“Today we are just elated that Adnan is free,” Suter said, noting that Syed plans to spend time with his loved ones. “I think he’s just really elated to be able to have the small quiet everyday joys of freedom that many of us take for granted.”
A Baltimore judge last month overturned Syed’s murder conviction and ordered him released from prison, where the 41-year-old had spent more than two decades. Circuit Judge Melissa Phinn also gave prosecutors 30 days in which to decide whether to retry Syed or drop the charges.
Phinn ruled that the state had violated its legal obligation to share evidence that could have bolstered Syed’s defense. Syed was placed on home detention with GPS location monitoring after he got out of prison, but those restrictions were lifted on Tuesday.
Lee’s family last month asked the Court of Special Appeals, which is Maryland’s intermediate appellate court, to halt the case. Attorney Steve Kelly said Lee’s family was not challenging Syed’s release, but instead wanted the judge to hold another hearing that the family can attend in-person and address the court – Lee’s brother Young Lee appeared via videoconference on short notice during the previous hearing.
In a statement on Tuesday, Kelly said the Lee family learned about prosecutors’ decision to drop the charges through news accounts.
“The family received no notice and their attorney was offered no opportunity to be present at the proceeding,” Kelly said. “By rushing to dismiss the criminal charges, the State’s Attorney’s Office sought to silence Hae Min Lee’s family and to prevent the family and the public from understanding why the State so abruptly changed its position of more than 20 years. All this family ever wanted was answers and a voice. Today’s actions robbed them of both.”
Mosby said Tuesday that the family’s appeal would have no effect on her office’s decision to drop the charges against Syed.
Asked about the status of the Lee family’s appeal, Suter noted that the appeals court hadn’t dismissed it and that Syed’s legal team was awaiting that court’s next action.
Syed has maintained his innocence for decades and captured the attention of millions in 2014 when the debut season of Serial focused on the case and raised doubts about some of the evidence, including cellphone tower data.
The state’s attorney’s office has said that a reinvestigation of the case revealed evidence regarding the possible involvement of two alternate suspects. It said the two might have been involved individually or together, but it didn’t disclose their names.
One of the suspects had threatened Lee, saying “he would make her (Ms Lee) disappear. He would kill her,” according to a court filing.
The suspects were known persons at the time of the original investigation and were not properly ruled out nor disclosed to the defense, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors also said new information revealed that one of the suspects was convicted of attacking a woman in her vehicle, and that one of the suspects was convicted of engaging in serial rape and sexual assault.
Prosecutors also acknowledged that unreliable cellphone data had been used to convict Syed.
Syed served more than 20 years in prison for the strangling of Lee, who was 18 at the time. Her body was found weeks later buried in a Baltimore park.
More than a decade later, the popular Serial podcast revealed little-known evidence and attracted millions of listeners, shattering podcast-streaming and downloading records.
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