After years of Adnan Syed’s 2000 murder conviction being reinstated and overturned, a judge ruled on Thursday, March 6, that he will not be going back to prison, per court documents obtained .
Syed, who gained national notoriety after his case became the subject of the Serial podcast in 2014, was first convicted for the 1999 murder of his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee in 2000. He was 17 years old at the time.
After the most recent conviction was upheld by the Maryland Supreme Court in 2024, Syed’s legal team requested a reduced sentence (he has been out of prison since his conviction was overturned in 2022). Judge Jennifer B. Schiffer of the Baltimore City Circuit Court granted the motion on Thursday, according to the court docs.
Judge Schiffer wrote that Syed is eligible for relief via the Juvenile Restoration Act (JRA), which applies to those who were minors when they committed a crime and were convicted as adults. They also had to be sentenced before Oct. 1, 2021.
Hae Min Lee and Adnan Syed.
Lloyd Fox/Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty
Judge Schiffer noted in her decision that Syed was 17 when Lee was killed, and he was sentenced in 2000. Although Syed was convicted for violent acts — first-degree murder, kidnapping, robbery and false imprisonment — Judge Schiffer pointed out that before Lee’s murder, Syed had no criminal history, and later “maintained an outstanding institutional record” during the 23 years he was incarcerated.
Although Judge Schiffer took into account a statement from Lee’s family in response to the JRA, which said in part that Syed’s claim of innocence showed a “lack of remorse and a failure to take responsibility for his actions,” she ultimately concluded that Syed “is not a danger to the public” and “the interests of justice will be better served by a reduced sentence.”
Judge Schiffer sentenced him to the years he’s already served and five years probation.
The Lee family, through their counsel David Sanford, reacted to the decision in a statement shared with us.
“The State of Maryland just last week acknowledged that it had presented ‘false and misleading’ information to the court in support of Mr. Syed’s release more than two years ago,” the statement begins. “We now know there was never any new information that called into question Adnan Syed’s guilty verdict.”
Last month, Baltimore prosecutors announced they would withdraw a motion to vacate Syed’s conviction, saying that the motion contained “false and misleading statements.” His conviction stood, and he awaited Thursday’s sentencing.
“Absolutely nothing changes the fact that Mr. Syed remains convicted of first-degree premeditated murder due to overwhelming direct and circumstantial evidence,” Lee’s family continues. “We hope that one day Mr. Syed can summon the courage to take responsibility for his crime and express sincere remorse.”
After the Serial podcast unearthed new evidence in 2014, a Maryland court agreed to review his conviction, and it was vacated for the first time in 2016. Two years later, the overturned conviction was upheld in an appeals court and Syed was granted a new trial.
In 2019, Maryland’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, ruled in a 4-3 decision to uphold his conviction, and in November of that year, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his case.
His conviction was reversed again in 2022, and he was released from prison. In 2023, his conviction was reinstated after the Appellate Court of Maryland determined that the rights of Lee’s brother, Young Lee, were violated after he wasn’t given proper notice of an October hearing to throw out Syed’s conviction. The Maryland Supreme Court then upheld his conviction last year.
Adnan and Lee were students at Woodlawn High School in Baltimore when they began dating. He was 17 and she was 18. They kept their romance a secret due to religious and cultural differences. She vanished in 1999, and her body was found 27 days later. Syed was arrested in connection to her death, and maintained his innocence throughout his case.
