In a 138-page opinion for the court, Chief Judge Patrick L.

Here is the part that we have waited for 19 years: /P7RVzIlMw4- rabia O'chaudry March 29, 2018 The short and sweet: we won on the issue (Lord am I happy I found you and you gave me that affidavit Asia), lost on the cell tower/plea issue (not on merits but for procedural reasons). The appeals court decision basically inverts that reasoning, affirming the lower court’s decision on the grounds of the McClain testimony but not the cellphone tower. The Court of Special Appeals found that this oversight was prejudicial for the defense - a stance that, interestingly, overrides the lower court, which based its decision not on the omission of McClain’s testimony, but rather on the failure of Syed’s lawyers to thoroughly cross-examine the state’s cellphone tower expert about the reliability of data that helped place Syed at the scene of the crime. But that letter was never followed up on McClain’s testimony was never evaluated by Syed’s defense and never made it into the trial. One of Syed’s classmates, Asia McClain, had written his defense attorney in 1999 to provide him with an alibi for the afternoon Lee’s murder occurred. The appellate court stood behind this ruling on appeal to consider closely one piece of evidence in particular. Syed’s case fell into obscurity until Serial re-investigated it, dredging up a litany of intricate new evidence casting reasonable doubt on the prosecution’s case while turning Syed and everyone involved in the podcast into minor celebrities.Ī crucial piece of the circuit court’s decision to vacate Syed’s conviction concerned vital evidence first uncovered through Serial. Syed was a high school student when he was convicted of the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee, his high school classmate and ex-girlfriend.

There are several other complicated steps to go, however, before Syed can walk free - and that’s not a guarantee. Adnan Syed, the subject of the first season of 2014 podcast phenomenon Serial, took a giant step closer to freedom on Thursday after an appellate court ruling upheld a previous circuit court ruling vacating his conviction of life sentence for murder and granting him a new trial.

Serial adnan appeal