Adnan Syed, of ‘Serial’ Podcast, Gets a Retrial in Murder Case
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
edit: grammar, and obligatory link to the website for the first season, which itself is a great example of online journalism in how pieces of evidence discussed on the show were also uploaded with further explanatory writing: https://serialpodcast.org/season-one/1/the-alibi
One of my favorite bits was the lengths the producers went to confirm whether or not Best Buy had a payphone 15 years ago. The show, IMO, also served as a great example of how to do investigative research and is a must-listen for aspiring journalists for that reason alone.
I just know that if someone that close to me disappeared, I'd be reliving and remembering that day and the days after to the point it'd be burned in my mind.
Not to get in to the details, but her family called him looking for her that night. And like I said, if I get a weird phone call from a friends family looking for them and the next day they don't show up to school, you better believe it is ALL me and my friends are going to be talking about. It's just not something people, let alone high school kids, ignore.
I don't understand the 'firmly' bit. The state's case was flimsy and the state's timeline was a total mess. The cell tower evidence was flaky and one of the state's expert witnesses rescinded his testimony. Jay is a terrible witness who changed his story multiple times. The state needs Jay AND the cell tower evidence to stick and I don't think it does.
That said, as other sibling comments are saying, one's memory is surprisingly poor. This is sort of tangential, but for example, I've sat in a classroom, where as an experiment on eyewitness testimony, someone comes in (without the class knowing what's happening) and in a very exaggerated manner steals something from the professor and then leaves. Literally a minute later, when asked, much of the class misidentifies major physical attributed of the 'perpetrator' (height, hair color, etc.), even when they are confident they are correct.
He was high. I think that part was corroborated by multiple people. Everybody reacts differently. How Adnan reacted when he heard she disappeared shouldn't be the backbone of deciding whether or not he is innocent or guilty.
All the other kids didn't think murder when she disappeared either. There was a rumour going around that she ran away to Cali to see her father. It took a few days before the realization sunk in.
Plus you'd have to believe some pretty wild conspiracies for any other explanation to be plausible.
He may be convicted again. I didn't think they established motive all that strongly, and something was odd about the guy who claimed to have helped bury the body.
None of the kids really remembered what happened - including (close) friends of Hae, so what does that tell you?
That's insulting at best to the many, many people in the criminal justice system who have suffered from the general mutability of memory.
That said, it did bother me how he apparently never thought to call on her during the time of her disappearance, even though they were no longer a couple. That was probably one of the strongest pieces of circumstantial evidence against him, in my eyes.
One of the most compelling aspects of the case for me is that while I can see why Adnan garnered the sympathy of advocates and the interest of Serial's producers, at least enough to warrant a full season of coverage...I still couldn't quite shake the feeling that even if he isn't guilty beyond a reasonable doubt...that he might still be guilty of the actual murder. I can't remember the last time a story so full of ambiguity so completely captured my attention.
I don't know about you, but like most people, I'm not on speaking terms with most of my ex-es.
(I'm on speaking terms with my exes. Even am still Facebook friends)
[0] http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2012/09/your-...
[1] http://www.radiolab.org/story/91569-memory-and-forgetting/
Memory is bad, period. And we don't even realize it. It's extremely common to be absolutely certain you've observed something, which never ever happened.
Did they really though? I'm a podcast whore, but I also happen to be in the demographic of someone who'd probably listen to podcasts already-and yet I know plenty of people outside of that demographic who consume podcasts just as much. Heck, the last person I'd ever expect to be a podcast consumer-someone who struggles to even click through a hand-held software update started her own fashion podcast years before Serial was even announced.
I found Serial to be grating and and not very good at keeping my attention. I really didn't understand the hype at all and I really had to force myself to sit through the last couple episodes just so I could say I finished (I got a similar feeling when approaching the last episode of the second season of True Detective). I didn't find the story compelling at all.
As a listener, this meant I honestly felt like I had wasted a huge amount of time on the show.
