What a strange point of view. I’m not sure how to respond to it, exactly. I think that many listeners were rooting for the “protagonist” to uncover information that hadn’t been revealed before, primarily because the facts of the case as presented left a lot of questions in people’s minds. Speaking for myself and those I know who also listened to the podcast, the hope was that something conclusive could be determined about what actually happened to the victim based on something the podcast uncovered. I was not actively rooting for Syed to be declared innocent of murder (and I’m still not).
As noted previously, new evidence has been presented to the court, and it remains to be seen if the court is going to order a new trial.
What is it that makes you think Sarah Koenig was first-pumping [literally or figuratively] after the podcast? If you actually listened to it, you’d hear the disappointment directly from her in that she wasn’t able to say anything conclusively about whether or not Syed committed the crime after all of the work she and her team put into it. They had more information, but were still left with a lot of questions, and evidence that pointed in both directions.
If you listen to the show, you’d probably have the same reaction as most people. The typical listener will change their minds on Adnan’s guilt or innocence several times during the series. If you haven’t listened to the show and assume it is one sided, I think you are incorrect, but at the very least you’re criticizing something you literally have no idea about.
The series generally ends with muddled picture, not fist pumping. So, once again, you’ve made quite an assumption without being familiar with what you’re talking about.
First, there’s a pretty good argument that at least one of the lawyers in the case was incompetent. Second, when I was a juror on a murder trial several years ago, pretty much the entire defense case was “nitpicking” what the prosecution put up; and if I understand things correctly, that is the bread and butter of pretty much every criminal defense. Third, you keep repeating this thing about “fist pumping.” Are you sure you haven’t confused “Serial” with “WWE Raw?”
People get released from prison with alarming frequency in which it is clear that the 12 jurors didn’t do a particularly good job.
Shakespeare is awful. It’s so bad, I never bothered to read any of it.
Why does your opinion change multiple times through the show? Is that strictly necessary for the podcaster to give you the relevant information, or does it facilitate good plotting?
Could you not have read that same information in a few minutes, rather than spending many hours to find it all out?
I could spend less time reading the original trial transcripts plus read the objections that Serial raised, in the time it would take to listen to Serial, and I’d end up far better informed than if I had spent that time listening to Serial.
A muddled picture of the case, but who is the protagonist of the story? Are you not happy that the broadcaster came to a final result in the case? Could you describe the podcast as a “journey”?
It’s the job of the defense to make a case for reasonable doubt. Going beyond that is nitpicking. Before that point, it isn’t.
You say that like it’s a fact. What is your control group?
What final result do you believe the broadcaster came to?
I can’t tell if this is a joke, but if it’s serious, it makes no sense. How exactly does one determine at what point one has sufficiently established reasonable doubt, particularly since the prosecution will always have the final word in a criminal case?
Many people change their opinions during the course of the show because the evidence doesn’t seem to be conclusive either way. One show makes you think the guy was totally framed, and the next show has some evidence that makes him look very guilty. And the show generally seemed to be oriented around the developments in investigating the case – it doesn’t seem to be laid out such that the findings of the investigation are manipulated into a particuar story arc.
The show takes a while because it’s a mix of investigative journalism and entertainment. It’s interesting because it isn’t just a transcript of the trial and whatnot.
But as it stands, you don’t seem very well informed of either the trial or Serial.
I’m not sure who the protagonist is in the Serial story. I don’t think it really matters. Frankly, the broadcaster’s final result is the least memorable part of the whole show. Sure, I suppose the show could be called a journey. But it doesn’t come across as though the general story is being manipulated for dramatic effect. I think the drama of the show comes from the knowledge that the story is not fictional, and the show also benefits from being told by someone who is adept at communication and seems to acknowledge both the case for, and against, Adnan.
