Serial’s Adnan Syed is getting another day in court

Interestingly, Syed was granted the appeal in September, before Serial began airing. Syed’s lawyer, C. Justin Brown, asked for a new hearing based on the idea that Syed’s first two lawyers didn’t do their due diligence, leaving potential alibi witnesses unquestioned and failing to argue effectively for Syed’s innocence.

Syed has been appealing his case for about five years now but has, understandably, drawn more sympathetic ears and eyes to his case in the past few months. That attention could have contributed to Syed’s new and expedited hearing, but Brown told ABC that “the appellate courts make their decisions based on the merits of the case, and not the popularity of a podcast.”