Adnan Syed

A Baltimore judge on Monday ordered the release of Adnan Syed after overturning Syed's conviction for the 1999 murder of high school student Hae Min Lee — a ...

Prosecutors said they weren’t asserting that Syed is innocent, but they lacked confidence “in the integrity of the conviction” and recommended he be released on his own recognizance or bail. The 12-episode podcast won a Peabody Award and was transformative in popularizing podcasts for a wide audience. That is entitled to the defendant, as well,” she added. The investigation “revealed undisclosed and newly-developed information regarding two alternative suspects, as well as unreliable cell phone tower data,” Mosby’s office said in a news release last week. The judge also said the state must decide whether to seek a new trial date or dismiss the case within 30 days. There were gasps and applause in the crowded courtroom as the judge announced her decision.

How a true crime podcast made a local news story from Baltimore, Maryland, go international.

They also said they believed people had been misinformed by the podcast and regretted that "so few [were] willing to speak up for Hae". The show premiered in autumn 2014 and each episode tried to piece together a timeline of what happened the night Lee was killed. But a judge also denied his request for bail. Serial helped ignite the popularity of podcasts. He remained imprisoned for years as his legal team argued for a new trial and tried to appeal his conviction all the way to the Supreme Court. For nearly 25 years Syed has maintained his innocence.

A US judge on Monday overturned the murder conviction of Adnan Syed, who was convicted for the 1999 killing of his former girlfriend. Baltimore Circuit Judge ...

[Anadolu Agency website contains only a portion of the news stories offered to subscribers in the AA News Broadcasting System (HAS), and in summarized form. While the investigation remains ongoing, when considering the totality of the circumstances, the State lacks confidence in the integrity of the conviction and requested that Mr. Syed's case and that new evidence has come to light,” Office of the State's Attorney for Baltimore City said in a statement, adding that Phinn placed Syed on home detention with GPS monitoring.

On the podcast, a team of journalists led by Sarah Koenig, the host of “Serial,” documented major problems with the case against Syed: The prosecution's ...

After, [use our bot](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/upshot/wordle-bot.html) to get better. [The Daily](https://www.nytimes.com/thedaily)” is about Adnan Syed. Huw Green thinks the term “mental health” [has become overly broad](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/20/opinion/us-mental-health-awareness.html). [expected to lower](https://theathletic.com/3607520/2022/09/19/nba-draft-age-rule-change-nbpa/) its entry age to 18 in the next collective bargaining agreement, clearing the way for high schoolers to re-enter the draft process. [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]). [has grown stronger](https://www.nytimes.com/article/tropical-storm-fiona-hurricane.html), after deluging Puerto Rico with rain. [a special episode of “Serial,” released this morning](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/20/podcasts/serial-adnan-syed.html), about the huge turn in the case. It will be years before any show approaches the record set by “Phantom.” The next-longest-running productions (as of Sept. [Wrongful conviction](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/06/briefing/wrongful-convictions-parole.html) seems to be a major problem in the U.S. [whose reporting helped free Curtis Flowers](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/16/briefing/winter-storm-adam-kinzinger-pelosi-congress.html), a Mississippi man who’d been jailed for more than 20 years, for murders he evidently did not commit. [but exacerbated others](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/20/opinion/us-mental-health-insight.html), Rachel Aviv writes. Barring some smoking-gun evidence, which we didn’t find (and it seems like no one else has either), there was no way for us to say definitively what happened.

Syed long said he was innocent in the murder of his former girlfriend Hae Min Lee. A new episode of the podcast is due out Tuesday.

It also led to a 2019 four-part documentary series on HBO titled [The Case Against Adnan Syed](https://www.hbo.com/the-case-against-adnan-syed). Prosecutors now have 30 days to decide whether to move forward with a new trial or drop the charges. Prosecutors failed to properly turn over evidence that could have allowed for "substantial and significant probability that the result would have been different," Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Melissa Phinn said, according to a report from

Adnan Syed, the subject of the first season of Sarah Koenig's hit podcast Serial, has had his conviction vacated by Baltimore City Circuit Court, leading to ...

