As a candidate for Baltimore state’s attorney in 2018, Ivan Bates vowed that if he was elected, he would drop the charges against Adnan Syed.

But in an about-face, Bates, a Democrat who lost that race but took office in 2023 after a second campaign, announced last week that he was withdrawing a motion to vacate Syed’s conviction. His predecessor, Marilyn Mosby, filed the request and then dropped the charges.

So what changed?

In an interview Monday, Bates said his office reviewed the actions of the previous administration and determined that he could not legally move forward. He said he does not regret his past comments, made when he was a defense attorney in private practice.

“We had no new information,” Bates said. “We had nothing we could have put before the court.”

Syed, now 43, was found guilty in 2000 in Baltimore Circuit Court of first-degree murder, robbery, kidnapping and false imprisonment in the killing of Hae Min Lee, his ex-girlfriend and classmate at Woodlawn High School. She was 18.

At the time of the killing, Syed was 17. From the beginning, he has maintained his innocence.

He’s been free since 2022. But the Maryland Supreme Court in 2024 ruled 4-3 to reinstate his conviction.

Baltimore Circuit Judge Jennifer B. Schiffer is considering a motion to reduce his sentence under the Juvenile Restoration Act, which enables people who’ve served at least 20 years in prison for crimes they committed as children to get back into court.

If Schiffer grants the motion and resentences Syed to time served, he will not have to return to prison. Bates supports that request.

The case received international attention in 2014 after the release of the podcast “Serial,” which led to a true-crime phenomenon.

More than one month after the state’s highest court reinstated Syed’s conviction, the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office received the 26-box file.

Bates said his office reviewed the actions of the previous administration — it did not conduct a new investigation — to decide whether to move forward on the motion to vacate.

Under Maryland law, Bates said, prosecutors must have newly discovered evidence or information to ask a judge to throw out a conviction.

The motion to vacate, he said, centered on the idea that prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence about two possible alternative suspects.

In an 88-page memo, Bates outlined his view about why that premise did not hold up. He wrote that the motion to vacate contained “false and misleading statements.”

“Based on the whole reason they filed their motion to vacate, we have absolutely nothing we can proceed on,” Bates said.

When reached on the phone, Mosby hung up.

During his first campaign in 2018, Bates told Rolling Stone that if he was elected, he’d drop the charges against Syed.

“The two pieces of evidence that the case relied on have been shown to not be reliable in any way, shape or form,” he told the magazine. “There’s not enough information to proceed.”

The star witness in the case, Jay Wilds, who testified that he helped bury the body in Leakin Park, was “absolutely terrible,” Bates said.

In his concession speech after losing the Democratic primary, Bates said to cheers, “Stop the prosecution of Adnan Syed.”

Bates also participated in an HBO documentary series that came out in 2019, “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 documentary. “And to me, this is a perfect example of, ‘They just got it wrong.’”

In recent weeks, Bates softened some of his past remarks and stated that he made them based on a snapshot of the evidence.

Bates is close with retired Baltimore Circuit Judge Wanda Keyes Heard, who supported his candidacy and presided over Syed’s second trial. She submitted an affidavit in which she wrote that the verdict was “supported by substantial direct and circumstantial evidence.”

Bates acknowledged that he didn’t have to weigh in on the case, but said there have been several twists and turns over time.

Sometimes, he said, “you have to be able to adjust the vision.”

“As a private citizen, I voiced my opinion,” Bates said. “I voiced an opinion that I felt was correct.”

When people become more knowledgeable about a subject, Bates said, they can change their view. He brought up examples in American history including shifting attitudes on interracial and same-sex marriage, the war on drugs and mass incarceration.

At the same time, Bates said, he’s not stating that Syed is guilty of the crime.

If the case were presented to him today, Bates said, he believes there is probable cause to file charges. A jury, he said, determines whether there is enough evidence to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.

Speaking at a news conference after the recent hearing, Bates said he has “full faith in the case that was presented to the jury.”

In a statement, Assistant Public Defender Erica Suter, Syed’s attorney, said Bates “got it wrong.”

“His decision to withdraw his office’s motion to vacate Adnan’s conviction ignores the injustices on which this conviction was founded,” Suter said. “We will continue to fight to clear his name through all legal avenues available to him.”

Suter is director of the Innocence Project Clinic at the University of Baltimore School of Law.

But David Sanford, the Lee family’s attorney, has called the move “one of most extraordinary moments in Maryland’s criminal justice history.”

“The State finally acknowledged what we had always suspected: there never was any new information that called into question the integrity of Adnan Syed’s conviction of pre-meditated murder, kidnapping and robbery,” Sanford said in a statement. “Without any genuine factual or statutory basis, the State encouraged the Court to release Adnan Syed from prison under false pretenses.”

“We now know that Mr. Syed should never have been released at that time,” he added.

If the defense approaches him with new information, Bates said, he’s willing to listen it.

Since he’s made his decision, Bates said, some people are unhappy. Meanwhile, others are pleased, he said.

As state’s attorney, Bates said, his focus is on remembering the victim.