Adnan Syed, the prisoner made famous by Serial, is getting another day in court. Syed’s second appeal will be heard by the Maryland Court Of Special Appeals in January in what his lawyer calls his “last best chance at freedom.”


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.”