'Serial' Host Sarah Koenig Says Evidence That Freed Adnan Syed Was Long Available

etonline.com:

 podcast released Tuesday, a day after Adnan Syed walked out of court following the vacating of his murder conviction, host Sarah Koenig noted that most or all of the evidence cited in prosecutors' motion to overturn the conviction was available since 1999.«Yesterday, there was a lot of talk about fairness, but most of what the state put in that motion to vacate, all the actual evidence, was either known or knowable to cops and prosecutors back in 1999,» Koenig said in concluding the new episode. «So even on a day when the government publicly recognizes its own mistakes, it's hard to feel cheered about a triumph of fairness.

Because we've built a system that takes more than 20 years to self-correct. And that's just this one case.»She argued that the case against Syed, which was featured on the first season of  in 2014, involved «just about every chronic problem» in the system, including unreliable witness testimony and evidence that was never shared with Syed's defense team.On Monday, Circuit Court Judge Melissa Phinn in Baltimore ordered Syed's release after overturning his conviction for the 1999 murder of high school student Hae Min Lee, Syed's ex-girlfriend.

Syed was 17 at the time of Lee's slaying and has always maintained his innocence.At the behest of prosecutors who had uncovered new evidence, Phinn ordered that Syed's conviction be vacated as she approved the release of the now-41-year-old.Phinn ruled that the state violated its legal obligation to share evidence that could have bolstered Syed's defense.