In a ruling Friday, Aug. 30, Maryland’s Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s reinstatement of Adnan Syed’s murder conviction in connection with the 1999 death of his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee.
The 4-3 ruling by the higher court upheld an earlier appeals court decision that said the rights of the victim’s family were violated because they weren’t given proper notice of a 2022 hearing to toss out Syed’s conviction, according to CNN.
The ruling does not force Syed — who was released from prison in 2022 after his 2000 conviction — to go back to prison while the case proceeds, per the Associated Press.
“In an effort to remedy what they perceived to be an injustice to Mr. Syed, the prosecutor and the circuit court worked an injustice” against Lee’s brother Young Lee “by failing to treat him with dignity, respect, and sensitivity and, in particular, by violating Mr. Lee’s rights as a crime victim’s representative to reasonable notice of the Vacatur Hearing, the right to attend the hearing in person, and the right to be heard on the merits of the Vacatur Motion,” the Maryland Supreme Court said, per CNN.
The court said the case would return to the circuit court for Baltimore City, per The New York Times.
Syed, the subject of the hit true-crime podcast Serial, was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Lee, his 18-year-old Woodlawn High School classmate and ex-girlfriend, whose body was found buried in a park four weeks after she was reportedly kidnapped.
Syed had been imprisoned for more than a decade when his case was featured in the first season of NPR’s true-crime podcast, triggering widespread scrutiny of his arrest and prosecution.
Syed was released from prison in the fall of 2022 after his first-degree murder conviction was vacated. However, the Appellate Court of Maryland reinstated his conviction in March 2023 ruling that Young Lee’s rights were violated, according to the Times.
Syed then appealed the decision to Maryland’s Supreme Court, per the Baltimore Sun.
The Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office said the Supreme Court’s decision “is currently under review by our office and we have no further comment at this time,” per the Times.
David Sanford, the attorney who represents the family of Lee, said in a statement to PEOPLE: “The Maryland Supreme Court today definitively reaffirms crime victims’ rights to be treated with dignity, respect and sensitivity, rights enshrined in the Maryland State Constitution. The Supreme Court acknowledges what Hae Min Lee‘s family has argued: crime victims have a right to be heard in court. In this case, that means the family of murder victim Hae Min Lee had the right to reasonable notice in order to attend and meaningfully participate in the criminal justice proceedings involving Adnan Syed, the person accused and convicted of Lee’s murder.
“Significantly, the Lee family will now have the right to address the merits of the vacatur motion after the prosecution and the defense have made their presentations in support of that motion,” he continued. “If there is compelling evidence to support vacating the conviction of Adnan Syed, we will be the first to agree. To date, the public has not seen evidence which would warrant overturning a murder conviction that has withstood appeals for over two decades. The burden remains on the prosecution and the defense to make their case. So far, they have not done so.”
