Adnan Syed formally sentenced to time served, supervised probation for 1999 killing

Listen to this article

Adnan Syed has been formally sentenced to time served and five years of supervised probation, a Baltimore judge ruled on Friday, seemingly bringing an end to a case replete with legal twists and turns made popular by the podcast series “Serial.”

Baltimore City Circuit Judge Jennifer Schiffer sentenced Syed one week after granting his request to reduce his sentence to time served under the Juvenile Restoration Act, which prohibits courts from sentencing individuals to life in prison without the possibility of parole for crimes committed when they were minors. Syed was 17 when his high school ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee was killed.

Erica Suter, counsel for Syed, asked Schiffer during Friday’s sentencing hearing to grant Syed unsupervised probation, and in the alternative, modify the probation conditions to permit Syed to travel between Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Virginia due to his work at Georgetown University’s Prisons and Justice Initiative and family obligations. Suter also requested the court waive supervision fees and court costs given Syed’s additional expenses due to his change in living conditions that are required to be compliant with his probation conditions.

Schiffer denied Syed’s request to have unsupervised probation and waive supervision fees, but waived court costs.

“I am mindful that Mr. Syed requested unsupervised probation, but given the relief that this court has already granted on these extraordinarily serious and tragic charges, I believe I’ve shown more consideration than anyone could have expected,” Schiffer said Friday.

Syed has 30 days to appeal the circuit court’s ruling and 90 days to ask the court to reduce or modify his sentence, Schiffer added.

The court held Friday’s hearing “so that there would be no question that Mr. Syed would be given his post-hearing rights, as well as a probation order recorded in the system,” Schiffer said.

A Baltimore City Circuit Court jury convicted Syed in 2000 in the 1999 killing of Hae Min Lee, who was found strangled to death and buried in a shallow grave in Baltimore’s Leakin Park one month after she went missing.

Syed, though free, remains convicted of first-degree murder and other charges, following the Maryland Supreme Court’s 4-3 ruling last year that reinstated Syed’s murder conviction and ordered a new vacatur hearing to allow the Lee family’s rights to be observed.

David Sanford, counsel for Lee’s family, said Friday’s hearing “brings to a close the long saga of Adnan Syed.”

“The family of Hae Min Lee is grateful to the Court for giving the victim’s family due respect throughout these proceedings, allowing us to fully argue to the Court the victim’s position,” Sanford said in an emailed statement. “The family is also thankful to the Maryland Supreme Court for its historic decision in this case, which grants victims particular rights previously enshrined generally in the Maryland State Constitution. As a result, victims now have the right to be heard, the right to be present, and the right to meaningfully participate in criminal justice proceedings.”

In 2021, Baltimore prosecutors reinvestigated the case at the urging of Syed’s lawyer and ultimately concluded that the evidence did not support Syed’s guilt.

In September 2022, the Baltimore State Attorney’s Office, at the time led by Marilyn Mosby, agreed to vacate Syed’s murder conviction after saying it found flaws in the original trial evidence and two handwritten notes said to reveal an alternative suspect who had reportedly said he would kill Hae Min. Prosecutors said the documents were never turned over to the defense, raising questions about the legitimacy of Syed’s conviction.

The Maryland Attorney General’s Office, then being led by Brian Frosh, raised questions about the note and said in legal filings that its meaning was open to interpretation.

The current Baltimore State’s Attorney, Ivan Bates, who publicly raised doubts about the integrity of the conviction before becoming the city’s top prosecutor, said in recent weeks that his office believes in the jury’s verdict and has no plans to continue investigating the case. Hours before Syed’s hearing on his motion to reduce his sentence, Bates withdrew Mosby’s earlier motion to vacate the conviction even as he supported a reduced sentence.

That move represented a change of heart for Bates, who in 2018 while an unsuccessful candidate for the state’s attorney’s post, said he would drop the case against Syed.