Prosecutors in Maryland moved to vacate the sentence of a man convicted for a 1999 murder after a year-long investigation turned up new evidence.
The State’s Attorney’s Office filed a motion to vacate the sentence for Adnan Syed, who has served over 20 years in prison after being found guilty of murder in 2000.
‘The motion filed today supports a new trial for Syed based on a nearly year-long investigation that revealed undisclosed and newly-developed information regarding two alternative suspects, as well as unreliable cell phone tower data,’ Maryland State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby stated.
Syed was charged with the murder of his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee in 1999 after her body was discovered partially buried in a Baltimore park.
Syed, then 17, was found guilty a year after his arrest and sentenced to life in prison.
Fourteen years after his conviction, Syed’s case became the focus of the first season of ‘Serial,’ a podcast hosted by investigative journalist Sarah Koenig.
‘Serial’ proved to be a huge hit with tens of millions of downloads, and Syed’s case was thrust into the spotlight again.
The podcast also prompted a follow-up investigation by the State’s Attorney’s Office, which found that the prosecution failed to notify Syed’s defense attorneys that police had interviewed two other suspects for Lee’s murder, and that neither suspect was ever officially ruled out.
According to the filing, one of the suspects also threatened Lee before her death, saying ‘he would make her disappear. He would kill her.’
By withholding this information, the state may have violated the Brady rule – a Supreme Court precedent which requires prosecutors to turn over any evidence that might be favorable to a defendant.
Prosecutors did not claim that Syed was innocent, but that he required a new trial ‘where he is adequately represented and the latest evidence can be presented.’
The State’s Attorney recommended that Syed be released on his own recognizance or on bail.
‘We believe that keeping Mr. Syed detained as we continue to investigate the case with everything that we know now, when we do not have confidence in results of the first trial, would be unjust,’ Mosby stated.
Syed has maintained his innocence since he was first arrested.
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