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'The Case Against Adnan Syed': Court denies new trial for murder convict as documentary explores possibility of overlooked clues

Adnan was convicted in 2000 for murdering his former girlfriend, 17-year-old Hae Min Lee, and burying her body in a park in Baltimore.

Nearly a year after murder convict Adnan Syed was granted a new trial following his stardom through the hit journalism podcast 'Serial' — which chronicled his story and the loose ends resulting in his incarceration — the decision has been reversed. Maryland’s highest court on Friday denied a fresh trial to Adnan after his original trial 20 years ago. The court of appeals agreed with a lower court in a 4-3 opinion that Adnan's counsel was deficient in failing to investigate an alibi witness. However, it disagreed that the deficiency prejudiced Adnan's case. 

Adnan was convicted in 2000 for murdering his former girlfriend, 17-year-old Hae Min Lee, and burying her body in a park in Baltimore. The 2014 podcast, however, made Adnan an international phenomenon, when it delved into the case extensively, highlighting lingering questions and new witnesses and prompted calls of a fresh trial with the emergence of an alibi. 

A lower court in Baltimore had ordered a retrial in 2016 on the grounds that Adnan's former attorney — Cristina Gutierrez who died in 2004 — did not contact an alibi witness and provided ineffective counsel. The state subsequently appealed. However, the special appeals court upheld the lower court's ruling in 2017, and the state later appealed the decision again.