Koenig has returned to Syed’s story several times in the last eight years each time a significant change or update has arrived in the case, though this is obviously the biggest development since the original podcast. Phinn vacated Syed’s conviction on Monday “in the interests of justice and fairness.” Syed, who is now 41, walked out of the courthouse afterward a free man while the decision to retry him remains pending. Syed, who has always maintained his innocence, had sought an overturn of his conviction and a new trial.

Hae Min Lee's family, however, are 'deeply disappointed' at how quickly developments have progressed.

But I am grateful to the thousands that responded to the fire to help rebuild.” “That is entitled to the defendant, as well.” “Where to begin! “One week ago, for the first time, the family was informed that, through a year-long investigation that is apparently still ongoing, the state had uncovered new facts and would be filing a motion to vacate Mr Syed’s conviction. I find it hard to be. Syed was met by a jubilant crowd outside the court, but an attorney for Lee’s family, Steve Kelly, criticized the process that led to Syed being freed on Monday. At his second trial, in February 2000, he was convicted of murder and It’s pretty much – you name it, this case has it. Her body was found buried in Baltimore’s Leakin Park in February 1999. It’s a nightmare. It’s been 20-plus years. “It’s real life that will never end.

“Serial” explored Syed's conviction for the murder of his high school girlfriend Hae Min Lee. Judge Melissa Phinn of the Baltimore City Circuit Court vacated ...

“They say it just kind of crumbled once they took a hard look.” 1 on Apple’s podcast chart on Tuesday, the same day a new episode released in which Koenig explains how Syed’s release came about. In 2014, “Serial,” which was hosted by journalist Sarah Koenig, helped set off both an interest in podcasts and Syed’s particular case.

From bad evidence to alternate suspects to a problematic detective, here are the main takeaways from the brand new episode of 'Serial' following Adnan ...

But as Koenig predicts, “the chances of the state ever trying to prosecute Adnan again are remote at best.” In the motion to vacate, Feldman pointed to one glaring example: the location where Wilds claims Syed showed him Lee’s body changed three times over the course of the investigation. Listeners of “Serial” will remember “star witness” Jay Wilds, Syed’s friend from high school who told the state Syed killed Lee and showed him her body, then coerced Wilds into helping bury her in a city park. Feldman said the state found the information in these notes to be credible. Prosecutors were given 30 days to decide whether to move for a new trial or drop the case against Syed, who is now 41. As his story continues, so does the true crime podcast “ [Serial](https://variety.com/t/serial/),” which popularized the case and made Syed a household name in its record-setting first season, which investigated the murder.

The 1999 murder of Baltimore teenager Hae Min Lee is back in the news in a big way. Where's Syed now, and is he free for good?

However, Koenig said in the podcast that she doubts the state will want to retry Syed. The information was never shared with Syed's attorney. For now, the mystery of who took a young girl's life back in 1999 remains just that, a mystery. [had asked Phinn](https://news.yahoo.com/judge-denies-request-victims-brother-195500663.html) to postpone the hearing about overturning Syed's conviction for one week, so he could attend in person. The most interesting thing about the new Serial episode? Syed has been ordered to serve home detention in the meantime, and must wear a GPS monitor. That episode also ran on New York Times podcast The Daily. Prosecutors failed to properly turn over evidence that could've allowed for "substantial and significant probability that the result would have been different," Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Melissa Phinn said, according to a "This is not a podcast for me," he said. In fact, it was Serial that taught many people what a podcast even was. The court concluded the trial was flawed because the state failed to disclose key evidence. Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Melissa Phinn vacated the murder, kidnapping, robbery and false imprisonment convictions against Syed and ordered him released without bail.

Syed is free after his 2000 first-degree murder conviction in the death of ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee was vacated.

