In 2016, Adnan Syed—the man who was convicted in 2000 of murdering his high school classmate Hae Min Lee—was offered a new trial. The podcast Serial had thrown much doubt on the levers pulled, and not pulled, that led to his conviction, including (but not limited to) the prosecution relying on shoddy evidence and his defense attorney failing to represent him adequately.
Syed's conviction was vacated last month, and today, prosecutors in Maryland dropped the charges. That's not a result of the new trial, which you would be forgiven for not knowing about, because it never happened.
