Maryland
Adnan Syed Speaks Out After Appeal Hearing: ‘We’ve Suffered So Much’
BALTIMORE, MD — Shortly after attorneys for Adnan Syed and Hae Min Lee’s brother argued about whether or not Syed’s homicide conviction in Lee’s 1999 slaying needs to be reinstated, Syed requested the courtroom to acknowledge his household’s ache.
Thursday’s listening to got here after a request by Younger Lee to reverse the courtroom’s choice to vacate fees towards Syed and finally order a redo of the September listening to that set him free after spending 22 years in jail.
In keeping with courtroom paperwork, Younger Lee claimed his rights as a member of the family had been violated when he didn’t obtain correct discover and was denied the proper to be heard on the listening to.
“It looks as if our household, we simply go unnoticed,” Syed stated in a video shared by WJZ’s Avajoye Burnett. “Each time we go to courtroom we go unnoticed. We positively perceive Hae’s household has suffered a lot, they usually proceed to undergo. And it is simply that we undergo too. And we hope that the courtroom in the present day simply takes discover of that.”
Syed’s case gained nationwide consideration when it was chronicled on the hit podcast “Serial” after he was discovered responsible of killing Hae Min Lee.
Syed was discovered responsible in a 2000 trial of killing Hae Min Lee, who died by strangulation on Jan. 13, 1999. Her physique was present in Leakin Park in Baltimore after she was reported lacking.
In September, Baltimore Circuit Decide Melissa Phinn vacated Syed’s first-degree homicide conviction in Hae Min Lee’s dying after former Baltimore Metropolis State’s Lawyer Marilyn Mosby and Syed’s lawyer filed motions questioning the integrity of the trial and proof that despatched Syed to jail.
The decide ordered Syed unshackled in courtroom and to stay on GPS monitoring pending a brand new trial. She additionally advised prosecutors that they had 30 days to both schedule a brand new trial or drop the case.
Prosecutors dropped all fees towards Syed in October.
A month later, a Maryland Courtroom of Appeals dominated that an attraction filed by Hae Min Lee’s household may proceed, in line with a report by The Baltimore Solar. Lee’s household filed the attraction shortly after Syed’s launch, claiming their rights as crime victims had been violated.
In keeping with a separate Baltimore Solar report, an appellate courtroom decide on Thursday questioned Younger Lee’s attorneys on whether or not the attraction was moot as a result of the underlying felony case not exists.
Younger Lee’s case is unprecedented, in line with the Solar, which means little to no case legislation exists.
In a courtroom submitting, Syed’s lawyer Erica Suter stated Younger Lee’s request goes “far past the scope of crime victims’ rights,” the Solar reported.
“Victims don’t prosecute fees, they don’t resolve which witnesses to name, and they don’t cross-examine these witnesses,” Suter wrote. “Giving Appellant what he needs won’t simply outcome within the re-imprisonment of Mr. Syed for a criminal offense he didn’t commit, it should wreak havoc on our felony justice system.”