A Maryland judge ruled Thursday that Adnan Syed will not return to jail despite efforts to clear records despite efforts to clear records.
The case has been back and forth since 2014 became a topic of widespread attention, when the podcast “Series” raised questions about the investigation into the 1999 killing of Hae Min Lee, 18.
Baltimore City Circuit Judge Jennifer Schiffer said in her ruling that Mr. Said “is not a danger to the public” and that “the judicial interest will be better served by a reduced judgment.” The court applied to say Mr Said would enter a five-year “supervised probation” period.
Mr Sayed was found guilty at the age of 17 when he was convicted of killing his former high school girlfriend, Ms. Lee, and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2000. He was released in 2022 but was restored in 2023 after a Baltimore City Circuit judge dropped his conviction. In 2024, the Maryland Supreme Court ordered the trial court to re-run the hearing on release of Mr. Sayed.
Mr. Said spoke at a February 26 hearing at the Baltimore City Circuit Court after the state’s attorney said on February 25 that he would retain the conviction.
“Your honor, I humbly ask you to continue to keep me with my family and friends, just like I have done in the past two and a half years,” he said. “I humbly ask to remain free so that I can continue to contribute to society and build a meaningful life outside of incarceration.”
“I hope everyone knows that Hae Min Lee and her family are real victims in this case,” Judge Schiffer said at the end of the hearing. “In this case, everyone has very real consequences.”
During the hearing, Mr. Sed’s friend, brother and employer, as well as two mental health workers, testified about his character.
Mr. Said was “the only person who had high expectations for me”, said Mr. Said.
“If you see anything good in me, it’s because of his influence,” he said.
Mr Said’s lawyer Erica Suter argued that her client posed no danger to society and that he was committed to improving himself. He used his education program in prison and has been married for five years and has been promoted. She also asked the judge to consider his age when committing the crime and asked the initial judge to issue a statement, who sentenced him to call for a reduction in punishment.
“He is a walking demonstration for a recovered person,” Ms. Sut said. “He doesn’t have a three-year parking ticket. I wish I could say the same.”
David Sanford, the lawyer for Ms. Lee’s family, said Mr. Said’s verdict should not be reduced, partly because he was found guilty in 2000 because the release of his “momentum” was generated by media reports.
In 2014, “Serial” raised doubts about some parts of the case, including the credibility of the cell phone tower records used in the investigation. It also raised questions about the existence of alibi witnesses who were not asked to testify.
The podcast has developed global interest in the case, downloaded more than 100 million times in its first year and won a Peabody Award. (In 2020, The New York Times purchased a series of works behind the podcast.)
Mr Said’s case has been through the court system for more than a decade. His conviction was evacuated in 2018, but he remained in jail and the decision was revoked in 2019.
Ms. Li’s brother, young Lee, said at a hearing on February 26 that he felt like he was “living over and over again” due to media reports decades later in Ms. Li’s murder.
Mr. Lee said that his and his sister had a difficult childhood, but it seemed that the situation was improving before receiving the call, saying that the police had found her sister’s body.
The Lee family’s lawyer also played an emotional video statement by Ms Lee’s mother, Youn Wha Kim, who spoke in Korean and described the pain of her daughter’s death, which led her to consider suicide.
“I live my life, trying to remember her voice and not forget it,” she said, an English translation she read in court said.
Mr Said was very excited when admitting the pain suffered by Ms Lee’s family.
“When I got home, the media spotlight was huge,” he said. “I remember the young sayings — when they released me — how painful it was. I said to myself, “I will keep my head down and focus on my work.” “I never did any interviews because it would cause them pain.”
Before the February 26 hearing, Baltimore City and State Attorney Ivan Bates’ office said it would lose an attempt to cancel Mr. Sed’s conviction because it dismissed a motion to conviction by Mr. Bates’s predecessor Marilyn Mosby, which contained “false and misleading statements.”
It was a surprising move as Mr. Bates promised to abandon Mr. Said’s indictment in a failed campaign for state prosecutors in 2018. He was sworn in in January 2023.
“I can’t bring up information that I know might be misleading or wrong. So I understand people’s anger and anxiety about me – I get it – but I have a moral responsibility to present this information as a practical fact.”
His office submitted a memorandum on Tuesday outlining its findings and released a document summarizing its arguments.
Although Mr. Bates will not evacuate Mr. Syed’s conviction based on the efforts of his predecessor, he said at the hearing that Mr. Syed should not return to prison.
“Although I cannot morally make a motion to evacuate, I can stand up and say I support Mr. Said in the judgment that he accepted the amendment,” he said. “This is my support and my office.”
Ms. Sutt, in a statement on February 26, said she “hopefully the court will see what we see” before the judge ruled the matter, and Mr. Said “is a walking demonstration of an active member of society; over the past two years he has passed the entire prison sentence, showing that he deserves a commutation.”
In December, Mr. Sed’s lawyers filed a motion to reduce sentences under Maryland’s Juvenile Recovery Act, which allows defendants who are convicted of a minor to demand a commutation of sentence after serving 20 years.