But I was rooting for them right up to the point at which I began cursing them.
That seems like such a weird conclusion to me.
So, many weeks later, when the final word was "gosh maybe we'll never know!", I felt like I'd clicked on a series of those "What happened next will shock you!" headlines.
A compelling story reaching the same conclusion probably could have been handled in a single episode.
But... that's the point. The finally episode spells this out very explicitly - although they can't say either way whether he did it or not, they found they don't have sufficient proof they he did commit the crime he was convicted for, and therefore does not deserve to be in jail.
It embodies the elements of NPR that drive me nuts, without the pledge drive to give me a time out period. :)
[0]: http://thisiscriminal.com/The ones I have a hard time listening to are the ones where they have an actor read an excerpt a book. Sometimes it's interesting, and sometimes, it's just a guy reading a book.
There was something special about Serial. With regards to the topic itself, how lucky she was to find a story with so many angles and so many holes and so many things to investigate. With regards to the medium, it was something entirely new to me to have something dictated to me through audio in a format that somewhat resembles a documentary, and to have everything visualized only in my imagination. I can visualize Best Buy, and the school, and Leakin park. And for whatever reason, that visualization is especially vivid in my mind, even in comparison to books that I've read a dozen times. I think a big part of it has to do with a feeling of everything occurring in real-time and the stream-of-consciousness that Koenig speaks with. It's a strange feeling to be visualizing the entire context of these events while not being in control of the speed, like you would when reading.
Coupled with the fact that you're making judgements about his innocence and thinking about what-ifs at the same time, and it really pulls you in.
See update at the bottom:
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/evidenceprof/2015/01/ive-po...
I find his response to this question compelling when talking about Sarah Koenig and Serial:
" Was the name ‘Serial’ ever used?
No. Not to my recollection. She kept saying ‘This American Life,’ ‘the radio,’ and ‘a documentary.’ There was no talk of ‘Serial’ or a podcast. Then I asked her outright, ‘Are you an advocate for Adnan?’ She said ‘No,’ that she wasn’t his advocate. But she said that she had talked to Adnan, and she wanted to get more information about the case. She said there was new evidence, and I said there’s no new evidence that’s gonna change what I saw: I saw Hae dead in the trunk of the car. If Adnan wants to take the stand now and explain that away, let him. But there’s no evidence that’s gonna change what I saw. I don’t know how she was murdered, I don’t know exactly how she got put in that trunk, and I told the cops that. If Koenig wants to get into how that all happened she can go there. But that doesn’t change what I saw. And that’s the only time I commented directly on the case to her. "
I think that is very unlikely. I am not a lawyer, but I have never heard anything that indicates prosecutors have to present the same case upon a retrial. I imagine they will present a case with full knowledge of everything from Serial.
My problem with Serial is that people listened to it and concluded some travesty of justice occurred. But the other side doesn't get to tell their side. Whenever you hear just one side of the story, you can be sure that the truth is significantly different.
This would make for a great case to see what the public opinion would be if he were to be released from prison, only later to have found out that he really did it. Reasonable doubt is tricky, it will let criminals off the hook because the police can not make a proper case.
Our justice system is supposed to require a high enough burden of proof that we don't convict innocent people, even if that means some guilty people aren't convicted as a result. Unfortunately, there have been, and still are, corrupt prosecutors out there that are more concerned with always getting a conviction whether or not there's enough evidence to prove the defendant is guilty.
I'm pretty sure he did it. But the state has an obligation here to ensure a fair trial and that's what they are doing.
But this raises the fact that someone without any means to speak of is basically screwed. Hearing interviews with people who work with the Innocence Project, sometimes the case against convicted felons is shockingly flimsy. Yet, it takes years and a lot of money to get them overturned.
Sure, if you have money, it helps in that you are likely to be aware of the Marshall Project, able to contact them, etc. But other than that, it is accessible to everyone.
