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Comment by geophile | Hacker News Reader

I listened to Serial and enjoyed it, but have not been following the case fanatically. I think that the massive hype has caused a central point to be missed: The government alleged that Syed killed Lee, and provided a sequence of events. Serial raises many questions about whether that one sequence of events is accurate. It is entirely possibly that Syed killed her but not at the time and place hypothesized by the government. I think this gets missed in all the hoopla. "Retrial" suggests to me that it is the exact same scenario that will be tried once again.

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The retrial had very little to do with Serial, and everything to do with the fact that the prosecution withheld a cover page from one of their star witnesses which would have caused him not to give the testimony he gave had he seen it. That's it. A key piece of "evidence" was the Leakin Park call, and the cover sheet that was withheld states that the location data from the Leakin Park call (an incoming call) is not reliable information.

That hardly convinces me he is innocent.

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.

Even the podcast states at the end that his innocence is far from proven, but that it's not clear that he is guilty. This is another perfect case of reasonable doubt, there is not enough evidence to convict.

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.

Yes, but the problem is whether or not the prosecution's case would have been convincing enough if they had turned over all evidence like they were supposed to.

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.

The point of a criminal trial isn't to convince anyone someone is innocent. Innocence is presumed.

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.

> "Retrial" suggests to me that it is the exact same scenario that will be tried once again.

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.

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