At the request of Baltimore County State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, Judge Melissa Finn ordered Syed released from the courtroom and sent home while she waits to hear whether prosecutors will seek a new trial or stop pursuing him. Now 42, Syed walked out of the courthouse to a roaring crowd. Dressed in white with a blue tie, he smiled and waved before being bundled into a car and driven away. But his continued freedom is not guaranteed. Phinn said prosecutors have 30 days to decide whether to retry Syed for the murder of his ex-girlfriend, 18-year-old Hae Min Lee. Mosby, the state’s attorney for Baltimore City, said after Monday’s ruling that her office had not yet found him not guilty, but that he was entitled to a new trial “in the interest of justice and fairness.” Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh (D) — whose office has previously defended Syed’s handling of the case in court proceedings — blamed the Baltimore district attorney for acting without consulting his office and called the allegations prosecutors did not turn over evidence to Syed’s defense as they should have “wrong”. “Neither State’s Attorney Mosby nor anyone in her office bothered to consult with either the Assistant State’s Attorney who prosecuted the case or anyone in my office regarding these alleged violations,” Frosch said. “The file in this case was made available to the defense on multiple occasions.” While awaiting prosecutors’ next move, Syed will be under GPS monitoring, Phinn said. Syed has maintained his innocence since he was arrested for Lee’s murder in February 1999, when he was 17 year old in high school. Investigators at the time determined she died of strangulation, and Syed was convicted of murder in 2000 and sentenced to life in prison. He has long sought to overturn his conviction and get a new trial, but until recently faced opposition from prosecutors. Syed’s case was featured on “Serial,” which had its first season in 2014. Host Sarah Koenig described the events surrounding Lee’s death, raising questions about the handling of the investigation, the conduct of Syed’s defense and whether Syed may have been innocent . More than a decade after his conviction, Syed began to see some hope that he would have new legal proceedings. In 2016, a district court overturned Syed’s conviction, citing the “effective assistance” of a former attorney who failed to investigate an alibi witness, and in March 2018, the Court of Special Appeals upheld the ruling granting Syed a new trial. But in March 2019, the Maryland Supreme Court reinstated Said’s murder conviction. Then on Wednesday, the Baltimore state’s attorney’s office said in a motion in district court that it wanted the conviction thrown out and Said freed. The office said its own nearly year-long investigation into the case, conducted by Said’s defense, had turned up new evidence about possible suspects, as well as materials that should have been turned over to defense attorneys that had not been turned over. . Read the motion to overturn Said’s conviction The move drew widespread praise from Syed’s supporters, who have long waged a public and legal campaign for his freedom. C. Justin Brown, Syed’s former attorney who began representing him in 2009, he released a statement celebrating the decision, but expressed concern about the length of time it took to reach this decision. “It has now been revealed that prosecutors knew of another viable suspect in the murder of Hae Min Lee, but relied on that information for more than 20 years,” Brown’s statement said. “While we don’t know how this happened, or if it was intentional, we do know it’s inexcusable.” But this sentiment was not universal. Young Lee, Hae Min Lee’s brother, told the hearing on Monday that prosecutors’ motion to overturn the conviction made him feel “betrayed.” “It’s very hard to swallow, and especially for my mom,” she said. Young Lee said he “wasn’t against the investigation or anything like that,” adding, “Knowing that there could be somebody out there to kill my sister — it’s hard.” “I’m asking you to make the right decision,” he told the judge. Mosby said DNA analysis will help to determine whether Syed’s case will be dismissed or whether prosecutors will seek a new trial. He said he understands Lee’s brother’s feeling, but that Syed deserves justice in the criminal justice system. “You have some kind of resolution and you think you have closure, and the case comes back and tears a whole new wound that you think is healed,” Mosby said. “I understand his frustration.” Prosecutors have not released the identities of the other possible suspects. But Becky Feldman, head of the state attorney’s office’s Sentencing Review Unit, described them Monday as “credible, viable suspects.” According to court records, one had threatened to make Lee “disappear” and “kill her,” he said, and alleged that one of them “engaged in multiple incidents of rape and sexual assault.” One had relatives who lived near the area where Lee’s car was found. Feldman said authorities at the time “improperly screened” a suspect by relying on a polygraph test that was “not reliable.” The prosecutor’s filing said the suspects “may be involved individually or may be involved together” and referred to them throughout the drive as “one of the suspects,” without specifying which person they were referring to. The state attorney general’s investigation also found that a key witness in the case, Jay Wilds, was inconsistent in his accounts to police. For example, Wilds testified that he had helped Syed bury Lee’s body. But he gave two different accounts to authorities of where he saw the body and a third to the media, according to the motion. Wilds was a major character on the “Serial” podcast. Research too found that the data prosecutors used to corroborate Wilds’ account could also have been misleading or inaccurate. Prosecutors used data from incoming calls to place Syed at the site of Lee’s body, but the state attorney’s office said in the motion that type of cell phone data “would not be considered reliable location information.” “Had this information been disclosed, perhaps Adnan would not have missed his high school graduation or his 23rd birthday, holidays, family gatherings, community events, everyday moments of joy,” Erica Suter, Syed’s attorney, said outside from court on Monday. . “Maybe the real killers would have been brought to justice.”
