The 2014 podcast that captivated millions of listeners now gets its real life sequel–Adnan Syed from “Serial” has been granted a new trial after 16 years in prison. The judge in the case, Martin Welch, vacated the murder conviction on Thursday.

Adnan Syed, now 36, became a famous name when the podcast “Serial” aired two years ago. The podcast told the story of his conviction in the murder of his high school girlfriend Hae Min Lee. Prosecutors claimed he strangled and buried Lee in a park in Baltimore. Listeners were divided over whether he was guilty or not, and the journalist Sarah Koenig set out to find out the truth.

The main evidence that led to Syed’s conviction in 2000 was information from cell towers that showed where he was (or rather where his phone was) at the time of the murder. However, many people have questioned the reliability of that information. Syed’s former attorney Christina Gutierrez, who passed away in 2004, failed to cross-examine the state’s cell tower expert.

She also failed to contact and question an important witness who claimed she had been with Adnan Syed in the school library at the time of Lee’s murder. Asia McClain, the witness, recently gave birth to a baby and told ABC that she was shocked but excited to hear the news. This was her reaction on Twitter:

Wow…I'm speechless. New Baby, New Trial

— Asia McClain Chapman (@AsiaRChapman) June 30, 2016

As a result of the podcast’s success–millions of listeners tuned in, easily breaking previous podcast subscription records–and interviews with McClain, the case received new attention. Syed’s new attorney Justin Brown tried to get a new trial in place because of the potential alibi McClain’s testimony could provide. Judge Welch denied the trial request, but vacated the sentence because of the cell tower issue.

Syed’s friend Rabia Chaudry was the first to bring his case to Koenig’s attention.

People keep asking, no one has spoken to him. He did not have phone privileges yesterday! We expect him to call us today.#AdnanSyed

— rabia chaudry (@rabiasquared) July 1, 2016

Brown was happy about the news and said he will look into the possibilities for bail. But as of now, the conviction is gone. He told Washington Post:

“Think of it as the conviction is erased. It’s gone. So if the state were to retry him, essentially, we would be starting from scratch. The whole trial could potentially start again.”

Check out this clip from a press conference with Brown:

@CJBrownLaw shares more information about #AdnanSyed being granted a new trial during press conference!https://t.co/zs6uejEBEQ

— Undisclosed Podcast (@Undisclosedpod) June 30, 2016

Lee’s family has not spoken publicly about the case, but released a statement in February during a new hearing of Syed, reports the Baltimore Sun.

“It remains hard to see so many run to defend someone who committed a horrible crime, who destroyed our family, who refuses to accept responsibility, when so few are willing to speak up for Have,” the statement read.

People are still divided over Syed’s guilt in the killing of Lee. But the question remains—if he didn’t do it, then who did?

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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The podcast “Serial” took the world by storm this fall. Never had a podcast been so talked about, so obsessed over, or raised such fascinating questions about a 15-year-old murder conviction. The case involved a young man named Adnan Syed who was convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend. Although he was convicted a decade and a half ago, Syed’s case will now be heard again in court.

For those of you who missed “Serial,” here are the CliffNotes. Don’t worry, I’ll stay away from too many spoilers. Essentially, in 1999, a Baltimore high school senior named Hae Min Lee went missing and was later found dead. After a police investigation, Syed, her ex-boyfriend who was also a high school senior, was found guilty of her murder.

Fast forward almost 15 years to present day. Journalist Sarah Koenig was approached by Syed’s friends with concerns about the way his case was handled, and all the inconsistencies in the evidence that was brought up in court. Koenig was intrigued, and started looking into the case. She ended up producing a podcast–a journalistic enterprise–exploring the facts of the case.

A Maryland court just ruled that it will hear arguments on Syed’s case, mostly based on the fact that his lawyer, Christina Guttierez, may not have done her job effectively. Syed and his lawyers are arguing that Guttierez didn’t follow up with a possible alibi witness whom Koenig spoke to in the “Serial” podcast. They also argue that Guttierez failed Syed by not exploring the possibility of a plea deal when she was given the option. Given that Guttierez has since died of a heart attack, it’s unclear why she made those choices. They could have been incompetence, like Syed’s attorneys are arguing, or they could have been a strategic move.

After a few different attempts at an appeal failed since Syed was convicted, this most recent appeal was brought to the Maryland Special Court of Appeals. It’s important to note that Syed hasn’t actually been granted an appeal–this is just a small step toward that. Basically, the Maryland Special Court of Appeals has agreed to listen to what Syed and the state have to say, and then decide whether or not to order a new trial, or send it back to the Circuit Court.

Koenig posted about the development on the “Serial” website, saying:

In Episode 10 of the podcast, I reported that this appeal was alive by a thread. Now, I’d say it’s more of a … well-made string, maybe. Like the nylon kind. Because it means that the Court of Special Appeals judges think the issues Adnan raised in his brief are worth considering. That’s a pretty big hurdle for any appellant to clear.

Whether or not Syed will actually end up getting a new trial is very uncertain at this point. That being said, it’s a case that touched a lot of people, or at the very least opened the doors to some unsettling realities of our justice system. I’m sure all “Serial” fans will be anxiously awaiting the next news in this saga.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Major spoiler alert: this post is all about the Serial podcast finale. If you have not yet listened to Serial, go download it now, find a nice quiet place, and come back in approximately 12 hours.

All good to go?

Alright, so now that you’ve caught up on Serial, you know what happened in the finale that aired yesterday. It was pretty apparent that some people were upset with the way that the national phenomenon ended. I understand why–there wasn’t really an ending. Not in a classic sense, at least. Not in a way that we’ve been conditioned to believe there needs to be. We still don’t know who killed Hae Min Lee. We still don’t know whether or not Adnan Syed is guilty. We still don’t know that much at all.

