Elected in 2014, Mosby was one of the first officials to run on a platform of de-prosecution, decarceration, and demonizing the police. The results were predictable. Homicides in Baltimore rose above 300 murders per year for every year Mosby was in office, a brutally high number for a midsize city; this year may set a new record. Citizens have fled, with Baltimore’s population dropping by 35,000 people from 2010 to 2020. Now, Mosby is under federal indictment for perjury and submitting false statements in an alleged attempt to swindle the federal government for Covid-19 relief funds to buy a vacation home in Florida. It’s little wonder that Baltimoreans finally voted her out of office in the 2022 Democratic primary, nominating instead a prosecutor who promises to try to restore order.

With the city reeling and her reputation in tatters, the safest exit strategy for Mosby would have been to wind down her role quietly, hoping that nobody noticed as she skulked off to face her federal charges. Instead, Mosby is reinforcing her de-prosecution credentials, executing on a plan to free Adnan Syed, convicted of killing a teenage girl.

In 2000, a jury convicted Syed of murdering his ex-girlfriend, 18-year-old high-school student Hae Min Lee. Lee was strangled and found buried in a park, a classic domestic violence scenario. Syed had shown Lee’s body to a friend—who testified at trial—and then enlisted the friend to help dispose of the body. Cell-phone tower evidence corroborated that Syed was in the park when the victim was buried. As with every case, evidence can be attacked, whether challenging the accuracy of the cell-phone location information or challenging the friend’s testimony. Working through disputed issues of fact, the jury convicted Syed of first-degree murder, and he was sentenced to life plus 30 years in prison.