Young Lee received three days’ notice about a hearing to determine whether the man who was found guilty of murdering his sister would go free.
For more than 20 years, prosecutors maintained that the person responsible for killing his sister, Hae Min Lee, was Adnan Syed, the subject of the hit podcast “Serial.”
But Baltimore Circuit Judge Melissa M. Phinn denied Young Lee’s request for a one-week postponement so he could fly almost 3,000 miles from California to Maryland to attend the hearing. She instead gave him 30 minutes to get home from work to make a statement over Zoom. And she did not allow his attorney at the time, Steve Kelly, to speak afterward.
In a 4-3 decision, the Maryland Supreme Court ruled that Young Lee’s rights to receive reasonable notice, attend the hearing in-person and meaningfully speak during the proceedings were violated and reinstated Syed’s conviction. The justices ordered a redo of the hearing — with a new judge.
The ruling, some crime victims’ rights advocates say, sends a message.
“I think this was a wake-up call to a lot of folks: There is a victims’ bill of rights in Maryland, and there are consequences when you don’t follow it,” said Renée Williams, executive director of the National Center for Victims of Crime, a nonprofit organization based in Landover that advocates for victims’ rights, provides training and serves as a source of information.
In one dissenting opinion, Justice Brynja M. Booth wrote that while she believed the appeal was moot, the majority created a new constitutional right to be heard and acted as a super-legislature.
“The Majority may have good public policy reasons for wanting victims to be heard at these proceedings, but with all due respect, those policy decisions are not ours to make,” Booth wrote.
Syed, 43, of Baltimore County, is allowed to remain free pending the new hearing.
In a statement, James Bentley, a spokesperson for the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office, said prosecutors will “continue to thoroughly review the matter.”
Syed’s attorney, Assistant Public Defender Erica Suter, director of the Innocence Project Clinic at the University of Baltimore School of Law, said in a statement that they “appreciate the tremendous amount of support we have received over the past few days.”
“We will move forward in this process to ensure Adnan is exonerated and his continued freedom secured,” Suter said.
Meanwhile, David Sanford, the chairman of Sanford Heisler Sharp LLP who represents the family of Hae Min Lee, said he hopes that the new hearing is held before the end of the year.
Sanford said the case could potentially serve as a roadmap for other states to enhance victims’ rights.
Kurt Wolfgang, executive director of the Maryland Crime Victims’ Resource Center Inc. in Upper Marlboro, called the decision “probably the most important case for crime victims in recent history.” The center submitted a friend-of-the-court brief in the case.
Since voters passed a constitutional amendment in 1994 that mandates that victims be treated with dignity, respect and sensitivity in Maryland, Wolfgang said, there’s been discussions about whether that language is simply aspirational.
“It’s no longer a promise on paper,” Wolfgang said. “They have given life to the promise. And they did an excellent job of doing that in this case.”
He cited several ways that the decision is significant.
First, Wolfgang said, victims are allowed to speak at hearings on motions to vacate a conviction after the assistant state’s attorney and defense attorney. They’re also permitted to address whether the request is legally correct and point out any flaws in the evidence.
Plus, if a victim has an attorney, counsel must be given the opportunity to speak, Wolfgang said.
The justices, he said, held that unless voters pass a new constitutional amendment, victims’ rights that were previously established cannot be diminished.
The ruling recognizes the significance and fundamental nature of victims’ rights in the criminal justice system in Maryland, said Russell Butler, an adjunct professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law who teaches a course called “Rights of Crime Victims.”
The court, he said, also showed that it’s not a “zero-sum game.”
Butler previously served as executive director of the Maryland Crime Victims’ Resource Center Inc. and wrote a friend-of-the-court brief in the case for the National Crime Victim Law Institute, a nonprofit legal education and advocacy organization that’s based at the Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon.
Judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys, he said, cannot just ignore that victims have enforceable legal rights. And if that happens, courts — with some limitations — can remedy those violations, Butler said.
“If you do things right the first way, you don’t have to go back and correct them,” Butler said. “No rush to justice. Justice for all.”
