Adnan Syed’s murder conviction was overturned on Monday after he spent 23 years in prison. Syed and his murder trial were the subjects of the hit podcast Serial in 2014, bringing this obscure case to national attention. That notoriety paid off for Syed this week at a Baltimore courthouse.
Syed’s conviction was overturned by Baltimore Circuit Judge Melissa Phinn, according to a report by The Baltimore Sun. In 2000, Syed was convicted of the 1999 murder of his high school girlfriend Hae Min Lee. However, recent evidence about alternative suspects combined with doubt about evidence used against Syed contributed to his freedom. Phinn said that she was making her new ruling in the “interest of justice and fairness,” but Syed will not go completely free all at once.
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Syed will reportedly be placed in home detention during the next phase of his legal proceedings, during which time he will be required to wear a GPS monitor. Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby will decide whether the city wants to drop its charges against Syed or try him for murder all over again. The office will have 30 days to make that decision.
Prosecutors have already been back on this case for at least a year now. They have reportedly worked with Syed’s lawyer, Erica Suter, to determine that the local authorities withheld information about a possible alternative suspect from Syed’s defense back in 2000. This is known as a Brady violation, and it cast serious doubt on the prosecution. Mosby said in court that this rendered the evidence used in the original case virtually useless, but she also declined to dismiss the case altogether.
Syed’s case was the subject of the very first season of Serial, which caused a surge in popularity for true crime podcasts and podcasts in general. The story spanned 13 episodes and host Sarah Koenig along with the other producers refrained from drawing any particular conclusions in the end.
In the years since, the true crime genre has faced an increasing amount of criticism and Serial has often been used as a strong example in those critiques. The news about Syed’s case on Monday drew some mixed responses on social media, and it’s clear that the public interest in the case is not slowing down any time soon. You can download Serial Season 1 now on most major podcast apps. The show has been on hiatus since 2020.
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