The New Trial For Adnan Syed From Serial Was Shot Down By Maryland's Highest Court
KFYRTV- Maryland’s highest court has denied a new trial for a man whose murder conviction was chronicled in the hit podcast “Serial.” In an opinion Friday, the Court of Appeals agreed with a lower court that Adnan Syed’s legal counsel was deficient in failing to investigate an alibi witness, but it disagreed that the deficiency prejudiced the case. The court says Syed waived his ineffective counsel claim.
The court reversed the Court of Special Appeals’ judgment, sending it back to that court with directions to reverse the Baltimore Circuit Court judgment granting a new trial.
The saga of Adnan Syed’s retrial in gif form for those following at home:
Current Adnan Syed Retrial Status: Snap
Yup, this definitely feels like the NFL v. Zeke Elliott case all over again. In my mind, Adnan Syed has had no less than 1000 retrials since he became a household name while actually having 0 in real life. When Serial came out and took the world by storm, podcasts were still something that were scoffed at by internet moguls. Now all these years later it is a boom industry worth roughly a kabillion dollars that is being cashed in on by smart people (everyone else) and dumb people (us) alike. Meanwhile, the guy partially responsible for that boom continues to sit in jail, unable to get in front of a judge to secure his freedom and a shitload of cash to tell his side of the story on his own podcast sponsored by Mail Kiiimp?
Don’t get me wrong though, I’m not trying to make the case for Adnan Syed. I was Team #FreeAdnan while listening to Serial (which also feels like the first hashtag ever to trend on Twitter) then backed off a bit after hearing everyone’s likely very correct theory that Adnan AND Jay probably had something to do with it. But seeing the trailer for HBO’s upcoming documentary officially got me off the Adnan Train because I realized it’s a lot easier to sympathize with the alleged killer when you don’t see pictures of the victim or the crime scene.
On the bright side for Adnan, if a podcast’s popularity in 2014 can spark enough support for a possible retrial, a murder-mystery series on HBO in 2019 may get you an actual Get Out Of Jail Free card.