Nearly 16 years after being convicted of the murder of Hae Min Lee, Adnan Syed will be back in court next week. As Newsweek reports, the Maryland Judiciary has scheduled Syed's post-conviction hearing for February 3-5. This comes months after attorney C. Justin Brown successfully argued that the case should be reviewed in light of significant new evidence that surfaced in the last year.
When WNYC's Serial podcast became a massive hit, the details of the case (which many believe was greatly mishandled in 1999) came under new scrutiny. A cell phone record which had been used as evidence against Syed was revealed to have been misread. And Asia McClain (his alibi, who had not been brought in for testimony) came forward with a damning new statement. All this was deemed significant enough for the case to be reexamined. The new hearing will be overseen by Judge Martin P. Welch.