Younger Lee, the brother of Hae Min Lee, argued in a short submitted by his legal professionals that the state’s attorney gave him much less than one particular small business day’s discover of the listening to, and that prosecutors did not present adequate detail for him to fully grasp their bid to vacate the conviction.
“Hae Min Lee’s relatives and the general public are worthy of more, and that is what the regulation involves,” explained David Sanford, the Lee family’s law firm. “At this place, the integrity of our judicial process and regard for the rule of legislation are at stake.”
In a submitting, Syed’s legal professionals noted that after the conviction was vacated, prosecutors had dropped the expenses against Syed — that means Syed is no for a longer period a defendant in a felony situation. They identified as the Lee family’s move to redo the listening to “unprecedented” in how it posited a victim’s family member as a bash in the issue.
“Victims do not prosecute costs, they do not come to a decision which witnesses to get in touch with, and they do not cross-take a look at all those witnesses,” Syed’s lawyers wrote. “Giving Appellant what he would like will not just outcome in the re-imprisonment of Mr. Syed for a crime he did not dedicate, it will wreak havoc on our prison justice technique.”
The Maryland appeals courtroom hearing is nevertheless one more twist in a case that has wound a circuitous route by means of the courtroom procedure for extra than two decades and attracted global consideration when it was highlighted on “Serial” in 2014.
Syed, then 17, was arrested in February 1999 for Hae Min Lee’s killing. Authorities claimed the 18-calendar year-aged, who Syed experienced as soon as dated, experienced been strangled. Syed was convicted of murder in 2000 and sentenced to lifetime guiding bars.
In the ensuing years, Syed and his agent waged a long but unsuccessful fight to have his conviction overturned, together with after “Serial” shined a spotlight on the scenario.
Then in September 2022, at the ask for of Baltimore town prosecutors, Baltimore Circuit Court docket Choose Melissa Phinn vacated conviction, choosing that there were being challenges in how prosecutors had turned about proof to protection attorneys decades ago. Youthful Lee, who spoke briefly at the hearing exactly where the judge issued her conclusion, explained that the motion to vacate Syed’s conviction still left him sensation “betrayed.”
“That’s really tricky for me to swallow, and specially for my mom,” he reported.
Prosecutors wrote in court filings of two other alternate suspects. Those people today, however, were acknowledged to investigators formerly, prosecutors have said, and they have not been charged in the situation. The investigation is ongoing, authorities explained.
Lee has explained he was not towards additional investigation. “Knowing that there could be someone out there cost-free for killing my sister — it is hard,” he explained.
Then-Baltimore City State’s Legal professional Marilyn Mosby, whose office dropped the scenario following the conviction was vacated, has stated that she comprehended Lee’s brother’s thoughts, but that Syed was entitled to fairness in the felony justice system.
“You have some sort of resolution and consider that you have closure, and the circumstance comes again up and it rips a entire new wound that you imagine has healed,” Mosby stated. “I realize his disappointment.”
In the appeals proceedings, the Maryland Attorney General’s Business office sided generally with the Lee relatives. In a submitting, lawyers for the place of work wrote that there should really be a new listening to about vacating the conviction, when noting that the family did not have the appropriate “to existing evidence, phone witnesses, and problem the state’s evidence and witnesses.”
David Jaros, a legislation professor at the University of Baltimore who is not linked to the case, mentioned that although he was sympathetic with the Lee spouse and children, he did not imagine that a sufferer should be addressed as a occasion in a listening to about whether a conviction should really be upheld. He famous, too, that Phinn presented the family members an prospect to talk throughout the listening to on the movement to vacate.
“It would seem to be very clear that the victim’s part for this form of hearing is specially constrained,” Jaros stated. “I think the loved ones is asking for a good deal in this instance, but I’m not guaranteed if they won’t be productive. ”
Due to the fact Syed’s launch, he landed a full-time position with Georgetown as a application associate for the university’s Prisons and Justice Initiative.
