The Juvenile Restoration Act Hearing and the Motion to Vacate in the Adnan Syed Case Will Both Be in Play This Week

This will be the biggest week for the Adnan Syed case in a long time. On Wednesday, Adnan will have his Juvenile Restoration Act hearing, and Baltimore City State’s Attorney Ivan Bates has promised that this week will also feature the filing of his office’s response to the Motion to Vacate Adnan’s convictions.

Rabia Chaudry and I will be breaking down what happens on Instagram Live this week. We also set up these events in Episode 1 of the relaunched Undisclosed Podcast, which will focus more fully on the past and future of Adnan’s case around April. So, before this week’s two big events, what can we expect to happen?

Let’s start by going back to September 2022. In that month, the office of the Baltimore City State’s Attorney filed a Motion to Vacate Adnan Syed’s convictions in connection with the murder of Hae Min Lee. At the heart of that Motion to Vacate was a Brady violation: the State failing to disclose to the defense evidence that an alternate suspect with motive, means, and opportunity to kill Hae Min Lee said he would kill Hae/make her disappear. This Motion to Vacate was filed after a year of investigation into the case.

After the filing, Judge Melissa Phinn quickly scheduled a hearing on the motion. Notice was given to Hae’s brother, Young, who subsequently attended the vacatur hearing via Zoom and addressed the court. Judge Phinn ultimately granted the motion to vacate Adnan’s convictions on September 19, 2022. After this order, Young Lee noted an appeal of the order and moved for a stay of the circuit court proceedings.

Thereafter, in October 2022, the State’s Attorney “received the results of DNA testing on items that were not tested before that included a skirt, panty hose, shoes and a jacket belonging to Lee.” Notably, a DNA mixture of multiple contributors was recovered from both of Hae’s shoes, with Adnan being excluded as a contributor to the DNA mixture. The State’s Attorney thereafter filed a nolle prosequi, meaning that the case against Adnan was dropped and the office would not be seeking to reprosecute him.

Young’s appeal then proceeded. In a 2-1 ruling, “the Appellate Court of Maryland vacated the circuit court’s order and remanded for a new hearing.” The Majority found that “Mr. Lee had a right to reasonable notice of the vacatur hearing as well as a right to attend the hearing in person, and that Mr. Lee had been denied both of these rights.”

Subsequently, in a 4-3 opinion, the Supreme Court of Maryland affirmed. The court concluded that Young Lee had a right to attend the vacatur hearing in person and address the court, including on the merits of the Motion to Vacate. Maryland’s highest court thus remanded the case back down to the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, ordering the following:

On remand, the parties, Mr. Lee, and the circuit court will begin where they were immediately after the State’s Attorney filed the Vacatur Motion on September 14, 2022. If a new vacatur hearing is scheduled, Mr. Lee must be given reasonable notice of the new hearing date to allow him to attend the hearing in person.[FN47] At such a hearing, Mr. Lee and/or his counsel will be permitted to address: (1) the merits of the Vacatur Motion after hearing the parties’ presentations in support of the motion; and (2) all other matters that are relevant to the circuit court’s disposition of the Vacatur Motion.

[FN47] A respectful and sensitive way to proceed would be for Mr. Lee’s counsel to be consulted about potential dates for a new vacatur hearing before a hearing is scheduled. We expect the parties and Mr. Lee on remand to work together in good faith to ensure that all subsequent proceedings occur in a timely manner.

So, the case was remanded to the Baltimore City State’s Attorney, but it is a different State’s Attorney than the one in place when the Motion to Vacate was first filed. The new State’s Attorney is Ivan Bates, who said during his 2018 campaign that he would drop the charges against Adnan if he were elected (Bates was eventually elected in 2022). Bates has noted that his office is taking its time with the Motion to Vacate, wanting to make sure everything is done properly in response to the remand by Maryland’s highest court.

In the meantime, late last year, Adnan’s attorney, Erica Suter, filed a motion to reduce his sentence under Maryland’s Juvenile Restoration Act. “The law, passed by the Maryland General Assembly in 2021, offers relief to people incarcerated for crimes they were convicted of committing when they were under 18, and have already served 20 years.” Last month, Bates and his office formally supported Adnan’s motion for resentencing, such that, with the court’s approval, Adnan’s sentence would be commuted to time served, i.e., he would not return to prison.

So, that’s where we stand. On Wednesday, Adnan will have his hearing under the Juvenile Restoration Act, which could result in his sentence being commuted to time served. And, as noted above, we can also now expect Bates to set forth how his office will handle the Motion to Vacate in the wake of the remand by the Supreme Court of Maryland. If things go right, we could have a clear path to Adnan having his convictions vacated and his freedom fully secured.

-CM