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Comment by indigodaddy | Hacker News Reader

When I finished the podcast I was not at all convinced of his innocence. For me was 50/50 or even 60/40 against innocence. Just my takeaway/opinion of course..

EDIT However, reading both of the AP News articles on this now, it does serve to sway me more toward his innocence. Crazy that the prosecutors withheld this at that time.. Par for the course unfortunately I guess.

Seems as though the SA office is trying to do the right thing now, and appears they will continue investigating, and hopefully if appropriate, may deem that the next best step is to drop his case fully and prosecute the other now-uncovered suspects.

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I was 50/50 after the podcast but Jay's interview after the podcast heavily swayed me towards Adnan's guilt.

Jay was't a suspect, but definitely knew about it and where the body was.

He gave conflicting testimony to the police because he was dealing drugs out of his grandmother's house and didn't want himself or his family in prison. (Using these hostile testimonies to undermine the official one entered in court is very misleading) But he had no reason to continue lying after all these years.

I don’t remember whether Jay had an alibi. Did he? One question I always had is why he was not a suspect.

I’ve always had that as a question as well. I never remember hearing an alibi or why he wasn’t a suspect.

Then again, it is most often the boyfriend. I think when I initially listened to Serial I didn't realize that fact to quite the degree I know it now. That doesn't make him legally guilty, but it does seem to be the Bayesian center of likelihood.

She had a different boyfriend when she was murdered, so by your logic shouldn't it be Clinedinst in prison and Syed free?

Well, that's a pretty extreme interpretation of what I said. It's just one piece of bayesian evidence, not a 100% determiner. Are there any witnesses who claim that this other individual killed her? Because there is one for Adnan. Also, it seems like a recent ex is probably more dangerous than a new lover.

Isn't there a rather large, obvious reason for Jay to continue lying after all these years?

> For me was 50/50 or even 60/40 against innocence.

Totally, but the standard for conviction is "beyond a reasonable doubt". By that standard, a 40% chance of innocence means "not guilty". I don't know whether the law has ever translated "reasonable doubt" into a specific percentage, but I have to imagine it's less than 10%?

I don’t disagree. I guess it’s kind of like an additional psychological bias that one plays into when he’s already been convicted and in prison.

Alexander Volokh wrote a tongue-in-cheek law review article titled "N Guilty Men" that tried to quantify that percentage:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=11412

It's obviously subjective, but a YouGov poll in the UK found that 47% of pelt required 99% accuracy or higher to be considered beyond reasonable doubt. Only 12% set the bar below 90%.

Source: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/1...

20% said they would require 100% certainty, which is equivalent to stating that not even the most obviously guilty person in existence deserves to be convicted. I'd posit that this is more so evidence that the general population's knowledge of probability is abysmal.

Can you statistically evaluate such a thing? Its all black swan.

If you look at it in a bayesian way this is not an issue. "I can't put a number to it" would definitely be a legitimate answer, but "100%" is just wrong.

Or their concept of “certainty” or “doubt” is different from yours.

I'm not even sure what that is really supposed to mean. If 100% precludes the potential of an event with infinitesimal likelihood (mass delusion, possession by ghosts, etc.), then as I said nobody ever gets convicted.

Otherwise, any "concept of certainty" that uses "100%" to refer to something that might not occur, is either gravely misusing mathematical notation or self-contradictory.

While technically correct this is obviously not how people speak. If you ask someone 'what is the percent chance that drinking this glass of water I just got out of the tap in New York City will kill me within a few seconds?' They would respond '0%', even though by a mathematical definition that is not true.

People generally consider context for their choice of words. Alongside 100% they were also given options such as 99.9999999%, it's clear that 100% in this case is not just used as "very likely".

I didn't know they were given specific options.

I think that's part of the recipe.. All the editing and cleverness of This American Life, a crime and then enough open questions to let you feel one way or the other and wanting more.

I don't remember my exact feelings on his guilt or not but I felt really strongly that the system hadn't worked correctly. Makes you wonder how many less charming guys are in prison because they didn't get a fair defense. The other thing that I also strongly remember was that the prosecution, the victim's family and some of the police were 100% convinced of his guilt. I don't know if it's good or bad but Serial showed that clearly and it created doubt; there was clearly some evidence that suggested misconduct but then the state steadfastly seemed to ignore that.

I don't know what it is, maybe suburban white man fear or something but being wrongly convicted of something like that is a strong and resonating fear for some of us.

I remember feeling similarly. I also don't remember feeling as though he was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

> guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

How the American Legal System is supposed to work, not as a way to punish people who 'look guilty'.

I think the wrong bar is being evaluated, its important to get the correct person off the streets. I was not satisfied - and am still not satisfied - that any of this is occurring. So that exempts Adnan Syed as well and means he should be released.

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