Baltimore judge orders new look at ‘Serial’ evidence

BALTIMORE — A Baltimore judge has ordered new testing for evidence in the case of a Maryland man whose murder conviction was chronicled in the podcast “Serial.” Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Melissa Phinn signed an order Monday mandating that Baltimore police send evidence in the case against Adnan Syed within 15 days to a California crime lab, news outlets reported. Last week, prosecutors and Syed’s defense both signed a motion seeking a retest of some items collected as evidence in the 1999 killing of 17-year-old Hae Min Lee using DNA technology that was not available for Syed’s trials. Syed’s defense approached the state’s attorney’s office’s sentencing review unit about Syed’s case, the state’s attorney’s office said in a statement. The Office of the Attorney General oversaw the DNA analysis of evidence in Syed’s case in 2018 and none of the samples tested positive of Syed.