“For more than 20 years, no one has wanted to know the truth about who killed Hae Min Lee more than her family. The state’s attorney said there are two alternate suspects in Lee’s murder and that they may have worked together. The result was “Serial,” a podcast released in 12 episodes in the fall of 2014. Circuit Court Judge Melissa Phinn in Baltimore agreed, and found during the original trial, the state failed its obligation to share information that could have helped the defense. The Lee family said they were disappointed with Monday’s hearing. Will its new season be heard above the noise?](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/how-will-the-third-season-of-serial-fare-in-a-true-crime-saturated-industry/2018/09/17/53de64f2-b766-11e8-a2c5-3187f427e253_story.html?itid=lk_interstitial_manual_16) In 2013, lawyer Rabia Chaudry contacted Sarah Koenig, a producer with the radio program “This American Life.” Chaudry, a longtime friend of Syed, was convinced he had been wrongly convicted. It reached millions of listeners, won a Peabody Award and Syed, now 41, spent more than two decades in prison after a jury convicted him of killing his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee, when the two were teenagers. [helped fuel the popularity of podcasts, especially those focused on true crime](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/how-will-the-third-season-of-serial-fare-in-a-true-crime-saturated-industry/2018/09/17/53de64f2-b766-11e8-a2c5-3187f427e253_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_15). His story reached millions through “Serial,” a hit podcast released in 2014. A judge sentenced him to life in prison plus 30 years.

When the verdict came down, Serial tweeted immediately that its host Sarah Koenig, a former Baltimore Sun reporter who became a quasi-celebrity for dissecting ...

[Pure Chaos](https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2022/09/is-tiktok-turning-fashion-week-into-pure-chaos?itm_content=footer-recirc&itm_campaign=more-great-stories-091422)? [not the only investigative one](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/30/world/australia/chris-dawson-verdict-teachers-pet.html?searchResultPosition=2) that has brought [new, meaningful attention](https://www.npr.org/2020/09/05/910061573/after-6-trials-prosecutors-drop-charges-against-curtis-flowers) to old cases. “The chances of the state ever trying to prosecute Adnan again are remote at best,” said Koenig, who [told](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/20/briefing/adnan-syed-freed-serial-sarah-koenig.html) the Times’ David Leonhardt that she was “shocked” last week by the prosecutors’ motion and “did not see this coming at all.” [motion](https://docs-cdn-prod.news-engineering.aws.wapo.pub/publish_document/c0e45280-f784-4e81-befe-b53b948800dd/published/c0e45280-f784-4e81-befe-b53b948800dd.pdf) to vacate that Koenig in Tuesday’s episode said “burst like a firework out of the prosecutors' office,” the Baltimore City state’s attorney [said](https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/14/adnan-syed-vacate-conviction-serial/) “the state no longer has confidence in the integrity of the conviction” though stopped short of exonerating Syed. [have been](https://www.nytimes.com/article/adnan-syed-serial-timeline-serial.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article) a number of developments in Syed’s case in the years since Serial, which discovered, among other things, the existence of an alibi witness whom Syed’s original defense had failed to contact and that physical evidence gathered at the time was never tested for Syed’s DNA; an HBO show would later [reveal](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/31/arts/television/case-against-adnan-syed-dna-hbo-finale.html) that Syed’s DNA was not found on Lee’s body or belongings. [tweeted](https://twitter.com/serial/status/1571957561397739520?s=20&t=deyFONmFumokckvtEM9GSw) immediately that its host Sarah Koenig, a former Baltimore Sun reporter who became a quasi-celebrity for dissecting Syed's case over a dozen episodes in 2014, was in the courtroom. “From the outside at least, it’s hard to satisfyingly pinpoint the impact that Serial and, later, HBO’s show had on the events that led to Syed walking out of prison yesterday,” CJR’s Jon Allsop [wrote](https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/adnan_syed_conviction_overturned_serial.php?utm_source=CJR+Daily+News&utm_campaign=57188aad51-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_11_11_06_33_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_9c93f57676-57188aad51-175009357&mc_cid=57188aad51&mc_eid=9ce84e5e14) Tuesday, as “they raised and then kept huge public attention on his case in a way that can’t easily be separated from the progress of the case itself, and yet the vacating of his sentence took years, and ultimately flowed from a new law and an official procedure.” “But most of what the state put in that motion to vacate, all the actual evidence, was either known or knowable to cops and prosecutors back in 1999. “The original Serial series might be the most impactful (by a number of measures) piece of journalism of the last decade,” journalist Wesley Lowery [tweeted](https://twitter.com/WesleyLowery/status/1570164872142274561?s=20&t=bZVR0OkKNNN8KdT751sz1w) Monday, following Syed's release. "Yesterday, there was a lot of talk about fairness,” she said in the final moments of Tuesday morning's episode. But Koenig's message in the supplement of her inaugural true-crime podcast series took a more somber tone. Its subject, Adnan Syed, who for the past 23 years was serving a life sentence for the murder of his former high-school girlfriend Hae Min Lee, was released from prison Monday.

