Adnan Syed case: Victim’s brother files appeal to Maryland Supreme Court, asks for more say in court proceedings

The brother of the woman Adnan Syed once was convicted of killing is filing his own appeal to the Maryland Supreme Court, arguing that a lower court’s ruling in his favor didn’t go far enough for victim’s rights.

The court filing Thursday by Young Lee, brother of Hae Min Lee, who was killed in 1999, adds complexity to the already dizzying legal saga profiled in the hit podcast “Serial.” It means there are now a pair of Syed-related petitions pending before the state’s highest court.

In his appeal last month, Syed, 43, argued that the Appellate Court of Maryland was mistaken when it reversed the decision by a Baltimore Circuit Court judge to throw out his conviction in September and release him from prison for the first time in 23 years.

Lee, meanwhile, contends that the appeals court should have given him the right to speak and challenge evidence at the September hearing that set Syed free, not just to attend in person, as the appellate opinion determined.

At issue in both appeals is exactly what role victims or their representatives should have in proceedings to vacate a defendant’s conviction for legal reasons.

Last year, Baltimore Circuit Judge Melissa Phinn met with the prosecution and Syed’s lawyer in her chambers on Sept. 16, a Friday, and scheduled a hearing for the following Monday, Sept. 19. By the time attorneys on the case met with Phinn, they had presented her with a joint legal argument for why Syed’s 2000 convictions were flawed and should be thrown out “in the interest of justice.”

Prosecutors had told Young Lee they would be filing court papers to withdraw Syed’s guilty finding in his sister’s killing, but they didn’t notify him of the hearing date until shortly after it was scheduled.

Prosecutors told him he could watch the proceedings by video call, but Young Lee, who lived in California at the time, wanted to be there in person. He hired an attorney over that weekend to show up in court and ask for a week-long postponement.

In court, Phinn told Young Lee’s attorney she would delay the proceedings only long enough so that Young Lee could join a video call. Thirty minutes later, Young Lee, by video, told her how he felt betrayed by prosecutors who’d led him to believe for more than 20 years the right man was held culpable for his sister’s strangulation death. When he was finished speaking, Phinn said she appreciated his comments and continued with the proceeding.

At the direction of then-State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, prosecutors dropped Syed’s charges in October. But by then, Young Lee had filed a notice of an appeal.

In the appeal, Young Lee argued that prosecutors and Phinn trampled on his rights as a crime victim representative by providing short notice of the September hearing and not allowing him time to attend in person, or to challenge evidence.

Crime victims law provides only that victims or their representatives be given “reasonable” notice of legal proceedings, without specifying a timeframe. While lawmakers have expressly provided victims or their representatives with the right to speak at certain hearings, like sentencing, they did not specify as much in the state’s nascent vacatur law. Typically, victims don’t get to weigh in on legal questions.

A three-judge panel from the appellate court allowed the appeal to progress, hearing oral arguments from Young Lee’s and Syed’s lawyers in February, before rendering their opinion in March. In the split ruling, the appellate judges ordered Syed’s convictions and life sentence reinstated, and mandated a do-over of the September hearing that set him free.

The appellate opinion provided a 60-day window before its mandates took effect. In that time, Syed’s lawyers unsuccessfully argued the appellate court should reconsider its ruling, and then asked the state supreme court to take up the case.

Syed’s attorneys argued that prosecutors’ decision to drop Syed’s charges nullified Young Lee’s appeal, that Young Lee got ample notice of the September hearing according to the law. They also said that Young Lee appearing at the hearing by video call satisfied his right to attend.

Most importantly, Syed’s lawyers said, the appellate court failed to consider whether Young Lee attending in person would have changed the decision to vacate Syed’s conviction — a legal consideration. They said Young Lee being in the courtroom wouldn’t have changed Phinn’s mind, so the appellate court shouldn’t have ordered a re-do.

A maintenance worker discovered Lee’s body in a shallow grave in Baltimore’s Leakin Park in February 1999. Homicide detectives soon focused on Syed, who was 17 at the time, arresting him the same year. During trial, prosecutors postulated that Syed, a popular honors student, couldn’t handle it when Lee broke up with him. She was strangled to death and investigators found evidence of a struggle in her car.

Convicted of murder, kidnapping, robbery and false imprisonment in 2000, Syed was sentenced to life plus 30 years in prison.

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