BALTIMORE — The Maryland Supreme Court reinstated Adnan Syed’s convictions in a ruling Friday, sending the case back to Baltimore City Court.
The decision effectively restarts the trial after the Baltimore District Attorney’s Office filed a motion to overturn Syed’s conviction for the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee. Hae Min Lee was strangled and buried in a secret grave in Baltimore’s Leakin Park, a crime prosecutors said violated her brother Young Lee’s right to participate in 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 ruling posted online Friday morning.
The decision comes nearly 11 months after state Supreme Court justices questioned Syed and Lee’s attorneys during oral argument on Oct. 6.
Syed’s legal saga gained international attention with the hit podcast “Serial,” which debuted in 2014. The show investigated the murder of Hae Min Lee and the subsequent prosecution of Syed, her former high school sweetheart.
A jury in 2000 found Syed guilty of murder and related charges in Lee’s death, with a judge later sentencing Syed to life plus 30 years in prison. The convictions upheld numerous appeals by Syed, who maintained his innocence as years turned into decades behind bars.
His breakthrough came in 2021, when Baltimore prosecutors began reviewing his case in light of a new law that allows people convicted of crimes before they turn 18 to petition the court to reconsider their sentences. The review led to a thorough reexamination of the case, which prosecutors said revealed alternative suspects in Lee’s killing that had not previously been disclosed to Syed.
The revelation caused prosecutors to lose confidence in the “integrity” of his decades-old conviction, moving to overturn the convictions and Syed was released in September 2022 after 23 years behind bars.
However, there were also questions about the hearing to overturn Syed’s convictions.
Late on a Friday afternoon, the judge presiding over the hearing rescheduled the proceedings for the following Monday. Prosecutors then informed Hae Min Lee’s brother, Young Lee, that he could watch the hearing via Zoom, but a lawyer for Young Lee insisted that his client, who lived in California, wanted to attend in person and was not given enough time to travel.
Though he was allowed to speak at the hearing via Zoom, Young Lee filed an appeal before prosecutors dismissed Syed’s charges in October of that year, arguing that the short notice violated his rights as a crime victim. The Maryland Intermediate Court of Appeals sided with Lee and ordered in March 2023 that Syed’s convictions be reinstated for a rehearing to overturn them.
Syed immediately appealed to the state Supreme Court, which held off on resuming his charges while it considered whether to hear his case, and Young Lee followed suit, arguing that the appeals court ruling did not go far enough for crime victims. Last June, the Supreme Court accepted and combined Syed and Lee’s dual appeals.
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