Baltimore Prosecutors Agree With Defense That Adnan Syed’s Life Sentence Should be Commuted to Time Served

As reported in the Baltimore Sun,

In a circuit court filing Sunday, Baltimore prosecutors agreed with Adnan Syed that his life sentence should be reduced to time served in the 1999 killing of his high school sweetheart, Hae Min Lee, which drew national attention in 2014 as the focus of the podcast “Serial.”

If approved by a judge, the development means Syed — who was released in 2022 amid legal challenges to his convictions on murder, robbery and kidnapping charges — will likely never return to prison, even if Baltimore State’s Attorney Ivan Bates refuses to overturn Syed’s judgment of guilt as the previous state’s attorney recommended.

According to Bates, 

“We believe that he has been held accountable,” Bates told The Sun. “We also look at the institutional record and the institutional record, we feel that Mr. Syed has done an excellent job of taking advantage of any and all programs. You can see where he went in a young man and came out a wiser man. He has great family support. He has great community support. He has a good job.”

“This is unique,” Bates continued, “in the sense that he’s shown he has the ability to be a positive member of society, having been released previously. But when you look at the institutional record — very, very minimal infractions of hardly anything during the time period in which he was incarcerated. When you look at that, you understand that this is an individual who deserves and has earned a second chance.”

In terms of the status of Adnan’s case, in 2022, the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s office filed a motion to vacate his convictions based upon a Brady violation: the State failing to disclose that an alternate suspect with motive, means, and opportunity to kill Hae Min Lee said he would kill her/make her disappear. Judge Melissa Phinn granted that motion. Recently, however, the Supreme Court of Maryland ruled in a 4-3 ruling that Judge Phinn failed to give Hae Min Lee’s family adequate notice and ability to address the court at the hearing on the motion to vacate.

Every expectation is that some version of that motion to vacate will be re-filed, leading to a new hearing and the charges against Adnan being dropped. In the meantime, the current motion would mean that Adnan will not return to prison even if something with the motion to vacate goes sideways.

-CM