BALTIMORE — After two murder trials, multiple failed appeals, 23 years in prison and a public acquittal, Adnan Syed’s legal saga is not over yet.
The brother of Hae Min Lee, the 18-year-old Woodlawn High School student found killed in Leakin Park in 1999, is asking the Maryland Court of Special Appeals to order a repeat of the hearing that set the “Serial” podcast subject free earlier this year.
Specifically, Young Lee, Hae Min Lee’s brother, is asking the appeals court to order a new hearing to determine whether Syed’s murder conviction should be overturned, and for the chance to present evidence at such a hearing, according to a new court filing.
Convicted in 2000 for the murder of Lee, his high school ex-girlfriend, Syed’s conviction was overturned and he was released from prison in September, after prosecutors raised doubts about his guilty finding because of the revelation of “alternative suspects” in the homicide and unreliable evidence used against him at trial.
Prosecutors said they identified two alternative suspects in Lee’s death, both of whom were not sufficiently investigated at the time. The Baltimore Sun reported previously that both suspects were known to Syed’s defense at the time of trial, and one of them found Lee’s body and testified at trial.
Young Lee appealed that decision soon afterward, arguing he was not given enough notice about the hearing to either attend or prepare, and that Baltimore Circuit Judge Melissa Phinn and Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby violated his rights as a crime victim under Maryland law.
“The circuit court and State violated Mr. Lee’s rights,” attorney Steve Kelly wrote in an appellate court filing on behalf of Young Lee. “This Court may and should overturn the circuit court’s vacatur and remand for a new hearing.”
Prosecutors told Young Lee about the hearing less than one full business day before it was set, and Lee, who lives on the West Coast, was not available to attend in person.
Kelly attended in person and asked Phinn to postpone the hearing for one week so Young Lee could attend in person, but Phinn declined. Lee did give brief, unprepared remarks via video call.
At the Sept. 19 hearing, Assistant State’s Attorney Becky Feldman said in open court she presented evidence suggesting Syed’s innocence to Phinn in a closed hearing the week prior. That evidence consisted of a hand-written prosecutor’s note she said she found in the original case file, that Feldman interpreted as someone else making a threat against Lee’s life.
The note was never turned over to Syed’s defense team, and until this year, had remained secret, both Feldman and Syed’s current defense attorney, Erica Suter, have said.
“He told her that he would make her disappear. He would kill her,” Kevin Urick, the note’s author and original prosecutor on Syed’s case, wrote more than two decades ago.
But the note’s actual meaning is up for interpretation. Urick told the attorney general’s office that the “he” refers to Syed. Feldman and others say the “he” refers to the alternative suspect.
Urick has declined all interview requests.
The Sun is not identifying the alternative suspect because he has not been charged with a crime.
In their own court filing, lawyers for Attorney General Brian Frosh, have written that the note is subject to “multiple” interpretations. The Attorney General’s Office represents the state in this appeal, and Frosh’s administration has said it believes Young Lee’s rights were violated.
Complicating matters is the fact that no criminal case against Syed currently exists. When his conviction was overturned in September, the underlying murder charge against Syed remained, leading to the basis for Young Lee’s appeal.
On Oct. 11, Mosby held a press conference announcing her office had dismissed all the remaining charges against Syed, effectively acquitting him.
Suter, Syed’s lawyer, said in a statement at the time that the charges being dismissed made her client “a free man.”
“DNA results confirmed what we have already known and what underlies all of the current proceedings: that Adnan is innocent and lost 23 years of his life serving time for a crime he did not commit,” Suter said then.
Suter could not immediately be reached Friday morning for comment.
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