Meanwhile, Baltimore State’s Attorney Ivan Bates announced Tuesday that his office is withdrawing a previously filed motion to vacate Syed’s conviction in the 1999 killing of his high school ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee, who was found strangled to death and buried in a makeshift grave.
Bates said that since his release in 2022, Syed has demonstrated he is a productive member of society whose continued freedom is “in the interest of justice.” He said the case “is precisely what legislators envisioned when they crafted the Juvenile Restoration Act.”.
Syed’s attorneys recently filed the request for a sentence reduction under Maryland’s Juvenile Restoration Act, a relatively new state law that provides a potential pathway to release for people serving long prison terms for crimes committed when they were minors.
The decision from Baltimore prosecutors comes ahead of a scheduled hearing Wednesday morning where a judge will consider whether to reduce Syed’s sentence, but this means the conviction itself is no longer in question.
Despite documented problems with the evidence against him and an earlier request from prosecutors to clear his record, Adnan Syed will remain a convicted murderer, according to court papers filed Tuesday night.
