Syed was 18 when he was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee. Lee was murdered in 1999 when she was also 18.
Though prosecutors asked the judge to vacate the conviction in their recent motion, they are not saying Syed is innocent of the crime. HBO later released its own documentary, The Case Against Adnan Syed. This detail makes a new trial necessary, prosecutors said.
Mr. Syed, 41, had been serving a life sentence for the 1999 murder of his high school classmate Hae Min Lee. The judge gave prosecutors 30 days to ask for a ...
“Mr. “This was so in 1999, when Mr. Mr. The prosecutors’ investigation found that one of the two “alternative suspects” had been convicted of attacking a woman in her vehicle, and that one had been convicted of engaging in serial rape and sexual assault. The evidence could have helped Mr. An appeals court vacated Mr. Wilds’s testimony and to show that Mr. “This is not a podcast for me,” Mr. As the court took a recess, Mr. Prosecutors said in the motion that they were not asserting that Mr. Phinn of Baltimore City Circuit Court vacated the conviction “in the interests of fairness and justice,” finding that prosecutors had failed to turn over evidence that could have helped Mr. In a motion filed in Baltimore City Circuit Court on Wednesday, prosecutors said that a nearly yearlong investigation, conducted with Mr.
A judge on Monday vacated the conviction of Adnan Syed, whose murder case drew wide attention after it was featured on the true-crime podcast “Serial.”.
Becky Feldman, chief of the state’s attorney’s office’s Sentencing Review Unit, walked the courtroom through her “overwhelming cause for concern” about the integrity of Syed’s original trial. Syed was convicted of murder in 2000 and has been serving a life sentence. Syed was arrested in late February 1999 in the killing of Hae Min Lee, his ex-girlfriend.
Prosecutors last week asked the court to vacate the conviction and release Syed pending a retrial.
It was the 2014 podcast Serial that focused worldwide attention on the case and cast doubt on Syed's guilt. It's killing me," said Young Lee. Neither suspect has been named, but officials said both had documented records of violence towards women, including convictions that occurred after Syed's trial. "Everyday when I think it's over... Steve Kelly, a victim's rights lawyer for the family, said the Lees had been "shut out of the legal process" and were "deeply disappointed" with the way they had been treated. They relied in part on mobile phone location data that has since been proven unreliable.
A Baltimore judge has ordered the release of Adnan Syed after overturning his conviction for the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee — a case that was chronicled in ...
The court said Syed waived his ineffective counsel claim. Syed has always maintained his innocence. A Baltimore judge has ordered the release of Adnan Syed after overturning Syed's conviction for the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee — a case that was chronicled in the hit podcast Serial, a true-crime series that transfixed listeners and revolutionised the genre.
A Baltimore judge on Monday ordered the release of Adnan Syed after overturning Syed's conviction for the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee — a case that was ...
The 12-episode podcast won a Peabody Award and was transformative in popularizing podcasts for a wide audience. But after a series of appeals, Maryland's highest court in 2019 denied a new trial in a 4-3 opinion. The investigation "revealed undisclosed and newly-developed information regarding two alternative suspects, as well as unreliable cell phone tower data," State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby's office said in a news release last week.
A judge on Monday approved a motion to vacate the murder conviction of Adnan Syed, the subject of the first season of the popular "Serial" podcast, ...
The investigation also revealed that one suspect was convicted of attacking a woman in her vehicle, according to the statement. [HBO docuseries ](https://www.hbo.com/the-case-against-adnan-syed)“The Case Against Adnan Syed,” an attorney for Syed said his client’s DNA was not found on any of the 12 samples retrieved from the victim’s body and car. That testing was not part of the official investigation by authorities. To corroborate his account, prosecutors presented cell phone records and expert witness testimony to place Syed at the site where Lee was buried. The state is not disclosing the names of the suspects but said that, according to the trial file, one of them said, “He would make her (Ms. The March motion asked that the victim’s clothing be tested for touch DNA, which was not available at the time of trial. At the time, Mosby said prosecutors were “not asserting, at this time, that Mr. In doing so, the podcast reached a huge audience and set off a But that mandate, Mosby said, is “separate and apart” from the investigation into who killed Lee. An innocent man spends decades wrongly incarcerated, while any information or evidence that could help identify the actual perpetrator becomes increasingly difficult to pursue.” Prosecutors moved to vacate Syed’s conviction following a nearly year-long investigation, they said in a news release last week. Her ruling was met by cheers and tears in the courtroom.
Judge had overturned Syed's conviction for the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee, a case that was chronicled in the hit podcast Serial.
From the day he was taken from his bed in the pre-dawn hours of 26 February 1999 until today, he has maintained his innocence and I, and my family, have believed him.” The podcast won a Peabody Award and did much to popularize the format. His mother and other family representatives were in the room, as was the state attorney, Marilyn Mosby. Chaudry also said: “Every piece of forensic evidence collected pointed to Adnan’s innocence. At his second trial, in February 2000, he was convicted of murder and Ruling that the state violated its legal obligation to share exculpatory evidence with Syed’s defense, the circuit court judge, Melissa Phinn, ordered Syed placed on home detention with GPS monitoring.
