Adnan Syed will not serve more prison time for Hae Min Lee's 1999 murder, judge rules
Adnan Syed will not spend any additional time in prison after being resentenced for the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee, a case that gained national attention when it was featured in the "Serial" podcast in 2014, according to The Baltimore Banner.
Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Jennifer B. Schiffer made the ruling more than a week following Syed's Feb. 26 hearing under the Juvenile Restoration Act, a Maryland law that permits individuals who have served at least 20 years in prison for crimes committed as minors to seek a modified sentence.
Syed was 17 at the time of Lee's murder and served more than 20 years in prison after he was convicted in 2000. He will be on probation for five years.
Syed, now 43, has been out of prison since 2022 after his original conviction was vacated. It was later reinstated amid a series of legal challenges.
The years-long legal battle involved a murder conviction, 20 years behind bars for Syed, his eventual release and several court appeals.
The murder of Hae Min Lee
Syed was convicted in 2000 for the murder of his ex-girlfriend and high school classmate Hae Min Lee. Both Syed and Lee attended Woodlawn High School in Baltimore.
Lee went missing during her senior year in January 1999, and her body was found weeks later in Baltimore's Leakin Park.
Syed was 17 at the time.
During a six-week trial, prosecutors argued that Syed planned Lee's murder after she broke up with him. According to attorneys and witnesses, Syed strangled Lee to death, then he and a friend disposed of her body in a shallow grave.
Syed was convicted of murder, kidnapping and false imprisonment and was sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years.
"Serial" podcast changes public perception
In 2014, the true-crime podcast "Serial" explored Syed's case in its first season. The podcast, which had millions of listeners at the time, raised questions about the evidence and witnesses in the trial.
The podcast raised doubts about one of the prosecution's key witnesses, a drug dealer named Jay Wilds, who claimed he was the one who helped Syed bury Lee's body.
It also explored the effectiveness of Syed's attorney, who was later disbarred. The podcast further questioned why another student, who could have provided an alibi for Syed, was never interviewed by his lawyer or asked to testify.
"Serial" fans donated more than $80,000 to Syed's legal fund.
Fight for retrial
In 2015, a Maryland appeals court said they would review Syed's murder conviction.
His new attorney argued that Syed's former attorney Christina Gutierrez failed to interview Syed's classmate Asia McClain who said she was with him in a library around the time of Lee's death.
In a letter to Syed after his arrest, McClain offered to speak with investigators and mentioned two other witnesses who she said saw Syed in the library.
"It is hard to imagine that Gutierrez could have done anything worse than failing to pick up the phone and call Syed's witness," Syed's appeals attorney wrote in a filing.
By the end of 2015, a judge agreed to reopen Syed's case and in 2016, his conviction was vacated and he was granted a new trial.
The state continued to fight the decision for about two years, reinstating Syed's conviction in 2019, and leading his lawyers to file an Amicus Brief at the U.S. Supreme Court.
In the brief, Syed's defense team argued that the Maryland Court of Appeals' decision to reinstate his murder conviction "will impact criminal defendants and, in particular, habeas petitioners, far beyond Maryland's borders."
The Supreme Court declined to hear Syed's case.
Motion to vacate conviction
After the Juvenile Restoration Act passed in 2021, Syed's defense team approached former Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby and requested that his sentence be reviewed.
The Juvenile Restoration Act allowed individuals who were convicted of crimes committed while they were minors to request a modified sentence after they served at least 20 years in prison.
Mosby ordered additional DNA tests with forensic technology that was not available at the time of the initial investigation and trial.
In 2022, Mosby filed a motion to vacate Syed's murder conviction after tests found trace levels of male DNA under Lee's fingernails and on her shirt.
"The swabs from the right fingernail and shirt were then analyzed with a genotyping kit that targets male Y-chromosome STR DNA," Mosby's office said in a motion. "However, no useful typing results were obtained from this analysis."
The new investigation revealed evidence against two unnamed suspects and revealed that Lee's car was parked behind the home of one of the suspects, according to the motion.
Syed was released from prison in September 2022 after a judge vacated his murder conviction; he spent more than 20 years incarcerated.
Shortly after, prosecutors dropped the charges against him when DNA tests excluded him as a suspect in the murder.
Conviction reinstated, appeal moves forward
Hae Min Lee's family filed an appeal to reverse the decision. After several attempts, a court ruled the appeal could move forward.
Five months after Syed was freed from prison and cleared of charges, his murder conviction was reinstated.
His defense team brought the case to the Maryland Supreme Court and his conviction was put on hold as they decided whether to hear his appeal.
As the case dragged on through 2023, exonerees expressed support for Syed and Lee's family and called on the court to hear the case.
In 2024, the Maryland Supreme Court upheld a decision to reinstate Syed's conviction, sending the case back to a lower court.
By the end of 2024, Syed's attorneys requested a reduced sentence. Syed remained out of prison since being released in 2022.
As the court considered resentencing in 2025, Baltimore State's Attorney Ivan Bates withdrew a motion to vacate Syed's conviction, leaving his murder conviction in place.
Bates said his predecessor, Mosby's motion to vacate was based on "false and misleading statements that undermine the integrity of the judicial process."
"While I did not ask for this task, it was remanded to my office by the Supreme Court of Maryland; thus, we have a duty as Maryland-barred attorneys, prosecutors tasked with pursuing justice, and officers of the Court to address false and misleading statements in the State's legal filings - a duty that we take extremely seriously," Bates added.
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