America’s love affair with crime procedurals has a long history. Turn on the TV right now and you have a veritable slew from which to choose. Want to see a case go through the justice system from beginning to end? Check out “Law and Order.” Want to see unique cases regarding the Navy and the Marine Corps? Well, there’s “NCIS.” Are a genius forensic anthropologist and her hunky FBI partner more up your ally? I’d recommend “Bones.”

What do all of these shows have in common? At the end, with very exceptions, the bad guy gets caught. There may be conflicting evidence or different theories along the journey, but at the end of the episode the person who committed the crime ends up paying the price.

That’s fun when it comes to TV shows, but it is directly contrary to how things work in real life. Serial proves that.

Sarah Koenig went through the entire case of Adnan Syed piece by meticulous piece, and she still doesn’t have the answer. She put in way more time than the detectives on the case–not that I’m blaming them for that, it’s just the nature of two different professions. She put in way more time than the scientists and cops on my favorite procedurals who find one fingerprint and have their “Aha” moments. She literally took this thing apart with a fine-toothed comb, and she still wasn’t completely certain about what had happened to Hae on that fateful day in 1999.

Some people in the Twitterverse were upset not that there was no answer to who murdered Hae, but rather that the podcast was ending when it did. They were upset that Koenig didn’t continue digging. Again, I’m not, because that’s life. Answers are not guaranteed, and not everyone has the luxury of taking forever to find them. There are plenty of people who will never get their answers–parents who have lost their children, people who have lost their significant others, and innocent prisoners who were convicted for reasons they may never understand.

Those people may never get their answers. So why should we, fans of this podcast, get ours?

I would love to know who killed Hae Min Lee. I, like everyone else who got a little obsessed with this podcast, have my theories. But I think at the end of the day, what Koenig and her team accomplished wasn’t just a masterfully told story, but a living embodiment of the questions that our justice system has to deal with every single day. It’s easy to forget that, when you can just turn on the TV and see Agent Gibbs or Sergeant Benson or Agent Booth get the bad guy. Let Serial serve as a reminder that it’s almost never that simple.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Serial’s Ending Was Perfect: Here’s Why appeared first on Law Street.

Is it Thursday yet? #Serial

— Frank Lantz (@flantz) October 22, 2014

You’ve probably come across a tweet like the above on your timeline recently.  You click on that hashtag and fall down a rabbit hole. For the uninitiated, Serial is a podcast from the producers of This American Life that takes one true story and methodically unpacks it, week after week, immersing the listener and letting us in on narrator Sarah Koenig’s inner reflections, doubts, and evolving theories. It has brought about the phenomenon of mass binge-listening that, as the Wall Street Journal noted, harkens back to “the golden age of radio.”

In the first season that started in October, Serial delves into the 1999 murder of a Baltimore high-school student, Hae Min Lee, and the conviction of her ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed, a seemingly exemplary student-athlete, for first degree murder. In episode one we learn that Syed’s conviction rests almost entirely on the (inconsistent) testimony of a friend named Jay, who pled guilty to an accessory charge for helping Syed bury the body. In interviews with Koenig 14 years after his conviction, Syed maintains his innocence and emphatically defends this position pointing to the prosecution’s lack of physical evidence tying him to the murder.  As each episode peels back a layer and reveals more, your conscience is yanked between disbelief that Adnan is capable of such a crime and the realization that he may, in fact, be guilty.

While this tension drives compelling “true crime” stories, the success of Serial is equally attributable to the fact that it challenges our understanding of how the justice system works. There’s a moment in episode eight of Serial where Koenig asks a former D.C. homicide detective, Jim Trainum, why detectives seemed to dismiss the inconsistencies in Jay’s testimony. Trainum says, “You don’t want to do something if it’s going to go against your theory of the case.” He tells Koenig, who is now incredulous and wondering where the truth fits in, “Rather than trying to get to the truth, what you’re trying to do is build your case and make it the strongest case possible.”

Ignoring inconsistencies when a witness’ story jibes with law enforcement’s theory of the case is what’s known as a ‘verification bias.’ The question then becomes how much of that bias is informed by stereotypes? Syed is a Muslim-American of Pakistani descent and the prosecution’s theory invoked his religious upbringing to suggest that he was torn between two worlds, and that he could be “possessive” and “controlling.” To a jury, the narrative that emerged may have resonated with stereotypes it had about Muslim men being controlling, and tipped the scale in favor of erasing any reasonable doubt of his guilt. In episode seven, Deirdre Enright, a lawyer with the Innocence Project, echoes this concern and her team notes several pieces of evidence found at the scene of the crime that were not subjected to forensic analysis.

At Syed’s sentencing on June 6, 2000, the Baltimore Sun reported that Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Wanda K. Heard, acknowledging Syed’s charisma and popularity, said: “You used that to manipulate people. Even today, I think you continue to manipulate even those who love you.”  Serial may never confirm Judge Heard’s intuition but it does make one thing profoundly clear: our need to make sense of a senseless tragedy can cause us to manipulate facts along the way, turning the quest for justice into a mirror that, in the best case, reflects a distorted version of the truth which validates our own prejudices.

Kesav Wable

Kesav Wable is an attorney practicing in New York, as well as an accomplished actor and writer. His short film For Flow, an HBO American Black Film Finalist in 2011, was broadcast on HBO/Cinemax, and he continues to develop scripts for the stage and screen. Contact Kesav at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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