Not to imply that the courts of the United States don’t know what they’re doing, but the series of snafus regarding the life of Adnan Syed makes Trial and Error seem like a documentary. The Serial subject’s conviction has been reinstated by a Maryland appellate-court panel, which found a lower court in violation of a law requiring the victim’s family to have the right to attend any “critical hearing†in the case, according to the Washington Post. The court ruled that Young Lee, the brother of Hae Min Lee, whom Syed had been convicted of murdering, was not given proper notice of the trial, as the Baltimore prosecutors gave him less than one business day’s notice prior to the beginning of the trial.
Syed was released on September 19 after 23 years in prison as a result of issues with how the prosecutors handed over evidence to the defense during his original trial. Prosecutors dropped charges against him on October 11. At the time, Vulture wrote, “Messy as it was, we finally have an ending to Serial’s first season.†The panel did allow 60 days for the “mandate†of its decision in order for both parties to have “time to assess how to proceed in response to this Court’s decision.†Syed will have a new hearing, but he will not be taken back to prison, according to NPR. So how long will the first season of Serial actually last? Until he finally gets a proper hearing — but, honestly, we won’t trust that that’s happened for at least another 23 years.