For example, when the host interviews a former DC detective and recounts quite a few leads that the Baltimore police never followed up, she seems genuinely puzzled that murder police wouldn’t do a more thorough job. The retired DC officer instead says that those holes in the investigation seem like the typical loose ends in any murder case. (FTR, I’m generalizing the content of this interview.) As a listener, I think most people would be surprised that some of these unfollowed leads could potentially have great implications on the trial, but that neither the police nor the defense attorney made much of an effort to close them out.
So someone testifies that they saw John shoot Gary, and later helped bury Gary. The defense attorney points out inconsistencies in the testimony, such as whether the witness could have possibly been there to see it, how it doesn’t seem possible for the witness to go from one place to the spot of the murder and then to another place within a short amount of time, and that the alleged murderer was seen 15 minutes prior on the other side of town. Is that nitpicking the witness’ testimony?
Because those “nitpicks” are more or less the criticisms against the top witness against Adnan.
I don’t understand the question. Are you disputing that juries sometimes send innocent (not just not guilty) people go to jail?
I don’t know if I’d go as far as to call it propaganda, but when Koenig herself says:
You have to seriously question the objectivity in light of the above alone. She is saying this about a podcast that aired and survived the her own scrutiny and that of several editors. Clearly, what we heard was biased even if it wasn’t intentional.
My pet theory is that he’s guilty of something, and either can’t or won’t provide better evidence that would clear him of Lee’s murder without incriminating himself in another crime. That is based on my desire to have stories be as dramatic as possible.
So he’d rather be in jail for life plus thirty years, how that works I am not sure maybe they fail to burry his body, for murder than some other crime with probably less of a sentence? Is he concealing the fact that he was in fact at the time of the murder in bed with the wife of a famous war hero and he wants to protect her honor?
If these are your revelations from listening to Serial, I’m rather saddened.
As to the question of what is or isn’t nitpicking, I don’t see that I need to explain any further. There’s no value in going over a list of a thousand items and picking through them to say, “reasonable” or “frivolous”, when I already set out guidelines. If you don’t like the guidelines then you disagree with me and there it lies. It doesn’t change what I think the distinction is between the two.
I’m disputing your implied assumption that the rate of innocent people being sent to jail is alarmingly high.
High compared to what? If this is the best that exists in the world and can’t feasibly be improved within the practical limits of a resource constrained world, then your alarm is rather quaint. If the rate at which we’re sending people to jail is lower than needed to protect the innocent, then it’s not a matter of alarm or horror, it’s basic math. Is the loss of years to those mis-imprisoned greater or lesser than those saved in the rest of the populace?
All systems are imperfect. If you think there must be something preventing you from going to jail from the rest of your life, unjustly, you’re being unreasonable. It’s engineered into the system that some percentile of innocent are unjustly imprisoned and some percentile of the guilty go free. That’s an expectation that you should have and, should you ever go to jail, well, you’re doing your duty as a citizen to make sure that society is safe. It may suck, but that’s what the fates have chosen for you. Not to say that you shouldn’t fight it, but it remains true that it’s a necessary evil.
Some evidence points to this, some not. It is the strongest piece against him, imo.
True, she died after breaking up with him, but some time had passed. He was interested in other girls and she had a new boyfriend. It wasn’t immediately after the break-up.
No, this is not true. He wrote to another friend in health class. They wrote back and forth. In one part he wrote “I’m going to kill”. And that’s it. It was not to HML. It could have been ABOUT her, sure, but it could have been about the teacher they had been making fun of. Could have been about anything. It’s not particularly compelling evidence. I know I certainly said “I’m gonna kill” 100 times a day at 17 and yet never managed to kill anyone.
Of course he should have been looked at as a suspect. But her boyfriend at the time wasn’t looked at very closely. Adnan could have had a reliable alibi for the entire day. There’s testimony and recollections and evidence he could not have done it because of these alibis. Maybe those people are mistaken, but if they had been investigated by his lawyer AT THE TIME, they could have been helpful if what they say now is true. Hence the petition for a new trial based on the sheer ineptitude of his first lawyer.
