CNN
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Lawyers representing the brother of Hae Min Lee, the teenager whose 1999 murder was investigated on the hit ‘Serial’ podcast, have requested a rerun of the hearing in which a judge overturned Adnan Syed’s murder conviction.
Syed had been charged with killing the teenager and had served more than 20 years in prison before his release in September. The judge’s decision to overturn the conviction came nearly eight years after the podcast dug into the case and raised questions about Syed’s conviction and legal representation.
Court documents filed Friday in the Maryland Special Court of Appeals allege that prosecutors and the circuit court (where the conviction was overturned) violated the rights of Young Lee, the victim’s brother.
The documents allege the court failed to give the brother adequate notice of the hearing, withhold evidence from the family and fail to give him a proper chance to be heard in the proceedings.
They demand that Young Lee be given the opportunity to challenge prosecutors’ evidence and witnesses and be able to call his own.
“Mr. Lee of course does not want to see a wrongfully convicted man imprisoned, but it does no one justice for the court to make such crucial decisions without the facts,” said Steve Kelly, the attorney representing the Lee family. , to CNN in a statement.
The filings come after Lee’s family appealed the judge’s decision to overturn the conviction and a Maryland special appeals court earlier this year ruled the appeal could go ahead and will be heard. in February.
Following court documents filed on Friday, a lawyer for Syed said, “Justice for Hae Min Lee means finding the real killer, not adding to the harm suffered by Adnan Syed and his family.”
Attorney Erica Suter disagreed with the nature of the appeal regarding proper notice of the hearings and said Lee’s family was properly notified.
“The closure they seek is not found in the incarceration of an innocent man,” Suter said in a statement to CNN.
