Adnan Syed has been free for six months and will continue to do so, although another legal cloud hangs over him. A Maryland appeals court on Tuesday restored the murder conviction that kept him in prison for 23 years for the death of his high school girlfriend.
The “Serial” podcast made him the protagonist of a viral phenomenon in the United States. It consisted of a journalistic work that allowed his case to receive a new analysis. In the end, the Baltimore prosecutor, Marilyn Mosby, withdrew the charges after acknowledging that serious irregularities were committed in the process and the verification that recent DNA tests supported Syed's innocence, which is what he always maintained for more than two years. decades.
The reinstatement of his sentence is due to a formal matter. The appeal court ruled that the hearing in which he was acquitted violated the rights of Young Lee, the brother of Hae Min Lee, the victim, because he was not notified and could not attend in person the hearing held last September when the judge annulled the sentence. He participated by zoom.
This decision does not mean that Syed, 41, should go to prison immediately. The court has given 60 days for both sides to consider their next steps. In principle, a new hearing would have to be set to raise the withdrawal of charges. The representatives of the ministry pointed out that the evidence points to another possible implicated.
Lee was 18 years old when she was found dead in a Baltimore park. Investigators pointed to Syed as the alleged perpetrator, who in 2000 received a life sentence.
The lawyer for the victim's family, David Sandford, welcomed the decision. “We are pleased that the appellate court orders the lower court to conduct a hearing with transparency, where the evidence is openly presented and seen by the world,” he said in a statement.
Syed's attorney, Erica J. Suter, announced that she will appeal this decision in the Maryland Superior Court. "There is no basis to re-traumatize Syed with convicted felon status," she said in another statement. “Ensuring justice for Hae Min Lee does not require injustice for Adnan,” the lawyer stressed.
The decision was made by two judges to one. In his dissenting opinion, Justice Stuart R. Berger wrote that Lee's family did not have the right to speak at a hearing to vacate a sentence and qualified that electronic assistance was more than sufficient.
"In short, the judge allowed the assistant to the victim's brother and even, discretionally, authorized him to speak," he stressed.
Young Lee asked for that hearing to be postponed on the grounds that he had been notified only 30 minutes in advance. “This is not a podcast for me, this is real life, a nightmare that never ends,” she told the audience.
The prosecution's dropping of charges against Syed marked the culmination of one of the great achievements of court journalism in new formats. A podcast, that installment by chapters entitled 'Serial', and a documentary series on HBO in 2019 analyzed his case, interviewed him, moved heaven and earth, sought witnesses. They found numerous flaws in the prosecution process.
Delivery to delivery, Syed was present in the conversations of the Americans. There was what was called “a cultural obsession”.
