Fighting for Justice

After seven years of tireless advocacy, Rabia Chaudry, '00, has won justice for a family friend who was wrongfully convicted of the murder of a former girlfriend in 2000.

Adnan Syed’s conviction drew national attention after Chaudry took his case to Serial, an NPR podcast. In 2015, she and two other lawyers started their own podcast, Undisclosed, which looks at possible wrongful conviction cases, including that of Syed. She also wrote a best-selling New York Times book, which was made into an HBO documentary, The Case against Adnan Syed.

On September 19, a Baltimore City Circuit Court judge vacated Syed’s conviction, finding, according to the New York Times, “that prosecutors had failed to turn over evidence that could have helped Mr. Syed at trial and discovered new evidence that could have affected the outcome of his case.”

Chaudry talked about her work as a civil rights lawyer in a 2019 interview with George Mason’s Mariam Aburdeineh. “What I want people to take away is that you don’t know unless you’re in somebody’s shoes, so walk that mile, give people a chance,” she said. “I feel that’s the case whether you talk about different religious communities, ethnic communities, social classes—everything is so polarized right now, and I’m hoping that my work helps to counter a little bit of it.”  

Chaudry’s new podcast, “Rabia and Ellyn Solve the Case,” debuts this fall (@rabiaandellyn) with Ellyn Marsh.

Update: On October 11, 2022, prosecutors dropped charges against Syed, well within the one-month period they were given to decide whether to proceed with a new trial or drop the charges.