Maryland’s Supreme Court has cut short what seemed like a happy ending for a formerly-convicted man, Adnan Syed. On Friday, August 30, 2024, the court agreed with a lower court that reinstated Adnan Syed’s recently overturned murder conviction.
Over a decade ago, Adnan Syed was convicted for the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee, who was murdered in 1999. But in a 4-3 ruling, the Supreme Court upheld an Appeals Court decision which stated that the family of the deceased weren’t accorded their rights before Adnan Syed’s conviction was overturned in 2022.
The court has ordered a retrial by the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. According to the Supreme Court’s ruling, “In an effort to remedy what they perceived to be an injustice to Mr. Syed, the prosecutor and the circuit court worked an injustice” against the deceased’s brother, Young Lee.
The court stated that a decision reached after a breach of any party’s rights cannot be binding. Following the Supreme Court ruling, questions regarding Adnan Syed’s life have flooded the media, with many asking what the alleged murderer is up to. Here’s all we know.
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What Is Adnan Syed Doing Now?
Adnan Syed has been enjoying his freedom courtesy of a 2022 decision by the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. Previously, Syed was serving his life imprisonment sentence before the court’s intervention. He received the sentence after evidence pointed to him in the death of then-18-year-old Hae Min Lee.
Lee was a student of Woodlawn High School and Syed’s ex-girlfriend. According to court documents, Adnan Syed and Hae Min Lee were classmates. In a tragic turn of events, police found her body buried in a park four weeks after she went missing. Reports believe that she was kidnapped before she was killed.
Syed had spent over ten years in prison when fortune smiled on him. His case appeared in the first season of NPR’s true-crime podcast. The program x-rayed the facts of the case and uncovered several unanswered questions. These blank spaces sparked public interest in the case and led to a retrial.
Is Adnan Syed Free?
Adnan Syed remains free, but his freedom hangs in the balance depending on the outcome of the retrial. The difference between the two retrials will be the presence of Young Lee, the brother of the deceased. Young Lee will have the opportunity to state his case before the court, and his argument may influence the final decision.
It is worth noting, however, that three Supreme Court justices didn’t support the majority decision. They gave pretty compelling reasons for their stance, too. One of them, Judge Michele Hotten, stated that no provision of Maryland law mandated that the deceased’s brother be heard at the vacatur hearing.
In her submission, she stated, “The circuit court is not statutorily required to hear from a victim or victim’s representative during vacatur proceedings because those proceedings no longer concern punishing the criminal defendant; rather, those proceedings concern the very basis of the criminal defendant’s guilt — conviction.”
How Did Adnan Syed Get Released?
Adnan Syed’s retrial featured some new information, which led to a vacation of his conviction. Prosecutors stated that they had found compelling evidence linking the crime to two of the other suspects in the case. One of the suspects had once threatened to make Hae Min Lee “disappear.”
Prosecutors also quoted him saying that “he would kill her.” Syed’s attorneys disclosed that they were unaware of the new evidence until it surfaced in 2022. In addition to NPR’s Serial podcast examining the case, other programs, such as the HBO docuseries “The Case Against Adnan Syed,” investigated and drew attention to the case.
The freshly discovered pieces of evidence made the difference in the retrial. After examining the new facts, the judge acquitted Adnan Syed and ordered that he be released from prison. However, two years later, both the Appeals and Supreme Court have faulted the retrial process and called for a rerun.
Responding to the ruling, David Sanford, lawyer to the Lee family, expressed the family’s satisfaction with the outcome. He spoke to journalists after the Supreme Court’s verdict. “The Maryland Supreme Court today definitively reaffirms crime victims’ rights to be treated with dignity, respect, and sensitivity, rights enshrined in the Maryland State Constitution,” he began.
“Significantly, the Lee family will now have the right to address the merits of the vacatur motion after the prosecution and the defense have made their presentations in support of that motion,” he added. Sanford emphasized the need to follow due process in the case, regardless of the outcome.
How Old Was Adnan Syed When He Was Convicted?
Police arrested Syed for Hae Min Lee’s murder when he was 17. The cops picked him up from his home. But at the time of Adnan Syed’s conviction on February 25, 2000, he was 18 years old.
The court found him guilty of first-degree murder, false imprisonment, robbery, and kidnapping. His sentence, which condemned him to life imprisonment and a further 30 years in prison, came on June 6, 2000.
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