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A judge granted a motion on Monday Adnan Saeed’s murder conviction vacatedthe subject of the first season of the popular “Serial” podcast, has maintained his innocence when he killed his ex-girlfriend in 1999.
Prosecutors in Baltimore filed a motion last week for a new trial against Syed, who has been serving a life sentence on charges of first-degree murder, robbery, kidnapping and false imprisonment in connection with the killing of Hae-min Lee.
In explaining her decision to withdraw, Baltimore City Circuit Judge Melissa Phinn cited material from the state investigation that was not properly turned over to defense attorneys and the existence of two suspects who may have been improperly cleared as investigation.
Her ruling was met with cheers and tears in court. Said – who appeared at the hearing wearing a white button-up shirt, dark tie and koffee hat – was not handcuffed, but his feet were. After the ruling, officials unbuckled his ankle.
The hearing comes nearly eight years after the “Continuous” podcast unearthed his case, raising questions about the conviction and his legal representation.In doing so, the podcast drew a huge audience and sparked a The true crime podcast boom And further scrutiny of the case, including the HBO documentary “The Case Against Adnan Syed.”
Defense lawyers praised the prosecution’s motion to quash the conviction was right or wrong.
“Given the lack of credible evidence involving Mr. Saeed, coupled with the growing body of evidence that points to other suspects,” said Erica Sut, assistant public defender, Syed’s lawyer and director of the Innocence Project Clinic, in a statement. , this unjust conviction is untenable.”
Maryland public defender Natasha Dutigue called the case at a news conference last week “a real example of how justice can be denied. An innocent person has been wrongfully imprisoned for decades, and any help that helps Information or evidence to identify the actual perpetrators is becoming increasingly difficult to pursue.”
What we know about the case
Adnan and Lee were attending Woodlawn High School in Baltimore County when she disappeared in January 1999. Three weeks later, her strangled body was found in the urban forest.
Mosby said prosecutors “are not currently asserting that Mr. Syed is innocent” but the state “has no confidence in the integrity of the conviction” and that Syed should face a new trial.
Syed and prosecutors filed suit in March joint movement As for post-conviction DNA testing, it said “DNA testing has changed and improved dramatically” since the crime took place more than two decades ago.
The March motion called for touch DNA testing on the victim’s clothing, but it was not available at the time of the trial. Mosby’s statement said the items being tested were not previously tested in 2018 — when the Baltimore City Police Lab tested DNA on various items — except for the victims’ nail clippers.
Mosby said the motion to remove was filed with the head of the Sentencing Review Unit, Becky Feldman. Said was a teenager when he was convicted.
According to Mosby’s statement, the other suspects were known persons at the time of the initial investigation and “have not been properly excluded and have not been disclosed to the defense.”
The state did not name the suspects, but said that, according to trial files, one of them said, “He will let her [Ms. Lee] disappear. He will kill her. “
The investigation also revealed that a suspect had been convicted of assaulting a woman in the vehicle, the statement said. A second suspect was convicted of serial rape and sexual assault, the statement said.
Some information was available at the trial, while others came to light later, the statement said. It is unclear when the attacks occurred.
Li’s car was “just behind the house of a family member of the suspect,” the statement said.
Saeed’s lawyers brought the case to the sentencing review unit’s attention in April 2021.
Mosby’s statement said Saeed’s lawyers “discovered significant reliability issues regarding the most critical evidence at the trial”.
in 2019 HBO Documentary “In the case of Adnan Saeed,” a lawyer for Saeed said, no DNA of his client was found in 12 samples taken from the victim’s body and car. The test was not part of an official investigation by authorities. HBO, like CNN, is a division of Warner Bros. Discovery.
At the trial, prosecutors relied on testimony from friend Jay Wirtz, who said he helped Syed dig a hole for Lee’s body. To substantiate his claims, prosecutors produced cellphone records and expert witness testimony to place Syed where Lee was buried.
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