Baltimore State’s Attorney Ivan Bates is abandoning a motion to throw out the conviction of Adnan Syed, the subject of the podcast “Serial,” whose case in 2014 received worldwide attention.

Bates outlined his decision in an 88-page memo filed late Tuesday ahead of a pivotal hearing in the case. With the move, Bates breaks from the previous administration of State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, whose office asked a judge to toss Syed’s conviction.

In a statement, Bates alleged that motion contained “false and misleading statements that undermine the integrity of the judicial process.”

Prosecutors, he said, have a duty to “seek justice and ensure that all legal proceedings are conducted transparently, accurately, and fairly.”

Bates said his office could neither “adopt the falsehoods and misleading statements” nor “fail to bring them to the Court’s attention.”

“I did not make this decision lightly, but it is necessary to preserve the credibility of our office and maintain public trust in the justice system,” Bates said. “My administration remains fully committed to reviewing cases where wrongful convictions or miscarriages of justice may have occurred. However, we will do so with the highest standards of integrity and a commitment to truth.”

Assistant Public Defender Erica Suter, Syed’s attorney and director of the Innocence Project Clinic at the University of Baltimore School of Law, said the courts three times have vacated her client’s conviction only for him to see “his freedom taken away for a crime he didn’t commit.”

“Tonight, the state’s attorney got it wrong,” Suter said in a statement. “His decision to withdraw his office’s motion to vacate Adnan’s conviction ignores the injustices on which this conviction was founded.”

Suter said they will “continue to fight to clear his name through all legal avenues available to him.”

Syed, now 43, is scheduled to appear Wednesday in Baltimore Circuit Court on a motion for reduction of sentence under the Juvenile Restoration Act. The law allows people who have served at least 20 years in prison for crimes they committed as children to get back into court and show that they’ve changed.

Bates supports the request to resentence Syed to time served and probation.

If Circuit Judge Jennifer B. Schiffer grants the motion, Syed will not have to return to prison. But his convictions for first-degree murder, robbery, kidnapping and false imprisonment will remain in place in the killing of Hae Min Lee, his ex-girlfriend and classmate at Woodlawn High School.

Her body was found on Feb. 9, 1999, in Leakin Park in Baltimore. She was 18.

In 2000, Syed was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years.

At the time of the killing, Syed was 17. He has always maintained his innocence.

The Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office in 2022 filed a motion to throw out Syed’s conviction after reporting that an almost one-year investigation revealed prosecutors had failed to disclose exculpatory evidence and turned up information about two possible alternative suspects.

But in his memo, Bates argues that two handwritten notes in the file do not point to alternative suspects. He also contends that those documents were likely turned over to the defense.

In one note, former Assistant State’s Attorney Kevin Urick, one of the trial prosecutors, scribbled, “He told her that he would make her disappear; he would kill her.”

The motion to vacate the conviction asserted that “he” referred to one of the possible alternative suspects. Urick was not asked about the note beforehand and maintains that “he” refers to Syed.

Bates said Urick’s recollection is the “best available evidence.”

Later, Bates discusses the two men who were put forward as possible alternative suspects and states that he is not convinced that any further investigation would yield more information to suggest that they were involved in the killing.

Prosecutors in the prior administration, he claims, were biased and determined to either conclude that Syed was innocent or at a minimum wrongfully convicted.

Circuit Judge Melissa M. Phinn set a hearing and later denied a request from Young Lee, Hae Min Lee’s brother, to delay the court proceedings for one week so he could attend in-person.

Instead, Phinn allowed him to make a statement over Zoom.

Phinn then granted the motion and ordered Syed to be immediately released from prison. He walked out of the Elijah E. Cummings Courthouse that afternoon and has remained free since that time.

“At this time, we will remove the shackles from Mr. Syed, please,” Phinn ordered.

Young Lee moved to appeal and asked the courts to put the case on hold. That’s when Mosby dropped the charges, citing the results of new DNA testing.

The Appellate Court of Maryland, the state’s mid-level appeals court, ruled 2-1 in 2023 that Young Lee’s rights were violated and moved to reinstate Syed’s conviction.

In 2024, the Maryland Supreme Court upheld that ruling in a 4-3 decision and ordered a new hearing before a different judge. The state’s highest court allowed Syed in the meantime to remain free.

Bates had until Friday to indicate how his office intended to proceed.

Meanwhile, Syed’s legal team filed the motion for reduction of sentence to ensure that their client would not have to return to prison.

For several days, Bates has teased his decision in posts on social media — some of which have since been deleted.

When he first ran for state’s attorney in 2018, Bates told Rolling Stone that, if elected, he would drop the charges against Syed.

Bates also 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. “And to me, this is a perfect example of, ‘They just got it wrong.’ ”

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

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

Heard was the first woman to serve as chief judge of Baltimore Circuit Court.

And in recent months, Bates has tempered some of his previous comments and stated that they were made based on a snapshot of the evidence.

The state’s attorney’s office, he said, is “no longer actively investigating this case.”

Said Bates: “We hope that our decision to withdraw this motion will achieve finality for the Lee family and allow all parties, including Mr. Syed himself, to find closure and some measure of peace.”