You are misrepresenting this. First, the friend says she never saw him write “I’m going to kill”, so we have no idea when it was written.
Second, it was written on the back of a break up note with many scathing criticisms of Adnan including things like:
She also described the end of their relationship as “hostile and cold”. This coupled with the testimony from others saying he wasn’t taking the break up well and that Hae was avoiding him, makes the statements in the letter more compelling.
Of course it’s compelling evidence. Just the sheer fact that he kept this letter is fairly suspect, let alone that he wrote anything about “killing” on it.
You said, “I’m going to kill” as a complete phrase with no context or object 100 times a day? That, by itself, is not a common phrase, so I’d be surprised to hear anyone use the term regularly.
Because he had a reliable alibi whereas Adnan did not.
But he didn’t. And he lied to the cops about a material matter the first time he spoke to them. This lie is something he still does not have a reasonable explanation for to this day.
They probably should have been investigated, but the problem is that he doesn’t actually have an alibi that proves he could not have done it. The issue is that when there isn’t a clear timeline of a crime, the prosecution is basically creating a narrative from the available information with the proviso that the accused is factually guilty. If the prosecution knew about and accepting Asia’s testimony, they would just push the timeline of the murder. It’s not as if they are bound to present the same theory even if Adnan got a new trial today.
I was thinking more like he was involved in drug-related crimes, and his parents and/or other family members have been threatened if he gives his real alibi. In this scenario, he was initially willing to risk going to trial for Lee’s murder, because if he was actually out committing another crime somewhere, there cannot be evidence or witnesses that link him to Lee.
He did not say to HML “I am going to kill you.” Period. He might have been referring to her but because of the ambiguity of it being also passed between him and a friend in class and no object of the verb, it is not clearly a threat. I was a dramatic teenager prone to hyperbole (as is a large percentage of teenagers). Saying “Ugh, I’m going to kill her” about a teacher who assigned too much work or nosy younger sibling wouldn’t cause much concern to me in all circumstances. And again that sentence has a defined person, whereas the “I’m going to kill” says just that. Kill what? This case is entirely circumstantial and the note is the thing that doesn’t even give me second thought. One can look at it as part of a bigger puzzle, but I dismiss it.
HML’s new boyfriend does not necessarily have a clear alibi. He was not working at his normal store and when his alibi was checked, I believe just his time card was checked. No one verified he was actually where he was supposed to be (and that’s before the other claims about his time card, that he used different employee numbers and his manager was related to him.) I don’t think it was him, but his alibi is not rock solid and a new boyfriend should be just as suspicious as an ex.
They can’t really push the timeline of the crime, however. I mean, you have Jay saying “It happened at ___ time.” So if Adnan has an alibi for that time, then Jay is incorrect. Adnan was definitely at the mosque later that night, iirc, so he was airtight. Plus they didn’t talk to Adnan for quite some time after the disappearance. Had alibis been checked closer to the date of disappearance, a lot could be cleared up. If Adnan was in the library and then at track practice and then the mosque, there is no time at all by any version of Jay’s stories. Perhaps Adnan has no alibi at all. To me, however, there is just reasonable doubt. If someone came up with irrefutable proof that he did it or all of this other stuff was bullshit to make him seen innocent, I could be convinced… and not with too much difficulty. As it stands, there are too many holes for me to be convinced of legal guilt.
I don’t think the kid got a fair shake in his first trial, based on what’s been presented in Serial. But I also realize that presenting the case as being at least somewhat shaky is part of why that podcast exists. A large part of that podcast was from the mouth of the accused, or following up the leads he presented; Koenig didn’t have to go researching and presenting much of the prosecution’s case, because it was the status quo, and the allure of the series is that maybe, just maybe, the kid didn’t do it.
In the end, I trust the justice system more than I trust a combination of NPR and my own biases to sift out the facts of a case. He was convicted; he’s guilty.
