Judge Releases Adnan Syed From Prison After ‘Serial’ Podcast Questioned His Murder Conviction

Topline

A judge in Maryland overturned Adnan Syed’s conviction in the 1999 murder of his ex-girlfriend Monday, according to multiple news outlets, 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.

Key Facts

Key Background

Syed was convicted of first-degree murder in 2000, after prosecutors argued Syed—who was 17 at the time of Lee’s death—strangled Lee and left her body in a forest, a crime ostensibly driven by jealousy after the couple broke up. 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. 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 another classmate who provided an alibi for Syed at the time of the murder should’ve been called to testify. Meanwhile, Syed’s attorney says the defendant’s DNA wasn’t found on Lee’s body or in her car, according to unofficial testing that wasn’t included in the murder investigation. Syed’s legal team asked prosecutors to review his conviction last year under a state law that lets juveniles ask for sentence modifications. The Baltimore City attorney’s office ultimately said last week it “no longer has confidence in the integrity of the conviction,” citing unreliable cell tower data and the emergence of two other unnamed suspects who “were not properly ruled out nor disclosed to the defense,” one of whom suggested he would “make [Lee] disappear.”

Surprising Fact

Syed’s previous attempts to reverse his conviction were unsuccessful. A state appeals court ordered a new trial 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. The Supreme Court also declined to hear Syed’s case in 2019.

Tangent

Syed’s conviction was the focus of the first season of Serial, a spinoff of This American Life that helped popularize the true-crime podcast genre. 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 tweeted.