Lawyers for convicted killer Adnan Syed have filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court to grant a new trial for their client, who became famous after being featured in the popular podcast “Serial” in 2014.
Syed, now 39, was convicted in 2000 of murdering his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee, 18, who was found strangled in Baltimore’s Leakin Park in February 1999. Syed’s current attorneys have maintained that their client did not receive sufficient defense during his initial trial in Baltimore, specifically citing that an alibi witness was never called and that his attorney at the time was not fit to provide sufficient counsel.
Syed became internationally famous in 2014 as the subject of the true-crime podcast, “Serial,” produced by “This American Life” host Sarah Koenig, a former crime reporter who took an in-depth look at the case against Syed over 12 episodes. That first season of “Serial” remains one of the most popular podcasts ever and has been downloaded over 100 million times.
Details of the State of Maryland’s case against Syed came into question in light of the podcast, including cell phone tower data records, inconsistent witness accounts, and questions about the crime scene which were not addressed in the initial trial. Syed’s original attorney, Cristina Gutierrez, received numerous complaints from other clients in the time after her representation of Syed. She died in 2004.
C. Justin Brown, Syed’s current attorney, filed a motion to vacate the 2000 conviction based on unreliable data provided by cell phone companies that proved to weigh heavily in his guilty verdict. Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Martin Welch agreed that the state had failed to present a sufficient case against Syed, and the conviction was vacated in 2016. Judge Welch granted Syed’s request for a new trial but denied the request for bail citing that the state still had significant evidence against him.
The Maryland Court of Special Appeals upheld Welch’s decision in 2018, indicating that Syed’s original defense counsel failed to provide sufficient legal representation, specifically that Gutierrez failed to call on alibi witness Asia McLean. Following an appeal by the state prosecutor to the Maryland Court of Appeals in March, however, Syed’s conviction was reinstated with a 4-3 vote.
“My heart goes out to my client, who I believe was wrongfully convicted,” Brown said after the decision. He then vowed to take the case to the Supreme Court, saying, “We will keep fighting for him. I hope someday we can fix our broken criminal justice system. Today is not that day.”
The petition filed to the Supreme Court by Brown and others on Monday details the grievances by their client regarding the decision by the Maryland Court of Appeals, citing what they feel is an obvious gap in evidence for a murder conviction. Brown announced the filing via Twitter on Monday.
Syed’s cert petition has been filed. It’s available here. #FreeAdnan https://t.co/oxPuRYW5kh
— Justin Brown (@CJBrownLaw) August 19, 2019
