed's convictions reinstated so the hearing could be reheard and overturned.

Syed immediately appealed to the state Supreme Court, but the Supreme Court refrained from retrial while it considered whether to take his case. Young Lee followed suit, arguing that the appeals court ruling did not go far enough for crime victims. Last June, the Supreme Court accepted Syed and Lee's opposing appeals and consolidated them.