BALTIMORE — Evidence in the murder case against Adnan Syed could get a new look with the support of Baltimore prosecutors, marking the latest development in a two-decade legal saga that gripped the nation after it was highlighted in the hit podcast “Serial.”
Baltimore prosecutors signed onto a motion with Syed’s attorney Thursday, asking a judge to order the Baltimore City Police Lab to retest using the latest DNA technology certain items collected as evidence in the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee, who was strangled to death and discovered in a clandestine grave in Leakin Park.
Syed’s attorney and Baltimore prosecutors agreed that Lee’s clothing and shoes, as well as hairs recovered around her body and other pieces of evidence not specified, should be tested with DNA technology that was not available for Syed’s trials — DNA analysis that’s now regularly used by law enforcement to identify or exclude suspects, according to their motion.
Now 41, Syed has maintained his innocence for more than 20 years. The lawyers contend new testing could help settle the matter.
“If (Syed’s) DNA is not present on this evidence, this fact would be exculpatory and could provide a basis for a factfinder to determine that Petitioner is innocent. Further, an indication of DNA that excludes Petitioner could well have persuaded the fact finder to credit (Syed’s) innocence claim that he asserted at trial,” wrote Syed’s attorney, Erica Suter, director of the University of Baltimore Innocence Project Clinic.
Becky Feldman, a prosecutor in charge of the Baltimore state’s attorney’s office Sentencing Review Unit, wrote in her portion of the motion that the new tests would “assist greatly in evaluating (Syed’s) post-trial claims.”
The idea for retesting DNA came up after Syed’s lawyers approached the Sentencing Review Unit following Maryland’s passing the Juvenile Restoration Act, which enables those convicted of crimes before they turn 18 to petition the court for a sentence modification, Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby said in a statement.
Currently incarcerated at the Patuxent Institution, Syed was in 2000 sentenced to life in prison plus 40 years. That penalty was handed down after his second trial on charges stemming from Lee’s killing.
“In the process of reviewing this case for a possible resentencing, it became clear that additional forensic testing — which was not available at the time of the original investigation and trial in this case – would be an appropriate avenue to pursue,” Mosby said. “As this is now a pending investigation, our office will not comment further at this time.”
Syed’s case rocketed to national and international prominence when it was examined in the “Serial” podcast beginning in 2014. An HBO series also highlighted his case.
He has appealed his conviction repeatedly, with the state’s highest court in 2019 restoring his conviction, which the intermediate appellate court had overturned. The Maryland Court of Appeals found that deficient legal representation at trial hadn’t prejudiced him.
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