Man at center of 'Serial' podcast granted a new trial

Adnan Syed enters Courthouse East in Baltimore before a hearing on Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2016, in Baltimore.
Adnan Syed enters Courthouse East in Baltimore before a hearing on Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2016, in Baltimore.

BALTIMORE — After spending 16 years in prison for the killing of his former high school girlfriend, a man at the center of popular podcast Serial has a chance at freedom.

Retired Baltimore Circuit Judge Martin Welch ruled Thursday that Adnan Syed, 35, deserved a new trial because his lawyer didn't challenge testimony in the case that became the focus of the podcast, which captivated millions of listeners around the world.

Syed was convicted in 2000 of murdering Hae Min Lee a year earlier and burying her in a shallow grave in a park in northwest Baltimore. He was sentenced to life in prison.

During a post-conviction hearing in early February, Syed's attorneys argued he deserved a retrial on the grounds that his original attorney, Cristina Gutierrez, did not contact Asia McClain Chapman, an alibi witness who said she saw Syed at the Woodlawn library about the same time prosecutors say Lee was murdered. Additionally, Syed's current attorneys argued cell tower data linking Syed's phone to the burial site on the day of Lee's murder was misleading because it was presented to jurors without a cover sheet warning that incoming call data was unreliable.

In Welch's order, he disagreed that Gutierrez erred when she failed to contact Chapman,or that prosecutors breached their duty by withholding exculpatory evidence. But Welch did agree that Syed's attorney provided "ineffective assistance for the failure to cross-examine the state's cell tower expert about the reliability of cell tower location evidence" that placed him near the burial site.

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