FWIW, I haven’t seen this linked in the thread, but from the Baltimore Sun, here’s a copy of the State of Maryland’s, Consolidated Response in Opposition to Petitioner’s Motion and Supplement to Reopen Post-Conviction Proceedings. Basically, it’s the State’s motion saying his conviction shouldn’t be revisited. It has a nice restatement of the facts of the case, which had a few things I hadn’t seen mentioned elsewhere, like that Wilds dealt drugs, and a listing of witnesses relating what Syed had said on and before the alleged day of the murder.
Worth your time I think if you’re interested in the case.
My (cite-free) guess is that Republicans as a whole are at least marginally more likely than Democrats to think anyone who’s been convicted of any crime is guilty.
I don’t know that he’s guilty or not guilty, I just know that I don’t trust a word that’s come out of Jay’s mouth because his story changed over, and over, and over again, and the prosecution’s case was built on top of that pile of bullshit. So maybe he did, maybe he didn’t, but the trial was a farce.
There was no option for that so I voted not guilty.
I think he probably did it, based on the podcast. I also don’t think the case was strong enough to convict, and would have voted not guilty if I was on the jury, again based on the podcast.
Maybe lefties are more likely to actually have heard of him, considering most people who know of him (I didn’t by name but vaguely know of the radio program) only know of him due to Serial, which is probably highly correlated to the mid-sentence-chai-tea-sipping NPR crowd.
Since the poll said “Not Guilty” instead of “Innocent” I interpreted this to be a question about what the verdict should have been rather than a question about whether Adnan Syed actually murdered Hae Min Lee.
I basically agreed with Sarah Koenig’s opinion at the end of the first season of Serial – it’s not clear that Syed didn’t murder Lee, but his attorney did not do a good job of representing him and I see plenty of room for reasonable doubt. So while I consider it possible that he is in fact guilty of the crime, I don’t think his conviction was fair.
I put not guilty not because I can’t imagine any scenario in which he did it, but that my knowledge of the case shows me there was too much reasonable doubt for him to be convicted.
To me, it comes down to him being convicted for two things: accomplice testimony and cell phone records. Well, the accomplice might have had reasons for implicating Adnan and has changed his story too often to be reliable without corroboration.
The cell phone records do not offer that corroboration. This was one of the first cases that depended on the records. His lawyer did not understand them and they were (imo) improperly handled by the prosecution. The prosecution expert witness on the cell records has since signed an affidavit saying he would not have testified as he did had he be given all the information the prosecution had.
So without that unreliable witness and those dubious cell tower pings, you really have nothing beyond a reasonable doubt.
I apologize if I’ve posted this here before… My theory is that Jay, Adnan, and the girl were doing something and she was accidentally killed or died. Jay and Adnan made a pact- and Jay cracked first. Now Adnan has no way out other than to proclaim his innocence. He can’t get into a he said vs. he said. Jay won the prisoners dillemma perfectly.
It is the only explanation that shows why Jay knew so much. So Adnan is guilty, but so was Jay- and maybe Adnan commited the actual murder but Jay was there. Jay’s story changes as he has to piece together parts of the timeline to fit his concocted story into the actual one.
It’s been awhile since I listened to Serial and I never paid attention to any of the other materials. From what I remember, I too agreed with Koenig’s opinion. It’s possible he did do it but the evidence was not substantial enough to warrant a conviction. As to what actually happened, I certainly don’t know. There wasn’t enough evidence to rule out a case of wrong time, wrong place, committed by an unknown third party.
I don’t consider myself a member of any party and while I think the US justice system is generally pretty decent, it has many flaws, makes many mistakes, and additional scrutiny is a good thing.