'Serial' podcast subject, Adnan Syed, will get a new trial

Adnan Syed  has spent most of his life behind bars.

AFTER SPENDING almost 20 years in jail, Adnan Syed is getting a new trial.

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals ruled today (March 29) that the man who was the subject of a popular podcast, will have his murder conviction overturned because of poor counsel.]

Syed was found guilty in 2000 of the murder of his high school girlfriend, Hae Min Lee, a Korean/American immigrant. Her strangled body was found off a trial in a city park. 

Seventeen-year old Syed, a son of immigrants from Pakistan, was given a life sentence in 2000.

HAE MIN LEE

The case was the subject of NPR's most popular podcast in 2014, the first season of hit Serial. The podcast narrator questioned some of the details of the Lee's homicide and the adequacy of Syed's attorney, the late Cristina Gutierrez.

Chief among the errors was that the defense lawyer for failing to pursue a classmate who witnessed Syed at the library at the time of the slaying. The testimony of Asia McClain, who knew both Lee and Syed at Woodlawn High School in Baltimore, was never interviewed by Gutierrez nor was her information brought up during the trial.

Chief Judge Patrick L. Woodward ruled, "There is a reasonable probability that McClain's alibi testimony would have raised a reasonable doubt in the mind of at least one juror about Syed's involvement [in] Hae's murder, and thus 'the result of the proceedings would have been different.'"

In a separate ruling but in the same proceedings, Woodward wrote:  "Syed's murder conviction must be vacated, and because Syed's convictions for kidnapping, robbery, and false imprisonment are predicated on his commission of Hae's murder, these convictions must be vacated as well. The instant case will be remanded for a new trial on all charges against Syed."

The family of Hae Min Lee criticized McClain who they say did not sit through every day of both trials like they did.

“It remains hard to see so many run to defend someone who committed a horrible crime, who destroyed our family, who refuses to accept responsibility, when so few are willing to speak up for Hae,” a family statement said.

Serial, which meticulously re-examined the murder in Baltimore and original 2000 trial, helped bring renewed attention to Syed’s case. The podcast helped propel the NPR show to become the most popular podcast ever, gaining a global audience.

“Serial was enormously helpful,” a lawyer for Syed, Justin Brown, said at a press conference after today's verdict was read. “[Syed] asked me to convey his deep gratitude and thanks from the bottom of his heart to all those who have supported him and believed in him.”

The State of Maryland has opposed the overturning of Syed’s conviction and in 2017 it appealed a lower court’s decision to grant a new trial. Today’s ruling could mean that Syed will have another shot at freedom, or it might mean that prosecutors take the case to Maryland’s Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state.

(UPDATED: March 30, 9:30 a.m. to include statement from the Lee family.)

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