Author: Associated Press / Source: the Guardian
Maryland’s highest court has denied a new trial for a man whose murder conviction was chronicled in the hit podcast Serial.
In a 4-3 opinion, the court of appeals agreed with a lower court that Adnan Syed’s counsel was deficient in failing to investigate an alibi witness, but disagreed that the deficiency prejudiced the case.
The court said Syed waived his ineffective counsel claim.The court reversed a court of special appeals judgment, sending the case back to that court with directions to reverse a Baltimore circuit court judgment granting a new trial.
Syed was sentenced to life in prison after he was convicted in 2000 of strangling 17-year-old Hae Min Lee and burying her body in a Baltimore park. More than a decade later, the popular Serial podcast brought Syed’s case to millions of listeners. The 2014 show revealed little-known evidence and attracted millions of listeners, shattering podcast-streaming and downloading records.
In 2016, a lower court ordered a retrial on grounds that Syed’s attorney, Cristina Gutierrez, who died in 2004, did not contact an alibi witness and provided ineffective counsel. The state appealed. The special appeals court upheld the lower court’s ruling last year and the state appealed that decision too.
In the majority opinion, court of appeals judge Clayton Greene concluded “there is not a significant or substantial possibility that the verdict…
The post Maryland court denies new trial for Serial subject Adnan Syed appeared first on FeedBox.