1999: Hae Min Lee is killed
Hae Min Lee, 18, was killed by strangulation when she was a student at Woodlawn High School in Baltimore County, Maryland.
She disappeared after leaving the school, and her body was found nearly a month later buried in a park. A police investigation led to Syed, a fellow student who had dated Lee. He was arrested and pleaded not guilty.
2000: Adnan Syed is found guilty
Prosecutors relied heavily on the testimony by Jay Wilds, a friend of Syed’s who testified that he had helped Syed bury her body. They presented cellphone tower records that they said placed Syed near the park where Lee’s body was found.
A jury found Syed, who was 17 at the time of Lee’s death, guilty of murder, robbery, kidnapping and false imprisonment. He was sentenced to life in prison.
2014: Serial podcast uncovers new evidence
Fourteen years later, the Serial podcast raised doubts about the facts around the case. (In 2020, The New York Times Co. bought Serial Productions, the company behind the podcast.)
Over the course of 12 weekly episodes, the podcast revealed the existence of an alibi witness for Syed who said she was with him at a library when Lee was killed. The witness, Asia McClain, said she had been willing to testify, but Syed’s lawyer, Maria Cristina Gutierrez, did not contact her; Gutierrez was disbarred in 2001 after a series of client complaints emerged.
The series also questioned the credibility of the cellphone tower records and revealed that physical evidence gathered in 1999 was never tested for Syed’s DNA.
The podcast was downloaded more than 100 million times in its first year, bringing widespread public attention to the case. It won a Peabody Award for its “compelling, drilling account of how guilt, truth and reality are decided.”
2015: Syed gets a new hearing
In February 2015, a Maryland court agreed to hear an appeal from Syed. In November, a judge granted him a new hearing that would allow the introduction of new evidence.
2016: A judge grants a new trial
In the hearings, Syed’s defence team argued that his original defence had been grossly negligent and presented the testimony of the alibi witness. The team also questioned why the original lawyer had not questioned the reliability of the cellphone tower records.
A judge in Maryland granted a new trial in June, and the state appealed the ruling. Lee’s family expressed pain and outrage at the decision to grant a new trial, saying that they “continue to believe justice was done when Mr Syed was convicted of killing Hae.”
Lawyers asked for him to be released on bail; the motion was denied.
2018: Syed wins another appeal
The Maryland Court of Special Appeals upheld the decision to grant Syed a new trial and vacated his conviction, agreeing that he had received ineffective legal counsel. He remained incarcerated.
2019: Maryland’s highest court denies the new trial
Reversing the decision from 2018, Maryland’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, ruled in a 4-3 decision that while the original defence lawyer had been “deficient,” Syed was not “prejudiced” by that deficiency. It denied him a new trial and reinstated his conviction.
In November, the US Supreme Court declined to hear his case.
A four-part HBO documentary beginning in March, The Case Against Adnan Syed, revealed that DNA tests performed at the request of Syed’s new lawyers did not find anyone else’s DNA on Lee’s body or belongings.
2022: A request to overturn the conviction
In March, prosecutors agreed to new DNA testing, saying that it was merited because of advances in genetic profiling. A new Maryland law allowed prosecutors the discretion to modify sentences of offenders who were under 18 at the time of their crimes and had served at least 20 years in prison.
On September 14, prosecutors asked a judge to overturn Syed’s conviction. They said an investigation had uncovered the potential involvement of two “alternative suspects,” key evidence that prosecutors might have failed to provide to Syed’s lawyers and “significant reliability issues regarding the most critical pieces of evidence” presented at trial.
They asked that he be granted a new trial “at a minimum” and released on his own personal recognisance.
“After a nearly yearlong investigation reviewing the facts of this case, Syed deserves a new trial where he is adequately represented and the latest evidence can be presented,” Marilyn J. Mosby, the state’s attorney for Baltimore City, said in a statement.
A hearing date has not been scheduled. Syed is now 41 years old.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Daniel Victor© 2022 THE NEW YORK TIMES
