Adnan Syed’s murder conviction still stands after Maryland’s highest court ordered the hearing to be redone.
At the age of 17, in 2000, Syed was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of 17-year-old Hae Min Lee, his former girlfriend and classmate.
Ms Lee was strangled and buried in Baltimore Park in 1999.
However, the 43-year-old was released in October 2022 after the Baltimore City State Attorney said DNA evidence supported his innocence.
Syed has maintained his innocence throughout and often expressed concern for Ms Lee’s surviving relatives.
But on Friday, Maryland’s highest court ruled that earlier proceedings violated the rights of the victim’s family – marking just the latest twist in a lengthy legal saga that gained fame through the hit podcast “Serial”.
The 4-3 ruling upheld a court decision in March last year that reinstated Syed’s conviction.
Justices did say that Syed can remain free as the case heads to a new lower court judge to again consider whether his conviction should be thrown out.
During the latest proceedings, the court weighed the extent to which victims can participate in hearings where a conviction could be vacated.
The majority of judges concluded that, in an effort to remedy what they deemed an injustice to Syed, prosecutors and a lower court “worked an injustice” against Ms Lee’s brother.
The court ruled that Young Lee was not treated with “dignity, respect, and sensitivity,” as required under Maryland law, because he wasn’t given reasonable notice of the hearing that freed Syed.
The court hoped to correct these shortfalls leading up to the new hearing.
But, the exact next steps remain unclear, in part because Baltimore elected a new top prosecutor in 2022, which could change how that office handles the case.
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The state’s attorney Ivan Bates said his office is reviewing the ruling.
Justice Michele Hotten argued the issue was moot because the underlying charges no longer exist.
“This case exists as a procedural zombie. It has been reanimated, despite its expiration. The doctrine of mootness was designed to prevent such judicial necromancy,” Justice Hotten wrote.
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David Sanford, an attorney who represents the victim’s family, said the ruling “acknowledges what Hae Min Lee’s family has argued: crime victims have a right to be heard in court”.
The case has most recently pitted criminal justice reform efforts against the legal rights of victims and their families, whose voices are often at odds with a growing movement to acknowledge and correct systemic issues – including historic racism, police misconduct, and prosecutorial missteps.