No one has ever said it was clearly directed at her. What some have argued is that it is a reasonable inference given where the sentence was written, his controlling behaving before and after they broke up, and his discussion of where he’d bury the body of a girlfriend he’d hypothetically killed prior to the victim being murdered.
Again, which is why you use context and the relevant facts to make a informed inference. If you say you are going to kill a teacher, and then that teacher ends up dead, your comments are going to be viewed critically regardless of your guilt. Doubly so when you have a problematic history with that dead teacher, and admit to being one of the last people to see her. This is really not that complicated despite the histrionic hand waving from the Adnan truthers. Does it prove without a doubt he did it? No, alone it doesn’t. However, when coupled with all the other evidence, there aren’t any reasonable doubts left.
You do realize “circumstantial” doesn’t mean irrelevant or insignificant. There are essentially only two types of evidence: circumstantial and direct. Adnan actually has mountains of both going against him. The vast majority of murder cases are built on circumstantial evidence like fingerprints, dna, cell records, etc.
Don was investigated, and considered a suspect, so this is really a irrelevant point. Don also didn’t lie to the cops or have multiple people indicating her was either involved with the crime, or acting suspiciously.
Of course they can. Even if you buy Asia’s alibi, Adnan still had a clear window to commit the crime after school, and before Hae would have been expected to pick up her cousin. Jay doesn’t testify to a time of death because he says he wasn’t there, so his input on that issue doesn’t really matter.
The larger point is that an alibi as a defense only works well when there is a really tight window of time and location for which you know the crime occurred, or a blanket alibi. For example, the crime occurred on Monday in Mobile, but I was in Orlando the entire day. Once you get into crimes where there is less certainty in the exact details, the prosecution is essentially creating a story. Using the OJ case as the typical example, we don’t really know HOW he committed the murder. The prosecution’s theory is just a theory based on evidence. If they for some reason initially thought OJ followed Ron to the house and killed him first, but later found evidence that OJ was elsewhere when Ron likely arrived, they just change the theory. They don’t necessarily assume OJ didn’t do it.
Wrong. First, while it’s fairly likely he was at the mosque, he was almost certainly late according to both direct testimony and cell phone evidence. Second, the cops spoke to Adnan the very same day Hae disappeared at 6:24pm. He was with Jay and others at Jenn’s house. Multiple people testify to him acting strange and leaving quickly after receiving the call. He also tells the cops that day that he was supposed to get a ride from her, but that he had gotten held up at school and she got sick of waiting so she left- something that he denies later, and makes little sense based on the circumstances of the day, and what we know about Hae’s behavior after school.
None of that would have helped. They checked his alibi to the extent possible. They asked multiple students, teachers, and others about Hae and Adnan. The coach didn’t take attendance and the library didn’t have a camera.
And why do you think a jury who heard all the evidence is real time, heard Jay called on his lies, and got to see Adnan in court everyday unanimously came to the opposite conclusion? Honestly, you seem pretty convinced, but if you want me to outline the strong evidence that Adnan is guilty of this crime, I’d be more than happy to do so. That chances of him being innocent are so remote that it doesn’t really merit any consideration.
The jury has access to more things than were in the podcast. For example, lots of less-central evidence. And they get to observe the demeanor of witnesses beyond just the sound of their voices.
But they have many other handicaps that podcast listeners do not have. For one, they have to review all the evidence at once. We ask juries to pay close attention for six to eight hours for days on end, while they are taken from their jobs or families or other things they’d prefer to be thinking about. And the information is delivered to them in a jumble–certainly not in narrative, chronological format, like human brains prefers, but in haphazard flows and unrelated currents. Speaking as both a lawyer and someone who has served on a two-week jury trial, even extremely attentive and conscientious jurors will take in and process less information than a podcast listener presented the same evidence in digestible, organized chunks. We also have more information now than the jury did then.
Naturally, the podcast listener is subject to the editorial choices of the podcast. But jurors are subject to the choices of the prosecutor and defense lawyer. I’m not sure which is worse in this particular case, given what we know about Adnan’s defense counsel.