BALTIMORE — The family of Hae Min Lee doubled down on its appellate request for a new hearing to overturn Adnan Syed’s murder conviction, citing a public dispute over what the handwritten note that helped free him means.
Lee’s brother, Young Lee, is fighting to have a say in the process that freed Syed after the man made famous by the “Serial” podcast served more than two decades in prison for Hae Min Lee’s killing.
The appeal comes after a Baltimore Circuit Court judge threw out Syed’s conviction in September and city prosecutors dismissed his charges in October, and it has yielded pointed debate in court papers over how the proceedings played out and whether there was legitimate reason to toss out Syed’s guilty verdict.
City prosecutors sought to have Syed’s conviction overturned in part because of a decades-old note discovered during their review of Syed’s case. They say the messy, handwritten note implicated another suspect in Lee’s killing but was never disclosed to Syed’s defense, preventing him from getting a fair trial.
But Kevin Urick, who prosecuted Syed in 2000, and authored the note, believes city prosecutors misinterpreted its meaning. Weeks ago, Urick provided a typed transcription to the Maryland Office of the Attorney General, which represented the state for Syed’s repeated appeals. Urick contends the threat to Lee he jotted down more than 20 years ago was made by Syed, not the other suspect whom present-day prosecutors attributed it to.
Confusion about the note “underscores the compelling importance of conducting a full evidentiary hearing — one that complies with the law,” Young Lee’s attorney, Steve Kelly, wrote in a court filing Tuesday.
Kelly said city prosecutors never showed Young Lee the note before they met with Circuit Judge Melissa Phinn in her chambers on Friday, Sept. 16, and scheduled a hearing for the following Monday, Sept. 19. The note was not entered into evidence at the hearing where Phinn threw out Syed’s conviction.
Young Lee appealed on the grounds that he wasn’t given adequate notice for the hearing, which he attended via video call and gave a brief statement. He said he wanted to attend in person but couldn’t arrange travel from his home in California to Baltimore in two days. Young Lee argued the short notice violated his rights as a crime victim under Maryland law.
But while his appeal was pending, Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby had her prosecutors dismiss Syed’s charges, citing a last round of DNA testing conducted on evidence in Lee’s killing that excluded Syed as a possible contributor of genetic material taken from her shoes.
The attorney general’s office filed papers in support of Young Lee’s appeal, arguing evidence was never withheld from Syed and highlighting evidence the jury relied on to convict Syed.
The Court of Special Appeals ordered Young Lee to explain why his legal argument should go forward considering Syed’s charges no longer exist.
Kelly argued that the court should consider the appeal to make clear how victims’ rights should be accounted for in the recently established proceedings to vacate convictions in Maryland, so as to avoid similar conflicts from arising in the future.
His argument to the court also included an affidavit from retired Baltimore Circuit Judge Wanda Keyes Heard, who presided over Syed’s trial and sentenced him to life in prison. Heard said in her affidavit that the jury’s guilty verdict was buoyed by “substantial direct and circumstantial evidence” and cast doubt on the significance of Syed being excluded as the source of DNA found on Lee’s shoes.
Syed’s attorney, Erica Suter, sought to have the court strike Heard’s affidavit from court records, citing state law that prohibits a judge who presided over someone’s trial from deciding the person’s post-conviction claims. Post-conviction claims usually challenge the trial judge’s legal rulings, so that judge is likely to resist those claims and is perceived to be biased, Suter wrote.
“Her affidavit is nothing more than a highly inappropriate attempt by a former judicial officer to condemn Mr. Syed,” Suter wrote.
Suter also argued Kelly was asking for a change in the law, not a clarification. It’s up to the legislature, not the courts, to codify crime victims’ rights in the conviction-vacating process, Suter said.
She urged the court to find that Young Lee’s appeal is moot. Suter said the state’s attorney’s office’s decision to drop Syed’s charges “cannot be undone.”
A panel of three judges from the intermediate appellate court will decide if the appeal proceeds.
