Adnan Syed, 41, in white, leaves courtroom on Sept. 19 after his conviction within the 1999 homicide of Hae Min Lee was vacated. (Madeleine O’Neill/The Every day File)
The household of Hae Min Lee is asking a Maryland courtroom to place authorized proceedings on maintain whereas they enchantment a Baltimore decide’s resolution to vacate Adnan Syed’s conviction in Lee’s 1999 homicide.
The movement filed Wednesday asks Maryland’s Courtroom of Particular Appeals to pause the 30-day window wherein prosecutors have mentioned they’ll both pursue a trial in opposition to Syed or dismiss his case completely.
Lee’s household is elevating claims below Maryland’s sufferer rights legal guidelines, which require that crime victims be handled with “dignity, respect, and sensitivity.”
The 30-day window to proceed with the fees in opposition to Syed is closing rapidly, and metropolis prosecutors have given little sense of what they’ll do. Baltimore State’s Legal professional Marilyn Mosby mentioned on Sept. 19, when Syed was launched, that her workplace was ready on DNA check outcomes — however didn’t say what would occur if the outcomes got here again after the 30-day interval.
Wednesday’s movement doesn’t search Syed’s return to jail, however asks to freeze the 30-day deadline whereas Lee’s household appeals.
“They only need to pause that in order that the appellate courtroom can take a tough have a look at it,” mentioned Steven J. Kelly, the lawyer for Lee’s household. “If the appellate courtroom finds that there was an issue with what occurred beneath, it simply turns into that a lot simpler to take care of that if nothing else has occurred within the case since then.”
Lee’s household claims that they weren’t given sufficient discover of the Sept. 19 listening to the place prosecutors and Syed’s protection lawyer requested to vacate his conviction. Lee’s brother, Younger Lee, requested via Kelly to delay the listening to by seven days in order that he may fly in from California to handle the courtroom in particular person.
Baltimore Circuit Decide Melissa M. Phinn denied the request and allowed Younger Lee to talk over Zoom. Lee mentioned he discovered it unfair that prosecutors had all of a sudden withdrawn their help for Syed’s conviction after greater than 20 years.
Syed was serving a life sentence after he was convicted of strangling Lee, whose physique was discovered buried in a Baltimore park. He was 17 on the time of her loss of life.
Metropolis prosecutors requested to vacate Syed’s conviction final month due to a bunch of issues that they had recognized with the unique case, together with an alleged Brady violation, or an occasion the place prosecutors failed to show over exculpatory proof to the protection.
The request centered on two handwritten paperwork that had been mentioned to disclose an alternate suspect who had reportedly mentioned he would kill Lee. Prosecutors additionally mentioned that they had misplaced religion within the reliability of cellphone location knowledge used within the case and a key eyewitness who advised police Syed took him to Lee’s physique.
“Regardless of months of investigation, the State didn’t notify the Lee household of its intent to maneuver to vacate the judgment till Monday, September 12, 2022,” Kelly wrote in Wednesday’s movement. “Even then, the State didn’t disclose any particulars of its investigation or the id of the 2 new suspects to the Lee household.”
The movement doesn’t tackle the substance of the Lee household’s enchantment, which is able to come later in a extra detailed submitting. Kelly mentioned Wednesday night he hopes to file that doc as quickly as attainable.
