Adnan Syed, who was the topic of the groundbreaking crime podcast “Serial,” is requesting a sentence discount so he can stay free as he fights his homicide conviction, his authorized staff mentioned Monday.
Syed was sentenced to life plus 30 years for the 1999 homicide of highschool ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee when he was 17. He had served practically 24 years in jail when he was launched in 2022 after a Baltimore decide overturned the conviction.
But Lee’s household fought the choice, arguing they weren’t supplied ample discover to argue earlier than the courtroom, and Syed’s conviction was reinstated in 2023 however he was primarily allowed to stay free. His authorized staff continues to struggle to overturn his conviction.
The discount request, filed in Baltimore Circuit Court on Friday however introduced Monday, was made underneath Maryland’s Juvenile Restoration Act, which permits these imprisoned for no less than 20 years for crimes that passed off once they had been minors to ask for reductions, Syed’s authorized staff mentioned.
Syed is now 43.
“This submitting is a small step towards making certain that Adnan’s custody standing is stabilized and his freedom is safeguarded,” mentioned Erica J. Suter, director of the Innocence Project Clinic on the University of Baltimore Law School, which has championed his case.
David Sanford, a lawyer for Lee’s household, mentioned by e mail Monday that Syed’s authorized representatives “haven’t introduced a shred of recent, not to mention compelling, proof” supporting his innocence or worthiness for a decreased sentence.
“Adnan Syed stays a convicted assassin,” Sanford mentioned. “Having failed to provide new proof and with none acknowledgment of guilt by Mr. Syed, Syed’s attorneys now search mercy, arguing that Mr. Syed is just not a hazard to the general public. We will talk to the household of Hae Min Lee and current our place to the courtroom within the days forward.”
The Maryland Supreme Court in 2023 affirmed a decrease courtroom’s determination to reinstate Syed’s conviction as a result of, based on its ruling, Lee’s brother, Young Lee, was not handled with “dignity, respect, and sensitivity” when a courtroom failed to tell him of the method in a well timed method.
The excessive courtroom didn’t order Syed incarcerated, however his authorized staff stays involved about whether or not that would occur.
“Because the conviction was reinstated, he and his family members reside with the fixed concern that he will likely be despatched again to jail,” the Maryland Office of the Public Defender mentioned in its assertion Monday asserting the sentence discount request.
The workplace is working with the University of Baltimore School of Law Innocence Project Clinic to overturn Syed’s conviction.
In its request to the Baltimore Circuit Court, Syed’s authorized staff mentioned he is “performed himself admirably” whereas free, serving to to care for getting old dad and mom and in-laws whereas working for Georgetown University’s Prisons and Justice Initiative, which seeks to empower prisoners and former prisoners as students, professionals and advocates.
In 2014, “Serial” broke floor as probably the most outstanding in a brand new wave of true crime podcasts, with its journalists specializing in the shortcomings of a winner-takes-all justice system whose losers are disproportionately nonwhite. HBO adopted up with a docuseries, “The Case Against Adnan Syed,” in 2019.
Syed and Lee attended Woodlawn High School and had been courting secretly — they feared their dad and mom had been too far aside culturally to know — once they broke up in December 1998, “Serial” reported. Lee was seeing another person when she went lacking the subsequent month, and her physique was present in February 1999.
Prosecutors introduced cellphone information on Syed’s whereabouts and the testimony of a witness who mentioned he helped Syed bury Lee’s physique, based on NBC affiliate WBAL of Baltimore. But a good friend who mentioned Syed was together with her on the time didn’t testify.
Prosecutors re-examined the case towards Syed and finally sided together with his defenders after they discovered unreliable proof and no less than two different suspects who weren’t property scrutinized, they’ve mentioned. The identical establishment that secured a homicide conviction, the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office, efficiently filed to have Syed’s conviction vacated.
DNA from Lee’s footwear — her physique was discovered with proof of strangulation — was re-examined with extra modern know-how and excludes Syed as a suspect, prosecutors have mentioned.
Syed stays a homicide convict as his authorized staff seeks to have his conviction vacated anew. As such, he might be remanded to jail to serve the rest of his sentence.
“We preserve his innocence and our mission of proving that hasn’t modified,” Suter mentioned in Monday’s assertion on the discount request. “If granted, we are able to flip our focus again to vacating his unjust conviction, once more.”