Judge in Baltimore has overturned the murder conviction of Adnan
Syed, who was convicted in the 1999 murder of his high school classmate
Heyman Lee. It's a case that has received national attention in recent
years after science story was chronicled by the popular True crime
Podcast Serial Lisa Desjardin has more
Judy after 23 years in prison, Adnan Syed was released yesterday
with a cheering crowd of supporters to greet him. A judge vacated
his sentence after prosecutors said last week that his conviction
should not stand. The state's attorney for Baltimore says the original
prosecutors did not turn over evidence that could have helped said
that includes problems with past evidence about, say its location
and information on other possible suspects. Review
The investigation revealed that the original prosecutors and the
subsequent prosecutors in the attorney general's office failed to
disclose relevant information about alternative suspects, one of
whom threatened to kill the victim.
And had motive to kill the victim and both of whom had a pattern
of violence against women. She and other prosecutors now have a month
to decide if they will retry said. I'm joined now by his attorney,
Ericka Souter. She also serves as the director of the Innocence Project
Clinic at the University of Baltimore Baltimore School of Law, Erica.
This is quite a sudden turn in this nationally known case, but questions
about this case has been raised for years. Why do you think it took
so long to get here? And I think
Well, first. Thank you so much for having me. Um anybody who works
in the innocent space and for many criminal defense attorneys, reversing
a wrongful conviction can take
Years, sometimes decades. And so for the public, though it seems
like this is unusual case would take that long. It's actually sort
of consistent with our experience in these kinds of cases. One of
the issues here are so called Brady violations when prosecutors don't
tell the defense about evidence in this case about two other potential
suspects and information they had about them.
How critical is that information here and generally
It's absolutely critical. The prosecution has an obligation to turn
over Brady in the Brady evidence. So Brady evidence is evidence that
could be exculpatory, meaning evidence you didn't do it. Or it could
be mitigated, impeaching, meaning evidence that could challenge um,
another witness's testimony, and it's important because we should
have a fair system adjust system and when the state is hiding evidence
that you should be able to use to defend yourself. The result is
what we have.
Um, in advance case where somebody could spend years or decades in
prison for a crime they did not commit. And this was evidence that
none of his previous lawyers knew about. Is that right? How did when
did you first learn about this?
Well, this state and I in this case, we're working collaboratively
in this investigation and the uh, the assistant state's attorney
back Feldman reviewed the state's file. There were numerous boxes
and she turned over this information to the defense as she should.
And it was during that time that we came across these documents.
For the family of the victim, Heyman Lee. Of course, this has been
a nightmare as well.
Here is the attorney speaking yesterday and saying that prosecutors
really didn't give them any warning. This was coming. They absolutely
did not want to afford this victim. Any meaningful opportunity to
address this motion my clients. All they wanted was information.
They want the truth to come out. If the truth is that someone else
killed their sister daughter
They want to know that more than anybody. Maryland's attorney general
who previously worked on this case, said that no one called him or
other prosecutors who worked on it before. And my question to you
is what you think of this criticism both from the victim's family
and from other former prosecutors at the state's attorney's office
didn't reach out really didn't talk to them about why they did what
they did.
Well, first, I could say, um, on behalf of my client and of course,
just as a human being enormous sympathy and compassion for what victims
family is going through and as far as what the state did or shouldn't
do, you know our system is set up as an adversarial system, and there
are obligations of the state and there are obligations of the defense,
their rules and regulations about sort of what our different roles
are and so
We, uh in terms of being able to have contact with the victims in
terms of being of giving notice to other prosecutors offices those
all fall with them within sort of what the state's duties and obligations
are and so that I would just sort of refer to the state. This is
your client, But there's also your field of expertise. You know,
you mentioned Brady violations. How rare is this kind of change?
And how rare are those violations?
So they're actually not rare at all. Um, in 44% of exonerations throughout
the nation, um 44% are the result of the state withholding evidence
in a sense, um, so nearly half of all exonerations throughout the
country that are in our in our registry of exonerations involved.
Somebody involved the state keeping evidence of innocence from the
defendant and Baltimore in particular 80% of exonerations on record
involved.
Withheld evidence.
So it is extraordinarily common, and it shows how sort of important
it is that the that the state
Follow their obligations, because when they don't you have cases
like a non science. How's your client doing today? And he has not
been declared innocent yet. I should say.
How are you both doing and what happens now?
So one side has been incarcerated since he was 17 years old. When
you think about 23 years of life and how how much of a different
position we're all in, then from 23 years ago. Just imagine that
he is processing that, you know, sort of minute by minute. He is
extraordinarily grateful to
All of his reporters, all the people who believed in him, Um he's
very happy, but this is a lot to process and so he's doing well,
but he's really just kind of taking it. Step by step. Are you concerned
that he could be retried? I think in the moment um this was a long
fought battle a long time coming, and so we're really focused on
The joy of this of this occasion, and you know what the state decides
in the future to do is a decision for another day, But whatever they
decide to do will be prepared. Ericka Souter a momentous day for
you and your client, Thank you for joining us.