Baltimore State’s Attorney Ivan Bates is supporting a request from Adnan Syed to be resentenced to no additional time, a decision that could ensure that he never returns to prison.

“I don’t believe in warehousing individuals,” Bates said in an interview. “I believe in second chances.”

Syed, he said, is not a risk to public safety. He has a supportive family. And he’s been out for more than two years and working at the Georgetown University Prisons and Justice Initiative, Bates said.

“To me, that speaks volumes,” he said. “I think this is exactly what the legislature intended for these types of individuals.”

Prosecutors revealed their position on the request on Sunday in court documents. They’ve asked a judge to schedule a hearing on Feb. 25 or Feb. 26.

Bates said he has not yet decided whether his office will continue to move forward on a motion to throw out Syed’s conviction.

The Baltimore Sun first reported on the development.

Syed, 43, was found guilty in 2000 in Baltimore Circuit Court of first-degree murder, robbery, kidnapping and false imprisonment and sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years in the killing of Hae Min Lee, his ex-girlfriend and classmate at Woodlawn High School. He maintains his innocence.

At the time of the killing, Syed was 17. His case received worldwide attention in 2014 with the release of the podcast “Serial.”

In 2022, Baltimore Circuit Judge Melissa M. Phinn granted a motion to throw out Syed’s conviction and ordered him immediately released from prison. Since that ruling, he’s remained free.

Steve Kelly, an attorney who previously represented Young Lee, Hae Min Lee’s brother, moved to appeal that decision and asked the courts to put the case on hold. But the Baltimore state’s attorney at the time, Marilyn Mosby, then dropped the charges.

The Appellate Court of Maryland, the state’s mid-level appeals court, ruled 2-1 that Young Lee’s rights were violated and moved to reinstate Syed’s conviction. The Maryland Supreme Court upheld that decision and ordered a new hearing in front of a different judge.

Baltimore Circuit Judge Jennifer B. Schiffer is now assigned to the case. She gave the state’s attorney until Feb. 28 to file anything additional.

Meanwhile, Syed’s attorneys, Assistant Public Defenders Erica Suter and Brian Zavin, filed a motion for reduction of sentence under the Juvenile Restoration Act, a law that allows people who’ve served at least 20 years in prison for crimes they committed as children to get back into court and show that they’ve changed.

Suter is director of the Innocence Project Clinic at the University of Baltimore School of Law. Zavin is chief attorney of the Maryland Office of the Public Defender’s Appellate Division.

The motion for reduction of sentence is a “small step” to ensuring that their client remains free, Suter said.

“We believe the Court will see that Adnan’s remarkable accomplishments and good conduct, both during his incarceration and since release, support a sentence reduction,” Suter in a statement. “If granted, we can turn our focus back to vacating his unjust conviction, again.”

When he first ran for state’s attorney in 2018, Bates said, if elected, he would drop the charges. He even appeared in the HBO documentary series, “The Case Against Adnan Syed.”

“Justice has to mean that we get it right. And if we get it wrong, we hurry up, and fix it,” Bates said in the series. “And to me, this is a perfect example of, ‘They just got it wrong.’”

Bates said he made comments on the campaign trail based on a snapshot of the evidence, adding that he has an ethical duty to review the entire file. He said his office did not receive it from the Maryland Office of the Attorney General until last fall.

Under Maryland law, Bates said, he can’t proceed on a motion to vacate a conviction unless there’s newly discovered evidence that creates a substantial possibility that the outcome would have been different.

He said he does not have a timeline for when he will reach a decision.

In a statement, David Sanford, chairman of Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight LLP and an attorney for the family of Hae Min Lee, described the motion for reduction of sentence as premature.

The judge, he said, first needs to decide whether there’s any new or compelling evidence that casts doubt on the integrity of the conviction.

“Currently Mr. Syed remains a convicted murderer,” Sanford said, “and nothing the State or Mr. Syed has ever presented calls that fact into question.”