ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Prosecutors dropped prices towards Adnan Syed on Tuesday within the 1999 killing of Hae Min Lee, a case that was chronicled within the first season of the hit podcast “Serial.”
Emily Witty, a spokeswoman for town of Baltimore’s state’s legal professional’s workplace, stated in an electronic mail that her workplace had dropped its case towards Syed and would launch additional particulars about its determination later Tuesday.
Laura Nirider, a co-director of the Middle on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern Pritzker Faculty of Regulation who accompanied Syed when he walked out of jail final month, earlier tweeted: “Breaking information: After the newest spherical of DNA testing generated outcomes that, like earlier rounds of testing, excluded Adnan Syed, he has now been formally exonerated!”
A Baltimore choose final month overturned Syed’s homicide conviction and ordered him launched from jail, the place the 41-year-old had spent greater than twenty years. Circuit Decide Melissa Phinn additionally gave prosecutors 30 days during which to resolve whether or not to retry Syed or drop the fees.
Phinn dominated that the state had violated its authorized obligation to share proof that would have bolstered Syed’s protection. After his launch, Syed was positioned on house detention with GPS location monitoring.
Lee’s household had requested Maryland’s intermediate appellate courtroom to halt the case. Legal professional Steve Kelly stated Lee’s household is just not difficult Syed’s launch, however as an alternative wished the choose to carry one other listening to that the household can attend in-person and tackle the courtroom — Lee’s brother Younger Lee appeared through videoconference on brief discover in the course of the earlier listening to. The legal professional didn’t have a right away remark Tuesday.
Final week, state Legal professional Basic Brian Frosh’s workplace filed courtroom papers supporting the attraction by Lee’s household.
Syed has maintained his innocence for many years and captured the eye of hundreds of thousands in 2014 when the debut season of “Serial” targeted on the case and raised doubts about among the proof, together with cellphone tower knowledge.
Prosecutors have beforehand stated {that a} reinvestigation of the case revealed proof relating to the doable involvement of two alternate suspects. The 2 suspects could have been concerned individually or collectively, the state’s legal professional’s workplace stated.
One of many suspects had threatened Lee, saying “he would make her (Ms. Lee) disappear. He would kill her,” based on a courtroom submitting.
The suspects had been identified individuals on the time of the unique investigation and weren’t correctly dominated out nor disclosed to the protection, prosecutors stated.
Prosecutors additionally stated new data revealed that one of many suspects was convicted of attacking a lady in her car, and that one of many suspects was convicted of partaking in serial rape and sexual assault.
Prosecutors additionally famous unreliable cellphone knowledge used throughout Syed’s courtroom case to corroborate his whereabouts on the day of the crime. The discover on the data particularly suggested that the billing places for incoming calls “wouldn’t be thought-about dependable data for location.”
Syed served greater than 20 years in jail for the strangling of Lee, who was 18 on the time. Her physique was discovered weeks later buried in a Baltimore park.
Greater than a decade later, the favored “Serial” podcast revealed little-known proof and attracted hundreds of thousands of listeners, shattering podcast-streaming and downloading data.