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.
Adnan Syed has been released after a judge overturned his conviction for a 1999 murder that was chronicled in the Serial podcast .
A view of the poster at the New York premiere of HBO's "The Case Against Adnan Syed" at Pure Non-Fiction on 26 February, 2019 in New York City. His case has also been the subject of a four-part documentary on the HBO channel called "The Case Against Adnan Syed." A US judge on Monday threw out the conviction of a man who has served over 20 years in prison for his ex-girlfriend's murder — a case that received worldwide attention thanks to the hit podcast "Serial."
Prosecutors now have 30 days to either drop the case or request a new trial for Syed, whose life sentence for murder was challenged by the hit podcast ...
[ordered a new trial](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/us/adnan-syed-serial.html) in 2018, arguing Syed suffered from ineffective legal counsel at the time of his original trial, but Maryland’s highest court reversed that decision a year later. Syed’s legal team [asked prosecutors to review](https://twitter.com/BaltimoreSAO/status/1502052745309736963) his conviction last year under a state law that lets juveniles ask for sentence modifications. Serial producer Sarah Koenig was present in the Baltimore courthouse during Monday’s hearing, and she’ll release a new episode Tuesday morning, the show Syed and his lawyers have pushed back on his conviction for years, and the producers of Serial and a 2019 HBO documentary series helped bring the case—and its purported flaws—into public view. Meanwhile, Syed’s attorney [says](https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/15/us/adnan-syed-judge-approves-new-dna-testing/index.html) the defendant’s DNA wasn’t found on Lee’s body or in her car, according to [unofficial testing](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/31/arts/television/case-against-adnan-syed-dna-hbo-finale.html) that wasn’t included in the murder investigation. The Supreme Court also [declined to hear](https://www.npr.org/2019/11/25/782575176/u-s-supreme-court-wont-hear-adnan-syed-s-appeal-keeping-serial-subject-in-prison) Syed’s case in 2019. Critics have questioned the reliability of the prosecutors’ evidence, including cell tower data and testimony from a former classmate of Syed’s who says he helped bury Lee’s body, and [argued](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/serial-witness-asia-mcclain-claims-testimony-surpressed) another classmate who provided an alibi for Syed at the time of the murder should’ve been called to testify. [Associated Press](https://apnews.com/article/baltimore-adnan-syed-hae-min-lee-024f739b28b33cf50e76c50d640c0882?taid=6328ce267c9ef6000120a207&utm_campaign=TrueAnthem&utm_medium=AP&utm_source=Twitter) and [Baltimore Sun](https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-md-ci-cr-adnan-syed-hearing-to-vacate-conviction-20220919-ynxvlcuqpbch5h6h2xl5xleh7q-story.html) reported. [asked a judge](https://www.forbes.com/sites/madelinehalpert/2022/09/14/adnan-syed-case-prosecutors-reportedly-ask-judge-to-vacate-murder-conviction-at-center-of-serial-podcast/?sh=6aa7f8a22e85) to vacate Syed’s conviction and allow for a new trial last week, arguing new evidence had emerged undermining his conviction and implicating two other suspects in the 1999 killing of Hae Min Lee. [reportedly](https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-md-ci-cr-adnan-syed-hearing-to-vacate-conviction-20220919-ynxvlcuqpbch5h6h2xl5xleh7q-story.html) remain under GPS monitoring while prosecutors decide whether to seek a new trial. [multiple](https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-md-ci-cr-adnan-syed-hearing-to-vacate-conviction-20220919-ynxvlcuqpbch5h6h2xl5xleh7q-story.html) [news](https://apnews.com/article/baltimore-adnan-syed-hae-min-lee-024f739b28b33cf50e76c50d640c0882?taid=6328ce267c9ef6000120a207&utm_campaign=TrueAnthem&utm_medium=AP&utm_source=Twitter) [outlets](https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/19/adnan-syed-conviction-vacated-judge/), ordering the 41-year-old to be released from prison more than two decades after he was found guilty—and eight years after the hit podcast Serial raised doubts about the evidence connecting him to the crime.
A US judge has approved a motion to vacate the murder conviction of Adnan Syed, the subject of the first se...
The investigation also revealed that one suspect was convicted of attacking a woman in her vehicle, according to the statement. To corroborate his account, prosecutors presented cell phone records and expert witness testimony to place Syed at the site where Lee was buried. [HBO docuseries](https://www.hbo.com/the-case-against-adnan-syed)"The Case Against Adnan Syed," an attorney for Syed said his client's DNA was not found on any of the 12 samples retrieved from the victim's body and car. The March motion asked that the victim's clothing be tested for touch DNA, which was not available at the time of trial. Her ruling was met by cheers and tears in the courtroom. The hearing comes nearly eight years after the "Serial" podcast dug into his case, raising questions about the conviction and his legal representation.
A judge vacated his conviction and granted him a new trial due to State's failure to disclose exculpatory evidence.
