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'Serial' case: Adnan Syed walks out of court after his conviction is vacated | LiveNOW from FOX
Adnan Syed, a subject on the hit podcast “Serial,” was released on Monday, September 19 after Maryland Judge Melissa Phinn overturned his conviction for the 1999 murder of high school student Hae Min Lee. Syed will be placed on home detention with GPS monitoring and the state must decide whether to seek a new trial date or dismiss the case within 30 days. Prosecutors filed a motion saying that a lengthy investigation conducted with the defense had uncovered new evidence that could undermine the 2000 conviction of Syed, Lee’s ex-boyfriend. In 2016, a lower court ordered a retrial for Syed on grounds that his attorney, Cristina Gutierrez, who died in 2004, didn’t contact an alibi witness and provided ineffective counsel. But after a series of appeals, Maryland’s highest court in 2019 denied a new trial in a 4-3 opinion. The Court of Appeals agreed with a lower court that Syed’s legal counsel was deficient in failing to investigate an alibi witness, but it disagreed that the deficiency prejudiced the case. The court said Syed waived his ineffective counsel claim. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review Syed’s case in 2019, but he has maintained he is innocent of killing ex-girlfriend in 1999.