More than two decades after Adnan Syed was sentenced to life in prison and eight years after the shaky case against him became the focus of the hit podcast “Serial,” a Baltimore judge ordered Monday that the Syed’s conviction was overturned and he walked out a free man.
There were screams inside the court as officers untied Syed’s shackles.
Syed, 41 and imprisoned for more than two decades, was led into the courtroom full of handcuffs on Monday. But after Circuit Court Judge Melissa Phinn ordered Syed’s conviction vacated, he was shackled and left in a white shirt and tie. His mother and other representatives of the family left with him.
Phinn ruled that the state violated its legal obligation to share exculpatory evidence with Syed’s defense. She ordered that he be released from custody and placed on house arrest with GPS location monitoring. He also ordered the state to decide whether to seek a new trial date or dismiss the case within 30 days.
The move came after prosecutors said they no longer have faith in their original case, something many “Serial” fans have been saying for years.
The podcast’s first season, spanning 12 episodes, spawned investigations into Syed’s conviction, books, documentaries and national media attention. The podcast concluded with hSarah Koenig said she wasn’t sure who he killed Hae Min Lee, Syed’s ex-girlfriend.
This ambiguity captured national attention as Koenig examined glaring problems with both Syed’s defense and the prosecution’s case, exploring faulty cell phone data, inconsistent timelines, ignored witnesses and other possible suspects.
Syed was sentenced to life in prison, plus 30 years, after being convicted of the 1999 murder. He has maintained his innocence since he was 17.
Despite the public attention, legal representation and massive advocacy pushing to overturn Syed’s conviction, multiple appeals were denied and prosecutors needed to admit mistakes years later to get to this point.
Experts say the vast majority of prisoners do not have these opportunities, making their fight even more difficult.
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The case of Adnan Syed, and the doubts surrounding it, captured national attention
The true crime frenzy surrounding Syed is one of the most prominent examples of podcasts, TV shows and media reports casting serious doubt on previously dark convictions. But until recently, Syed remained in prison with few legal options.
That changed when the Baltimore State’s Attorney filed a motion to overturn the conviction sentencing him on Wednesday, saying a lengthy investigation uncovered new evidence that could undermine his 2000 murder conviction.
Syed had already been fighting his conviction for years when a family friend and attorney connected him to Koenig, the future host of what would become “Serial.”
Koenig essentially revived the case in 2014, tracking down old friends of Syed and Lee, sorting through thousands of documents and court hearings, and eventually developing an investigation that appeared to uncover multiple problems with Syed’s trial.
Deirdre Enright, law professor and founder of the Innocence Project at UVA Law School, said Syed would have had few options to try to overturn his conviction without public attention.
“Adnan Syed would be nowhere if Sarah Koenig hadn’t stepped in and made him a national spectacle,” Enright said. “Like most, I would have been alone.”
A 2021 Maryland law that allowed people convicted of crimes as juveniles to seek new sentences after serving 20 years in prison also helped advance his case, said Enright, who appeared in several episodes of ” Series”.
Prosecutors said a year-long investigation into Syed’s case revealed two alternative suspects and “significant reliability issues” with evidence used to convict him.
The prosecution asked for a new trial, at the very least. The state has not yet decided whether to seek a new trial date or dismiss the case.
Neama Rahmani, a trial lawyer and former federal prosecutor, said there is almost no chance that Syed will be tried again — it is more than likely that he will be released entirely.
“He has already served 22 years for a crime he probably didn’t commit,” Rahmani said. “And the fact that not only (prosecutors) asked for the conviction to be overturned, but that he was released on his own recognizance, leads me to believe that he will not be prosecuted.”
‘Unfortunate… not unusual’: Syed’s long process to overturn the conviction
The long battle Syed faced is not unique, said Amanda Vicary, professor and professor of psychology at Illinois Wesleyan University.
“It’s unfortunate, but it’s not at all unusual that even people who are truly innocent can be in prison for 20 years before they find someone to represent them and before all the appeals and everything gets through the court system.” , Vicary said. .
In the United States, 375 people have been exonerated by DNA evidence since 1989 in various types of cases, according to the Innocence Project, a nonprofit organization focused on freeing innocent people and preventing wrongful convictions. On average, these people served an average of 14 years per person before being released.
Syed received new DNA tests in 2022 using procedures that were not available when he was tried more than 20 years ago. Most of the tests returned inconclusive or unhelpful results, according to the motion filed Wednesday.
“I FEEL FREE”:A teenager accused of murder in 1985 becomes the 3,000th person exonerated
Despite his long wait to overturn his conviction, Syed has had chances that most people in the criminal justice system haven’t, experts say, along with a heavy dose of publicity.
One avenue to seek a vacated conviction is through a post-conviction attorney, which Syed has employed. But once someone has been convicted, it’s hard to hire one, especially for those without money or family.
“Once you go to jail, you don’t have a lawyer, you’re on your own,” Vicary said.
Without a post-conviction attorney, the other viable option for overturning a conviction is to seek help from organizations like the Innocence Project, but even UVA, which is more staffed than others, has a waiting list of hundreds , according to Enright.
Allowing outside influence in a courtroom directly conflicts with the conflict code of American judges. But in a public case like Syed’s, public influence can be almost inevitable.
“They may not want to admit it, or they may not even be aware of it, but I think it would be hard to say that (public attention) doesn’t affect things in some way,” Vicary said.
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‘Serial’ ushered in a new era of true crime, but left victims behind
When Koenig came to Enright with the idea of turning “Serial” into a full-length podcast, the law professor’s first thought was that no one would care.
“I’ve been doing these cases for years … I said, ‘nobody cares about this,'” Enright said. “That’s why I have to keep doing this.”
But to Enright’s surprise, she was proved wrong, and luckily. “Serial” is one of the most celebrated podcasts of all time: it is widely cited as the most listened to podcast in the world with over 300 million downloads, according to “This American Life,” which produced the podcast.
Americans have had a fascination with true crime for hundreds of years, beginning in the 1800s, when newspapers began hiring crime reporters and printing sensational judgments on their front pages, said Adam Golub, professor of American Studies at CSU Fullerton.
And “there’s no question” that “Serial” ushered in a new cycle of that fascination, Golub said.
“What something like ‘Serial’ did is it turned us all into jurors or de facto investigators — we get to be these armchair experts on these crimes that we then feel like we can make up our own minds about,” he said.
But Serial, and many other true crime productions, focus overwhelmingly on the perpetrator and not the victim.
“It’s really about somebody’s murder,” he said. “Hae Min Lee has been somewhat overshadowed by all of this.”
Syed was granted a new trial in 2016 after a judge questioned his original attorney’s cross-examination of an expert on the reliability of the cell tower evidence. But for Lee’s family, justice was served when he was sent to prison.
That trial “reopened wounds that few can imagine,” Lee’s family said in a 2016 statement.
“We believe justice was served when Adnan was convicted in 2000, and we hope to bring this chapter to an end so we can celebrate Hae’s memory rather than the man who killed her,” they said.
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Contributor: The Associated Press
