ANNAPOLIS, Md. — The Hae Min Lee murder case is back in court Thursday, less than four months after prosecutors dropped the case against Adnan Syed and released him from prison.
Hae Min Lee's brother Young Lee is asking to reverse the vacated conviction by appealing that decision in court today.
Young Lee believes the Baltimore state's attorney and circuit court violated his family's rights as crime victims and his attorneys are citing a court precedent to make their case.
They believe the 2020 case of Antoine vs. Maryland supports their argument, and they want a redo of the hearing that led to Adnan Syed's release from prison.
Attorneys stated in their legal brief that the court's decision on Antoine gave victims the right to appeal in that if a victim's rights are violated, the court can provide a remedy that still respects the constitutional rights of the defendant.
Attorneys also said in order to correct the violations of the victim's rights the court allows the victim to be placed in the same spot they had before the violations happened.
Adnan Syed was sentenced in the year 2000 to life in prison plus 30 years for the killing of his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee.
He served more than 20 years behind bars but as of October 11, 2022, Syed was a free man, when former Baltimore city state’s attorney Marilyn Mosby announced she was dropping the charges.
Young Lee's attorneys said that until a court order requesting a transcript of that October 11th hearing, young lee had no idea there even was a hearing that day.
His attorneys claim neither the prosecutor nor the court notified him, allowed him to attend, or provided an opportunity for him to see the evidence that supported the court's decision.
Law professor Doug Colbert represented Syed in his original bail hearing in 1999, shared his thoughts about this case.
“It's quite extraordinary to have a crime victim be able to appeal a prosecutor's discretion to vacate a conviction because it was unjust and wrongful. I think the fact that the attorney general has taken a position largely influenced the appeals court to schedule arguments on it,” Colbert said.
The hearing starts at 9:30 Thursday morning at the Maryland Court of Appeals in Annapolis.
