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Maryland Supreme Court upholds decision to reinstate Adnan Syed murder conviction

By Omari Daniels and Tom Jackman, the Washington Post

August 30, 2024, 10:05 am CDT

The Maryland Supreme Court on Friday upheld an appellate court’s decision to reinstate the murder conviction of Adnan Syed, a blow to the “Serial” podcast subject but one that probably does not conclude his legal fight.

In a lengthy majority opinion, the Supreme Court ruled that prosecutors and a lower court judge had “worked an injustice” in a key hearing in the case by not giving proper notice to the victim’s brother as prosecutors moved to vacate Syed’s conviction in 2022. The brother, who lives in California, was informed of the hearing three days before it occurred and spoke by Zoom after a circuit court judge rejected his request to postpone it until he could fly to Baltimore.

The majority ruling said Syed’s convictions should be reinstated and the case sent back to the circuit court for a new hearing. It marks the latest twist in a long and closely watched legal drama that has surrounded Syed since his murder conviction in 2000 over the death of his ex-girlfriend, 18-year-old Hae Min Lee, in Baltimore. Syed’s story captivated millions worldwide after he was featured in “Serial,” which reexamined his case and suggested Syed was wrongly convicted.

The 4-3 ruling was written by Justice Jonathan Biran, joined by justices Angela Eaves, Steven B. Gould and Shirley M. Watts. The majority focused on whether Young Lee’s rights as a crime victim had been violated. Although Maryland law does not explicitly grant victims a chance to speak in these motion hearings, the Supreme Court concluded that crime victims or their representatives do have a right to be heard. The court cited a more general victim’s rights statute, which provides a right for victims to be heard where the “alteration of a sentence” is considered, as well as Maryland’s Declaration of Rights in the state constitution, which mandates a victim’s right to be heard at a criminal justice proceeding.

Justices Michele D. Hotten and Brynja M. Booth both wrote dissents, joined by Justice Lynne A. Battaglia. The case is a “procedural zombie,” Hotten wrote, and the majority appeared to “twist itself into a pretzel to import fundamental fairness principles” rather than focusing on the merits of the case.

Syed was freed in 2022, after Circuit Court Judge Melissa Phinn found deficiencies in how prosecutors had turned over evidence to defense attorneys decades ago. The Lee family appealed the decision, and in March 2023, an appellate court panel decided their rights had been violated because of how Young Lee was treated and reinstated Syed’s conviction. The case was then sent to the Maryland Supreme Court at the request of both parties. Friday’s ruling does not change the conditions of Syed’s release.

David Sanford, a lawyer representing the Lee family, said the court’s ruling “definitively reaffirms crime victims’ rights to be treated with dignity, respect and sensitivity, rights enshrined in the Maryland state constitution.” He said in an interview that the ruling was “very gratifying and vindicating for the family of Hae Min Lee.”

Sanford said the Lee family would now be able to hear evidence and then address the merits of a motion to vacate Syed’s conviction. “If the evidence is compelling, we will be the first to agree that Adnan Syed should remain free and be exonerated,” Sanford said.

Erica Suter, Syed’s defense attorney, said in a statement Friday afternoon that while she disagreed with the court’s decision, she respects it and will continue work to clear Syed’s name, as well as find justice for Hae Min Lee’s family.

“Adnan is innocent,” Suter said. “The weight Hae Min Lee’s family must bear is not lost on us. Reinstating Adnan’s wrongful conviction does not provide Hae Min Lee’s family with justice or closure, and it takes a tremendous emotional toll on Adnan’s family, who already lost a son and brother for more than two decades.”

The judge who originally heard the case will be removed. Sanford and the court both noted that evidence of Syed’s innocence and prosecutorial misconduct were not presented in the hearing to vacate but only in a private conference in Judge Phinn’s chambers three days before. “The record could lead a reasonable observer to infer,” Biran wrote for the majority, “that the circuit court decided to grant the [motion to vacate] based on the in-camera submission it received in chambers, and that the hearing in open court a few days later was a formality.”

