Maryland Supreme Court upholds Adnan Syed’s murder conviction

Supreme Court of Maryland decided on Friday to uphold the murder conviction against Adnan Syed, the subject of the first season of the groundbreaking true crime podcast Serialthereby agreeing with an appeals court's earlier decision to reinstate Syed's conviction for the murder of Hae Min Lee.

In September 2022, a Baltimore judge ordered Syed's release after overturning his third-degree murder conviction. Syed was found guilty in 2000 of killing Lee, whose murder – and subsequent mistakes during Syed's murder trial – were at the center of Serials first season in 2014. A month later, prosecutors announced they would not seek a retrial and instead dropped charges against Syed, who was serving a life sentence plus 30 years after his conviction.

However, in March 2023, an appeals court reinstated the murder conviction, arguing that a lower court had violated the right of Lee's brother, Young Lee, to attend the hearing that led to the conviction being overturned.

“The family received no notice and their attorney was not given an opportunity to be present at the hearing,” said Steve Kelly, Lee's family attorney. Rolling Stone in October 2022. “By hastily dismissing the criminal charges, the prosecution sought to silence Hae Min Lee's family and prevent the family and the public from understanding why the state so abruptly changed its stance of more than 20 years. All this family ever wanted was answers and a voice. Today's actions have robbed them of both.”

Nearly 18 months after the conviction was reinstated – during which time Syed was free while the appeal was pending – the Maryland Supreme Court affirmed the appeals court's decision in a 4-3 ruling.

“In an effort to right what they perceived as an injustice to Mr. Syed, the prosecutor and the district court wronged Mr. Lee by failing to treat him with dignity, respect, and sensitivity, and specifically by violating Mr. Lee's rights as a representative of a crime victim to receive reasonable notice of the vacatur hearing, the right to attend the hearing in person, and the right to be heard on the merits of the vacatur motion,” the Maryland Supreme Court said in its ruling.

In a dissenting opinion, Judge Michele Holten argued that Syed should remain free because prosecutors had already announced they would drop the charges. “This case exists as a procedural zombie,” Hotten wrote (via the Associated Press). “It was revived even though it had expired. The doctrine of mootness was created to prevent such legal necromancy.”

David Sanford, a lawyer representing Lee's family, said after Friday's verdict: “If there is compelling evidence to justify overturning Adnan Syed's conviction, we will be the first to agree. To date, the public has not seen any evidence to justify overturning a murder conviction that has survived appeals for over two decades.”

Despite the upheld murder conviction, there is still a good chance that Syed will ultimately be released: His legal process will now continue where it left off in September 2022, when the Baltimore judge overturned the conviction because a reinvestigation of Lee's murder led to the emergence of two new suspects as well as potential DNA evidence that ruled out Syed as a suspect.