Prosecutors have found alternative suspects in the killing of Hae Min Lee, as well as unreliable evidence used against Syed at trial.

In the new episode, Koenig recaps what happened when Syed was released, noting that he did not speak publicly when he left the prison, but that there was a crowd gathered that cheered as he left the premises. The show Undisclosed investigated wrongful convictions in the United States, and devoted several episodes to Syed’s case, as well as those of people like Jamar Huggins and Joey Watkins. There was also a new law in Maryland called the Juvenile Restoration Act, which allows people who have served 20-plus years for a crime committed as a juvenile to have their sentence truncated. Syed was tried twice, with the first ending in a mistrial and the second rendering a guilty verdict. In the wake of Adnan’s release, Serial put out a new episode titled Created and hosted by journalist Sarah Koenig, Serial became a cultural phenomenon in 2014, with its first season devoted to Lee’s death and Syed’s trial.

With some 300 million downloads, the first season broke podcast records and spawned a cottage industry of true crime podcasts. It won just about every major ...

[struck](https://www.patheos.com/blogs/splitthemoon/2014/10/lets-give-them-something-to-talk-about/) by how her views were becoming part of the narrative. [marveled](https://www.nyclu.org/en/publications/column-serial-podcast-and-disparate-impact-civil-rights-and-real-world-new-york-law) in 2015, Serial "unleashed a spirited and wide-ranging civil rights debate on the Internet," he wrote. It's quite another to get into the business of exposing a wrongful conviction," he says. The idea to delve into Syed's case originated with Rabia Chaudry, a lawyer and one of Syed's friends and supporters. [Our interactions online were being discussed](http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/10/27/rabia_chaudry_blogs_about_adnan_syed_and_recaps_the_serial_podcast_on_split.html), we were being judged and assessed, we were adding both entertainment and substantive value to the discourse. [A place to discuss Serial: The Podcast](https://www.reddit.com/r/serialpodcast/) on Reddit reached more than 72 million members. In the case of Serial, they worked in tandem. The Serial phenomenon was not just about trying to solve the crime itself. It was also about the vast community devouring each episode and then picking it apart online. Koenig was named one of Time's [Most Influential People](https://time.com/collection-post/3823276/sarah-koenig-2015-time-100/) of 2015. Barry Scheck, co-director of The Innocence Project, learned about Serial from his kids. [This American Life](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/about/our-other-shows#:~:text=Released%20in%2012%20episodes%2C%20Serial,more%20than%20300%20million%20downloads.).

The 1999 murder of Baltimore teenager Hae Min Lee is back in the news in a big way. Your questions, answered.

However, Koenig said in the podcast that she doubts the state will want to retry Syed. The information was never shared with Syed's attorney. For now, the mystery of who took a young girl's life back in 1999 remains just that, a mystery. That episode also ran on New York Times podcast The Daily. Syed has been ordered to serve home detention in the meantime, and must wear a GPS monitor. The most interesting thing about the new Serial episode? That request was denied, with the judge saying sufficient notice was given, and allowing instead a half-hour delay so Young Lee could join virtually. Prosecutors failed to properly turn over evidence that could've allowed for "substantial and significant probability that the result would have been different," Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Melissa Phinn said, according to a "This is not a podcast for me," he said. Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Melissa Phinn vacated the murder, kidnapping, robbery and false imprisonment convictions against Syed and ordered him released without bail. In fact, it was Serial that taught many people what a podcast even was. The court concluded the trial was flawed because the state failed to disclose key evidence.

Baltimore prosecutors have a month to decide whether to retry Adnan Syed, though legal analysts — and the victim's family — said Tuesday they have no.