Absolutely. My takeaway from listening to Undisclosed (a follow-up to Serial podcast by Adnan's supporters) is how much of a difference having a team of lawyers and investigators makes to casting doubt on presented evidence. That's why money makes such a huge difference. It's not corruption. It's manpower. There is no way a public defender could devote so much time and research like the Undisclosed team did to, say, present a case against the state's cell tower evidence - and that was only one piece of evidence presented to the judge.
The state did a terrible job and there should be a retrial. But shouldn't that poor girl deserve more? Someone killed her. Maybe all the pontificators should devote themselves to her story with the ardor of their attention to Serial.
Honestly, listening to it only resolves to me that it's better if most people didn't try to turn their attention to what really happened, because they're never going to be able to put together enough of the story at this late date to do more than ruinously speculate. Truth and Justice puts into better perspective how well Serial did finding what story there was to tell, and telling it fairly.
As much as I enjoy fictional murder in various mediums, it started to turn my stomach a bit. These are real lives. People actually died.
It's hard for me to find any kind of entertainment out of the idea that what seemed like a kind, gentle young person was actually murdered. Whether Adnan was actually guilty or not, is a matter of the court and maybe the victim's family. It shouldn't be my entertainment.
The prosecution had:
* The confession of an accomplice which included non-public details about the crime
* Cell phone evidence both directly implicating Syed and damaging his alibi
* A series of incriminating misstatements from Syed himself
Remember, the prevailing online sentiment about Hans Reiser was that he'd been stereotyped and then railroaded into a conviction as well. Reiser's defense also hinged on the notion that no physical evidence directly connected him to the crime. But that's not how murder prosecutions work.
It is like that documentary that caused waves recently, about the guy whose original rape conviction was overturned by DNA evidence only to get convicted of murder. It's not that there's no evidence Adnan had something to do with the killing. It's that the burden of evidence wasn't met.
Again: my point isn't that the verdict is correct. It's just that this isn't a great case for prosecution run amok.
Setting aside the issue of how prevailing that sentiment was, it seems like a questionable comparison - Reiser could have walked away with murder if not for his own hubris and obstinacy. And surely nobody thought he'd been 'railroaded' after he was convicted and led authorities to his victim's body.
I don't fault Serial for that because Sarah Koening and the team were very respectful - and there is nothing wrong with telling a crime story.
I did find the way people were discussing it online was offputting, for the reasons you stated.
I work in film. Once the delivery is out the door the 'pieces' are generally archived, but even a few months later they don't fit together again. Trying to recreate the data when working on a sequel, for instance, even only a year later is a bit like the restoring the Xerox Alto series posted last week.
I don't think they would today.
But you raise a good point. The investigation was sloppy. For example, the alibi of the then current boyfriend of Hae, turned out to be forged, but none of the investigators bothered to follow-up on it. The library had video cameras, with copies held for a few weeks, again the investigators never bothered following up on those either.
You say that like it's a fact. What's your evidence?
If they retry what evidence will they bring to the table?
It wasn't a felony murder, so it can't even be tried in a different jurisdiction (federal). The protection isn't altered when new evidence comes to light.
If the retrial doesn't happen soon (rather, soon after the appeals process is done), the State will be obliged to release Syed. Actually he might get bail in the meantime anyway.
Beyond that? The evidence against him was a good deal less sketchy than Serial made it sound, but I still don't know if it would be enough to get a conviction sixteen years later.. so who knows.
That said, let's just start with the central premise of Serial E1: that it's hard to remember details of a day six weeks before, and that's why Adnan has trouble telling the cops what he needed to know. Remember, this is a day when his ex-girlfriend disappears and a police officer called him about it, but we're supposed to assume that nothing in that series of events is a big enough deal to stamp a few things (even just things related to Hae) in his memory.