Syed’s case is a stark example of how the concealment of exculpatory evidence — known as a Brady violation — leads to wrongful convictions. The court concluded that Mr. Syed, who is represented by Erica Suter of the
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.
The man whose murder conviction spawned the hit podcast 'Serial' has been released from jail. But who is Adnan Syed? What really happened?
Serial was the first podcast to win a Peabody Award, and in 2020, the New York Times Co. And it became famous after chronicling the case of Adnan Syed and Hae Min Lee in its first series. It ultimately resulted in the reopening of the case. She said the state must decide whether to seek a new trial date or dismiss the case within 30 days. And what is the Serial podcast? The court said Mr Syed waived his ineffective counsel claim.
After 23 Years In Prison, Adnan Syed's Murder Conviction Has Been Overturned As He Walks Free · After spending over two decades in prison for a crime he swears ...
In 2019, the retrial order was denied by Maryland's highest court, finding that while Syed's counsel was ineffective, it was not believed to have prejudiced the outcome of the case. Phinn of Baltimore City Circuit Court overturned the guilty conviction "in the interests of justice and fairness," finding that the state prosecutors had failed to share evidence that would have aided Syed's trial and discovered new evidence that would have affected the outcome. [two additional suspects](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-62963466)under investigation who were known persons at the time of the original investigation, but weren't properly ruled out nor disclosed to the defence. Judge Phinn has ordered a new trial to be set for a later date. After spending over two decades in prison for a crime he swears he didn't commit, Adnan Syed has been released from prison following the overturn of his guilty conviction. The integrity of Syed's lawyer, Cristina Gutierrez, was also thrown into question, after she was disbarred in 2001 following numerous client complaints.
Adnan Syed has been released after a judge overturned his 1999 murder conviction. The case gripped the world when the podcast “Serial” raised doubts about ...
A new episode of Serial will drop tomorrow following news that the conviction of Adnan Syed has been overturned.
But really the best way to get clued-up is through the podcast. While prosecutors are yet to decide if all charges against him will be dropped or if a new trial will be requested, this does mean one thing for certain — a new Serial episode is on the horizon. And now after nearly eight years, a new episode is set to drop tomorrow.
And in 2000, Syed was convicted for her murder. He was also found guilty of robbery, kidnapping and false imprisonment too. Syed was sentenced to life ...
But then, 14 years later, the case was thrust back into the spotlight when it became the focus of the inaugural season of true-crime podcast, Serial. For over a year, journalist Sarah Koenig pored herself over the facts of the case, digging deeper into the evidence presented by prosecutors. And in 2000, Syed was convicted for her murder.
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.
In 2000, Adnan Syed, a high school senior in Baltimore, Maryland, was convicted of strangling and killing his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee.
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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.
On Monday, a Baltimore judge vacated Adnan Syed's conviction in the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee, for which he was serving a life sentence.
Syed, who is now 41 years old, had been behind bars for 23 years after being sentenced to life in prison at the age of 18. "I felt almost disoriented for about a day," Koenig said. "I did not see this coming at all," Koenig said.
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.
Adnan Syed, a recent student in Georgetown's new degree program for incarcerated students and the subject of the 2014 podcast, “Serial,” was released from ...
Georgetown’s Bachelor of Liberal Arts program is funded by a $1 million grant from the Andrew W. [Racial Justice Institute](https://rji.georgetown.edu/) pushes the frontiers of knowledge about race, equity and action. “I think that this Georgetown program is going to take me further in life, take me to places I didn’t even think were possible for me. The program expands Georgetown’s It will take most students about five years to complete the degree. “My main goal is just to continue to evolve, to continue to see what life has to offer me,” said student Rasheed Edwards.
When the 12-episode first season of “Serial” debuted in the fall of 2014, podcasts were a relatively new creative medium — and the true-crime audio ...
The second season of the show, a deep dive into the controversial case of U.S. In the early 2010s, there was some novelty in listening to a “binge-able” true-crime series. “Serial” emerged when the conventions of podcasting were not yet fully developed and the medium was still seen as a niche pastime. In some respects, the profusion of podcasts post-“Serial” made it tougher for Koenig and her team to catch fire on such a wide scale again. But not everyone was equally swept up in the fight for Syed's release. Koenig and others later raised questions about the evidence used by prosecutors, paving a path to this week's events. "This is not a podcast for me," he said. Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building” gently ribs podcast creators, too. In the years since, the stylistic tropes of true-crime podcasting have become all too easy to satirize. The numbers tell a tale of exponential growth: 38% people in the U.S. (The film was distributed by Focus Features, a unit of NBC News' parent company, NBCUniversal.) The state of affairs in the podcasting world parallels trends in television.
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.
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.
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.).
BALTIMORE (AP) — The creator of a true-crime podcast that helped free a Maryland man imprisoned for two decades in a murder case said that she feels a mix ...
The judge also said the state must decide whether to seek a new trial date or dismiss the case within 30 days. Phinn ruled that the state violated its legal obligation to share evidence that could have bolstered Syed’s defense. “So even on a day when the government publicly recognizes its own mistakes, it’s hard to feel cheered about a triumph of fairness.