"Anyone who is charged in this case (in the future) is going to be able to throw a whole lot of questions up about what arguments were made before, about Mr. "It would be very hard for me to imagine they would pursue this case (again)." So on the question of raising reasonable doubt, it would be a huge challenge even if this case weren't 23 years old." "The clients are in no position right now," Kelly said. "They won't retry this case because where are they going to come up with all the evidence in the case when they've already acknowledged there are inconsistencies?" "My prediction is you'll never hear an official word from the state again because they're already on the record as, 'We think they were problems (in the case) but we're not saying he's innocent.' " "The mistakes that were made 23 years ago, which led them to pursue Mr. "The idea of retrying this case would be an incredible long shot." He's just that shocked." Syed and the evidence that they thought was suggestive of Mr. Prosecutors are considering their next move after successfully lobbying a Baltimore judge to have the 42-year-old man's murder conviction vacated. "I would never bet the house on anything but it would be an incredibly hard case to retry," said University of Baltimore

On Monday, a judge overturned that conviction — ruling that deficiencies in how prosecutors had turned over evidence to defense attorneys could have affected ...

“Despite trying to put on a brave face publicly, I thought in all likelihood that was the end of the road.” Frosh (D) — whose office has previously defended the handling of Syed’s case in court proceedings — has disputed that, calling the allegations that prosecutors did not hand over evidence to Syed’s defense as they should have “incorrect.” The subsequent investigation uncovered new evidence that showed prosecutors had known of two other possible suspects, including one who had a motive to kill Lee, and had failed to hand over information to defense attorneys. A judge agreed, and in 2016, Brown returned to court for a hearing. In 2019 — despite “Serial,” a subsequent four-part documentary on HBO and two separate books on the case — it seemed as if Syed might, in fact, spend his remaining years behind bars. Brown said Rabia Chaudry, a close family friend of Syed’s and a legal student at the time, had previously visited McClain and asked her to sign an affidavit saying she had seen Syed at the library at the time of Lee’s slaying. He said that he was open to further investigation but that it was “really tough” for his family to know that there “could be someone out there free for killing my sister.” The series also gave new life to Syed’s legal case. “Serial,” which premiered in 2014, quickly shattered records with hundreds of millions of downloads and ushered in a new era of true-crime podcasts. When Syed’s attorney first filed for a post-conviction relief a decade after the original ruling, his attorney at the time, Justin Brown, said he struggled to reach a woman, Asia McClain, who he believed was an alibi witness who could help free his client. “She is this very hopeful, optimistic, never quit, amazing woman, and I didn’t know what to tell her,” he said. He was convicted in 2000 and sentenced to life in prison.

"To call something the most popular podcast might seem a little like identifying the tallest leprechaun," David Carr wrote in 2014.

Fascinating to hear a Serial update on Adnan Syed’s release that’s so bare-bones, similar to the rundowns that other media are offering. [continued](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/30/serial-podcast-appeals-court-adnan-syed) to [wind](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/when-a-post-conviction-hearing-feels-like-a-sequel-the-weirdness-of-serial-back-on-the-stand/2016/02/08/b3782c60-2a49-48f7-9480-a34dd9e07ab6_story.html) [through](https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-md-ci-syed-response-to-state-20160915-story.html) [the](https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-md-document-syed-appeals-20180329-story.html) [courts](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/08/us/adnan-syed-case-conviction.html). I explained to her that anti-Muslim sentiment was involved in framing the motive in this case, and that Muslims can pick up on it, whereas someone like her, who hasn’t experienced this kind of bigotry, doesn’t quite get it. The visuals of the courtroom itself leaves an impression and there’s no escaping the racial implications there. “You have an urban jury in Baltimore city, mostly African American, maybe people who identify with Jay [an African-American friend of Syed’s who is the state’s seemingly unreliable star witness] more than Adnan, who is represented by a community in headscarves and men in beards. The show also came in for criticism, especially from those who argued that Koenig overlooked major elements of the story involving racial prejudice, Islamophobia, social justice, and the failure of the criminal justice system. [“Only Murders in the Building,”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Only_Murders_in_the_Building) which just wrapped up its second season on Hulu, follows three Upper West Side neighbors who start a true crime podcast after their neighbor is murdered. That is as many people as watch an episode of “Louie,” the buzzed-about comedy on FX. A couple of weeks before the launch, on September 19, 2014, executive producer and host Sarah Koenig [wrote on the Serial blog](https://serialpodcast.org/posts/2014/09/introducing-serial): “Serial” has been downloaded or streamed on iTunes more than five million times — at a cost of nothing — and averages over 1.5 million listeners an episode. We hope you’ll get sucked in the way we have. Serial launched as a spinoff of This American Life, and its first episode aired in that show’s radio slot.