Last Thursday, Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Jennifer B. Schiffer ruled that Adnan Syed, the onetime Woodlawn High School student charged and convicted as an adult of killing his ex-girlfriend, 18-year-old classmate Hae Min Lee on Jan. 13, 1999, will not spend any additional time in prison. The case gained national attention after it was featured in the “Serial” podcast hosted by ex-Baltimore Sun reporter Sarah Koenig in 2014, earning Syed a massive following and triggering an online debate about his guilt or innocence.

Syed, who never admitted guilt, appealed his post-conviction relief denial a year after the release of the podcast and won the argument to have his case reopened to review several issues, including ineffective counsel and prosecutorial misconduct.

Following a five-day hearing, where the courts heard from cell phone experts and a possible alibi witness, a Baltimore judge vacated the original conviction and granted Syed a new trial.

The Attorney General’s Office appealed the decision and more than two years later, the Maryland Court of Appeals reversed the lower court’s ruling denying a new trial. Syed’s lawyers then unsuccessfully appealed that ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. Two years later, however, the Maryland General Assembly passed the Juvenile Restoration Act which calls for any person convicted as a juvenile and given a life sentence who has served at least 20 years behind bars to have their sentence reconsidered by the courts for possible release.

It was this relief that Syed’s latest legal counsel chose to utilize in her efforts to get Syed released. However, instead of offering the courts the opportunity to release Syed based on these efforts, then-Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby went above and beyond by offering to vacate the sentence altogether. Those efforts came to a head in September 2022, a few months before Mosby was to turn over the office to Ivan Bates, who defeated her during the Democratic primary earlier that year.

Yet Lee’s family was not given sufficient time and opportunity to appear at the hearing. This caused them to hire an attorney to appeal the decision and that, in turn, led to Maryland’s appellate court reinstating Syed’s murder conviction returning it to the circuit court for a redo in order to have the Lee family present.

In retrospect, Mosby’s actions seem more political than prosecutorial. Here was a state’s attorney who, according to the 88-page motion later filed by Bates, argued that there were alternative suspects in this case, a pair of shoes in Lee’s car without Syed’s — or even her own — DNA attached and that this information was not provided to the defense at trial in 1999. Yet, according to Bates, that there was absolutely no proof that the shoes even belonged to Lee, let alone that there were any alternative suspects.

In fact, evidence shows the while Syed called, or paged Lee (yes, pagers were the thing back in those days), almost every day leading up to her death, he mysteriously never called her the day she went missing — or any day following her disappearance. During the campaign, Bates had pledged to work toward Syed’s freedom if elected. But after winning the race (and given the full file to review), he recognized his duty wasn’t to re-litigate the 1999 trial, but to ensure that the process taken by Mosby was done in a legally ethical manner.

And that’s where the importance of the JRA comes in. Bates was willing to expedite Syed’s freedom by arguing in favor of his release through the new law — just as Syed’s attorney had sought. And that is what convinced Judge Schiffer to take action to release Syed but leave the murder conviction intact.

As we celebrate Women’s History Month, and are less than a month away from the annual National Crime Victims’ Rights Week, let us remember that this entire saga was never about Adnan Syed, the Serial podcast or even Mosby. Rather, it was, and shall always remain about finding justice for the person who murdered Hae Min Lee.

Thanks to Ivan Bates, both for his apology to the Lee family and the legal work done by his administration. Hopefully, we can finally put this case behind us with some confidence that the criminal justice system got this one right, if belatedly. As it happens, the theme of this year’s crime victims’ week is about connecting kinship in order to properly heal. Now, more than ever, our country needs as much healing as possible.