'Serial' case: Adnan Syed to be released, conviction tossed

A Baltimore judge on Monday ordered the release of Adnan Syed after overturning Syed's conviction for the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee — a case that was chronicled in the hit podcast "Serial."

At the behest of prosecutors, Circuit Court Judge Melissa Phinn ordered that Syed's conviction be vacated as she approved the release of the now-41-year-old who has spent more than two decades behind bars.

Phinn ruled that the state violated its legal obligation to share exculpatory evidence with Syed's defense. She ordered Syed to be placed on home detention with GPS location monitoring. She also said the state must decide whether to seek a new trial date or dismiss the case within 30 days.

Syed, who has always maintained his innocence, received widespread attention in 2014 when the debut season of "Serial" focused on Lee's killing and raised doubts about some of the evidence prosecutors had used, inspiring countless dinner table debates about Syed's innocence or guilt.

Syed was serving a life sentence after he was convicted of strangling 18-year-old Lee, whose body was found buried in a Baltimore park.

The investigation "revealed undisclosed and newly-developed information regarding two alternative suspects, as well as unreliable cell phone tower data," State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby's office said in a news release last week. The suspects were known persons at the time of the original investigation, but weren't properly ruled out nor disclosed to the defense, said prosecutors, who declined to release information about the suspects, due to the ongoing investigation.

Prosecutors said they weren't asserting that Syed is innocent, but they lacked confidence "in the integrity of the conviction" and recommended he be released on his own recognizance or bail. The state's attorney's office had said if the motion were granted it would effectively put Syed in a new trial status, vacating his convictions, while the case remained active.