As such, the Supreme Court ordered that Phinn be removed from the case when it returns to circuit court, “to avoid the appearance that allowing Mr. Lee and/or his attorney to speak to the evidence at a new [motion to vacate] hearing may be a formality.”

The next hearing is not set yet, and it’s not clear whether a change in administration at the Baltimore state’s attorney’s office while the case was pending will change its outlook. Former state’s attorney Marilyn Mosby oversaw the move to vacate Syed’s conviction, but she has been replaced by Ivan J. Bates, who defeated Mosby in the 2022 election. “The decision is currently under review by our office and we have no further comment at this time,” Bates’s office said Friday.

The body of Hae Min Lee was discovered in Leakin Park in Baltimore on Feb. 9, 1999. Syed, her ex-boyfriend, was convicted of first-degree murder in February 2000 and sentenced to life in prison, plus 30 years. After “Serial” refocused attention on the case, more appeals were filed and ultimately rejected by the state Supreme Court.

But beginning in 2021, Mosby’s office reopened an investigation into the case, focused on DNA testing of Lee’s clothing that wasn’t available in 1999 and interviews identifying two other suspects, which hadn’t been provided to the defense. What happened next was critical, in the Supreme Court’s view, to the violation of the victim’s rights in the case.

In September 2022, the state’s attorney’s office filed a motion with the court to vacate Syed’s conviction. Assistant State’s Attorney Becky Feldman told Young Lee on Sept. 12, 2022, that she would be filing the motion, reviewed it with him by phone on Sept. 13 and emailed him a draft of the motion. Feldman filed the motion to vacate Syed’s conviction on Sept. 14.

Two days later, on a Friday afternoon, Feldman and Suter held an off-the-record meeting with Phinn in the judge’s chambers, the court ruling recounts. The lawyers provided Phinn with documents that should have been provided to Syed in 1999, but nothing was placed in the record. Phinn scheduled a hearing on the state’s motion to vacate Syed’s conviction for Monday, Sept. 19, at 2 p.m.

Feldman sent an email to Young Lee that Friday afternoon informing him of the hearing, sending him a link to watch it online. Lee did not respond. On Sunday, Sept. 18, Feldman texted Lee to make sure he knew of the hearing and the link. Lee answered: “I got the email, I will be joining.”

But later that night, Lee hired lawyers to represent him in Baltimore. The lawyers requested a seven-day delay to allow Lee to appear in person. Phinn rejected that and allowed Lee to speak via Zoom. “It always comes back,” Lee told the court, “just going through this again and again and again … it’s living a nightmare over and over again.”

The judge then granted the motion to vacate the conviction, though no evidence was presented in open court. Syed was unshackled in the courtroom and then walked out to freedom for the first time in 23 years.

The case still wasn’t over, and it instead returned to an open murder case against Syed. Then, on Oct. 11, 2022, after DNA testing excluded Syed as a contributor to evidence found on Hae Min Lee’s clothes, the prosecutors dismissed the case against Syed.

Lee appealed, saying he hadn’t been meaningfully heard. The state appeals court agreed and ordered Syed’s conviction reinstated, a ruling which the Supreme Court upheld Friday.

In arguing the case, Syed’s lawyers noted that the Maryland General Assembly, which enacted the law enabling prosecutors to vacate convictions in 2021, had discussed including the right for victims to speak in a motion to vacate a hearing but didn’t include it in the law.

But “it is beyond dispute,” Biran wrote for the court, “that a victim’s right to be heard in Maryland criminal justice proceedings emanates from Article 47” of the Maryland Constitution’s Declaration of Rights, which states that a crime victim shall have the right, “if practicable, to be notified of, to attend, and to be heard at a criminal justice proceeding.”

Biran noted that Lee not only wasn’t physically present but was made to address the court before hearing the parties’ arguments and evidence in the case. The court ruled that in the future, victims and their attorneys must have the right to speak after hearing from the lawyers.

Justice Brynja M. Booth wrote a second dissenting opinion, saying the majority created a victim’s constitutional “right to be heard” that was inconsistent with the language of Article 47 and not enacted by the legislature in 2021. “Respectfully, it is not our role to act as a super-legislature when we think our policies are better,” Booth said.