Baltimore prosecutors will withdraw allegations to void the murder charge of Adnan Said, who has been symptomatic in the court system since being recorded on the hit podcast's “cereal,” Baltimore lawyers on Tuesday I stated.
Mr. Said spent decades in prison fighting the conviction for the death of his high school girlfriend Hae Min Lee. The podcast, released in 2014, presented new evidence and became interested in the case.
In 2022, Sayed was released from prison when a Baltimore Circuit Court judge convicted him. The charges against Sayed were dropped later that year, but his conviction was later resurrected, with the Maryland Supreme Court ordered a redoing of the hearing that freed him.
A lawyer representing Saeed criticized the motion, saying that Saeed did not commit the crime he was found guilty. The decision “ignores the injustice that this belief has been established,” lawyer Erica J. Starr said in a statement.
Baltimore City counsel Ivan J. Bates said his firm had allegedly vacated a conviction by his predecessor, Marilyn Mosby, “a statement that is false and misleading.” He said he had decided.
“I have not underestimated this decision, but we need to maintain the credibility of our office and maintain public confidence in the judicial system,” Bates said in a statement.
In the past, Bates has issued a sympathetic statement to Syed. In 2018, while Bates was running to become a state lawyer, he told Rolling Stone that if he was elected he would file a lawsuit against Said. In his concession speech after losing the Democratic primary in 2018, he called on prosecutors to “stop the prosecution of Adnan Saeed now.”
Syed was found guilty of murder, robbery, tricking him and false imprisonment and was sentenced to life in prison in 2000. He was 17 at the time of Mr. Lee's death.
The hearing will be held Wednesday on allegations that his lawyer would reduce Syed's ruling, filed in December under the Juvenile Restoration Act. The law allows a defendant convicted as a minor to demand a tax cut after serving in prison for 20 years.
Ten years ago, the release of “Cereal” raised questions about the facts about the incident. The podcast was downloaded over 100 million times in its first year, attracting the attention of the public in his case of Sayed. (In 2020, the New York Times company purchased the serial production company behind the podcast.)
“Mr. David Sanford, lawyer for Lee's family, added in a statement Tuesday that anything that includes media attention surrounding the case would change that.
Over the past decade, the cases have traveled back and forth in Maryland courthouses.
In February 2015, a Maryland court agreed to hear an appeal from Mr Syed, allowing him to have a new hearing in November of that year, allowing him to introduce new evidence. He was granted a new trial in 2016.
The Maryland Special Appeal Court upheld a decision to grant him a new trial and in 2018 invalidated his conviction. In 2019, the Court of Appeal overturned the decision, denying him a new trial and reviving his conviction. The US Supreme Court later refused to hear his case.
In 2022, prosecutors agreed to a new DNA test. They later asked the judge to overturn Mr. Said's conviction. The judge again voided his conviction a few days later, and the charges were dropped in October of that year.
A few months later, in 2023, the Special Court of Appeals, which had been renamed Maryland Court of Appeals, had recovered Mr. Said's murder conviction. The lower court held that he violated the rights of Mr. Lee's brother, Young Lee, to inform him of his right to attend the hearing.
In 2024, the Maryland Supreme Court ordered the court to redo the trial that released Mr Syed.
