Maryland prosecutors seek to reinstate 'Serial' murder conviction

[November 29, 2018]  By Gabriella Borter

(Reuters) - Maryland prosecutors on Thursday will try to persuade the state's top court to reinstate the almost two-decade-old murder conviction of Adnan Syed, whose guilt was called into doubt by the popular podcast "Serial."

Syed, who has been serving a life sentence since 2000, repeatedly tried to appeal his conviction on charges of murdering his girlfriend Hae Min Lee, before Chicago public radio station WBEZ's "Serial" uncovered new alibi evidence in 2014.

A Baltimore judge in 2016 vacated Syed's conviction, saying that Syed's former lawyer, M. Cristina Gutierrez, did not defend him effectively when she failed to investigate a potential alibi witness. That ruling would set the stage for a new trial, which has been delayed by appeals by state prosecutors.

The state Court of Special Appeals upheld the lower court's decision earlier this year.

The state appealed that ruling a second time on the grounds that the lower court was wrong to find that Syed previously had an ineffective defense counsel. Maryland's Court of Appeals, the state's highest judicial body, agreed in July to hear the prosecutors' case for reinstating Syed's conviction.

Syed, now 38, was accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee in 1999, when they were both students at Woodlawn High School in Baltimore.

Syed's case reentered the public eye as the subject of the podcast "Serial," which has been downloaded tens of millions of times since its 2014 launch.

The podcast raised new evidence from potential witness Asia McClain, whom Syed's former attorney did not interview. McClain said in an affidavit that she saw Syed in the Woodlawn Public Library around the time prosecutors said he strangled Lee.

Convicted murderer Adnan Syed arrives at the Baltimore City Circuit Courthouse in Baltimore, Maryland February 5, 2016. REUTERS/Carlos Barria -/File Photo

Syed's attorney, Justin Brown, also contends the jury that convicted Syed was misinformed about the cellphone evidence provided by prosecutors.

Prosecutors said that around the time Lee was thought to have been murdered, AT&T data showed Syed's phone received incoming calls at the location where her body was found. Brown said the jury was not aware of an AT&T statement that incoming calls are not reliable indicators of a cellphone's location.

Brown said in a phone interview that he was confident that Syed would be found innocent if Maryland's top court allows a new trial to go forward.

"We think, when put under the scrutiny of a new trial, the state's case will fall apart," he said.

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter; Editing by Scott Malone and Steve Orlofsky)

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