What do you need to know about Adnan Syed’s conviction to crime

The legal battle over Adnan Syed The conviction, examined a decade ago in the podcast hit “Serial”, continues to twist and return, even after prosecutors have released him for more than 23 years in prison for a crime he has not yet committed.

Baltimore prosecutors resolved a key question this week, throwing earlier Request to delete Syed’s record And instead he said that his conviction will stay.

But they also joined his defense lawyers to ask a judge on Wednesday to reduce his sentence at the time he served. The victim’s family opposed it during emotional hearing, saying that they should fulfill their initial life.

The judge said he would govern soon. In the meantime, here is what you – such as the true crime enthusiasts who obsessed themselves after listening to the “Serial” podcast in 2014 – you must know.

How did we get here?

Syed was 17 when his former high school girlfriend and classmate, Hae Min Lee, was found suffocated at death and buried in an improvised grave in 1999. At the trial, prosecutors said that Syed killed her after becoming jealous when the two broke up and started with someone else. Syed was convicted of murder and received life in prison, plus 30 years.

Syed’s call did not earn traction until The debut season of the “Serial” raised doubts about the data of the mobile phone tower and other evidence. No eyewitness related to the crime, and Syed’s lawyer Cristina Gutierrez failed to interview a witness Alibi who said she was with Syed at the time Lee was killed. Gutierrez, a criminal defense lawyer in the Baltimore area, was disabled in 2001, when the customer funds disappeared. She died in 2004.

There followed a multitude of legal activities in several courts, until the former Baltimore prosecutor, Marilyn Mosby, moved to leave the conviction in 2022, allowing Syed to be released. But the Supreme Court of Maryland then reinstalled the conviction for procedural reasons, saying that Lee’s family did not give enough warning to testify in person.

Mosby’s successor, Ivan Bates, announced on the eve of the meeting on Wednesday that his office withdraws the motion to leave “to keep the credibility of our office and to maintain public confidence in the justice system.”

A case that has become a phenomenon of pop culture

Today, it is given that millions of people listen to podcasts in which popular hosts can be catapult in celebrity status. But in 2014, the podcast world was still relatively new.

Then the “series” decreased. The podcast was the brain of the radio producer for a long time and the former Baltimore Sun reporter, Sarah Koenig, who spent more than a year digging in Syed’s case and built as he reported his conclusions in segments.

The onset of Podcast did not question Syed’s murder; He also raised the true kind of crime Porting Syed as a nice character, rather than taking the guilt of an defendant.

There has been a flood of true interest of crime since Koenig’s blow. Experts are in conflict increasing online sleepwhich can exhibit crimes, but also resemble distrust of the US Criminal Justice System.

The case highlights the tension between victims’ rights and justice reform

“This is not a podcast for me. This is real life, “said Hae Min Lee’s brother, young Lee, when the conviction was vacated in 2022.

Finally, Lee Family appealed to the Supreme Court of Maryland, claiming that crime victims should be given a greater role in this process. And the young Lee was able to speak on Wednesday, urging a judge to return to Syed to life prison.

Judge Jennifer Schiffer indicated that her decision will take into account the recent achievements of Syed and the unimaginable suffering of the victim’s family, as well as the horrible nature of the crime.

She also apologized to the young Lee, saying, “I am so sorry for what you have passed and all I can say is that your words are not lost on me and my heart is heading for you.”