(Image source from: NBC Los Angeles)
The Maryland court has agreed to review a decision to reopen a high-profile lawsuit for a man whose murder conviction was accounted in the hit podcast "Serial," according to an order issued on Thursday.
The court orders a new trial earlier this year for Adnan Syed, upholding a 2016 lower court ruling. But now the state's top court agreed to consider whether Syed's murder conviction should actually be reinstated.
Statements in the case are scheduled to be heard in the court's December session, according to court documents. It's far from unsubtle when a judgment might come.
In 2000 Syed was sentenced to life imprisonment for strangling his 17-year-old ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee and burying her dead body in Baltimore park.
Nearly a decade later, he became a kind of cause celebre due to the enormously popular 2014 debut "Serial" podcast, with the entirety of its first season dedicated to the long-running case. The show attracting millions of listeners and shattered podcast-streaming and downloading records.
The loyal crowd of listeners frequently acted as armchair investigators, raising new questions regarding the lawsuit and whether Syed was indeed blameworthy.
Nearly after two years, a lower-court magistrate vacated Syed's condemnation. Prosecutors appealed to Maryland's intermediate appeals court, which acknowledged a new trial.
Syed's brother, Yusef, said the family hadn't yet heard about the latest court order. But he said the family remained hopeful when a reporter informed him about it. "We believe that Adnan will come out and the truth will come," Yusef Syed said in a brief phone interview.
A family friend Rabia Chaudry and steadfast supporter of Syed's who brought his case to the attention of the host of "Serial" and also wrote the 2016 book "Adnan's Story: The Search for Truth and Justice after Serial," said she was "deeply disappointed" by the Thursday court order.
"We've been fighting to get him a new trial for nearly 20 years now. We've won the last two appeals; the courts have overturned his conviction twice. And yet the state keeps throwing tax dollars and wasting its time, his life, his parents' lives," Chaudry said. "And so now we're looking at like another year of appeals."
Order a new trial for Syed in its March regnant, the court of appeals found that his trial attorney was ineffective for failing to investigate and contact Asia McClain, a potential alibi witness who said she saw Syed at a public library in Woodlawn, Maryland, around an instance the state claimed Syed killed Hae.
By Sowmya Sangam