Furthermore, if we assume that it's easier to remember something that happened same-day, we can assume that he asked Hae for a ride home from school - per what he told the officer the day of - something that he now denies. He did this, of course, despite the fact that he had a perfectly working car in the school's parking lot at that moment.
.. and so on. Like I said, it's really hard to start dealing with all of the claims made by various people at various times, but there's a number of ways to view the facts in a (to paraphrase Sarah Koenig) "bad for Adnan" way that aren't at all sketcky.
The problem (and the point I'm trying to make) is that there's this sort of "Adnan was convicted by bad evidence" type of myth that the entirety of the Internet seems to believe because that's what a podcast says. In reality, a jury of his peers, after listening to the case in full, decided to convict the guy. Unanimously. I don't know if the guy is guilty or not, but it hits me as a little silly that the entire world has decided that they know better than the jury because we listened to a podcast. There's at least some reason to read that as "Serial didn't provide a totally unbiased story" not "wow, it's good that we are all so much smarter than the people who looked at the evidence in its entirety in the courtroom".
I disagree. I think Serial made the evidence seem stronger than it turned out to be.
I think you're right though. If they do appeal it and fail they'll just let him walk, but are going to continue to this as long as they can to keep him in there as long as possible.
The problem is that the original investigation was a sloppy and certain leads and discrepancies weren't followed up on.
Stuff White People Like is a bit offensive to some people. Probably not great to link to it.
Upon further examination, that "disbelief" seems to be underscored by the fact that Serial was really after a nugget of definitive evidence against Adnan -- for someone to come in and say, "I SAW this and that, and Anand is guilty."
If anything, such plans backfired for Serial, and I'm glad they did because a podcast shouldn't attempt to manipulate mass numbers of people's emotions to sway popular opinion in order to manipulate justice "ex post facto." To be clear, instead uncovering their "smoking gun," as pixel says, that is the nail in the coffin for Adnan being guilty, he is now getting retried for innocence because of the very shaky evidence in the first place that would have served as the impetus for a mass witch hunt for the keystone.
It's as equally appalling and repulsive as the situation I originally described in my redacted post, and realize that the Stuff White People Like reference was more of an observation of our culture's very real problems with bias and others' beliefs ("Damsel in Distress" and "yellow fever") and behaviors (as sad and offensive as they may be) which has led to the aforementioned mass pitchforking I described earlier, rather than a representation of my OWN internal beliefs. Quite frankly, I am a bit offended that you couldn't at least give me that benefit of the doubt before jumping to such conclusions. My points still stand regardless of if and how offended people are by its contents (and it actually supports my argument if they are).
Fact of the matter is that it IS just a podcast (and shouldn't be misconstrued in ways that cause it to become a "perversion of justice" as so many have), and the fact that you interpret it as more than such might convince me that you're part of the problem as well. Not only that, it's arguably an abuse of the media to attempt to infringe on one's Fifth Amendment rights (imagine if Adnan HADN'T been convicted or if he had received LESS than a life sentence or if he was under consideration for retrial with a potential death sentence!).
There's a very good reason people stay out of the limelight as much as possible whenever they're in trial.
No. I didn't get that sense at all. I think Sarah Koening tried to present this story in an objective and fair way. There is no way she set out to prove Adnan was guilty - for one thing, he was already in prison serving a life sentence and had one of his appeals denied.
>I am a bit offended that you couldn't at least give me that benefit of the doubt before jumping to such conclusions.
You use inflammatory language and argue in support of controversial points - it's tough to figure out exactly what you're talking about, much less give you some benefit of the doubt.
Because hackers are people, and by definition a significant proportion of people are interested in pop culture.
But that does bring up a good point that "anything that good hackers would find interesting" is perhaps not the best guidance for what's "on-topic" on HN.
There's even a tech angle: As a former engineer for a wireless phone company, I thought the explanation of how technical data is used and abused for securing legal convictions to be mind blowing.
Try to open your walls up a bit man and soak up the complexities of culture and the laws we live in.