Serial

[J pold]

Great thread! I am a big fan of this American Life and have been loving this series. I need to listen to last nights episode to get fully caught up so I won't read too much.

[fatso]

Episode 9 was fascinating. Did a good job at humanizing this entertainment as well.

It continues to poke small holes in the likelihood of Adnan's guilt. Why would he call the police after Hae's murder if he killed her? It was likely Hae's friend that was the mysterious third party calling him at 'Kathy's' making it an innocuous call. (And 'Kathy's' evidence was pretty useless I thought - it totally has the air now of forced suspicion or misremembering in light of Adnan's conviction). Don't forget as well that one of the detectives who investigated this was subsequently found guilty of planting evidence or witness tampering (can't remember). And this detective was alone with Jay for hours discussing his story before they even hit record on the tape machine. And the jury, or at least those jurors interviewed, seemed to have misunderstood the burden of proof.

All of this to me is very problematic in reaching a conviction. I'm still not sure if he's guilty or innocent, but it seems to me that, at least now in the story, he's been wrongfully convicted.

The way I understand it is that the prosecution has to prove its case, and then Adnan would have an opportunity to refute it (by way of an alibi for example). As a result, it's not for Adnan to explain at first instance seeming inconsistencies in his story or to fill in gaps or questions in his story to rebut a presumption he killed Hae. (As an aside, that's why I find it maddening to read or hear stuff like "if he didn't kill, then who did?" Conjecture or likelihood is not evidence!).

In any event, the prosecution's theory is that Hae was killed at the Best Buy. That's what they said and that's the story they pushed, largely through Jay. That is seeming to not have been possible though. And so, even if Adnan did kill Hae, the prosecution didn't prove it's own theory of the case and Adnan ought not to have been convicted. How that happened, though, I don't know. Incompetent representation? Flawed system?

Also, I like your theory J Epworth. It's interesting that every expert that has rolled through the show (the lawyers, the DC detective) have all said that Jay knows way more than he is saying (and at least one or two have suggested he was likely present at Hae's murder).

[GirlySports]

yeah it seems like not enough for a conviction but there were 2 trials and an appeal and all pointed to Adnan's guilt. As you asked, is there something wrong with the judicial system? It was mentioned that over 7 out of the 12 jurors were black. Did Jay charm them? Here's a nice black kid, well dressed and well spoken on the stand. As sad as it is, that surely played a role.

Episode 10 will dig deeper into the trials. Why there was a mistrail? Why didn't Adnan testify and the defense lawyer strategy.

I have a feeling we will be quite outraged after Episode 10.

[fatso]

Good points. I believe Adnan claims he tried to testify but was dissuaded from doing so by both of his lawyers. I'm not surprised. What evidence could he give if he can't actually remember where he was that afternoon? All he'd end up doing in cross-exam is confirming for the prosecution that he **could** have been in the places they suggest (Best Buy, for example).

I think the mistrial was because Adnan called his lawyer a liar in front of the jury and so the judge decided a mistrial was appropriate. Not sure if I read that somewhere or if it was in the podcast.

[tete]

I'm anxious to hear more about Adnan's lawyer - so far, she's been portrayed as pretty useless, I'm curious to see if that image persists.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by tete

I'm anxious to hear more about Adnan's lawyer - so far, she's been portrayed as pretty useless, I'm curious to see if that image persists.

I was also expecting that she was some useless public defender, but the last episode didn't seem to paint her as either overly incompetent or a saint.

My biggest takeaway is that I would never want a jury trial if that's even an option.

[J epworth]

I just watched 12 Angry Men for the first time the other night, and wow, it sure made me think how much different Adnan's trial would be if they had someone like Henry Fonda in the jury. I personally am still undecided on Adnan's guilt, but breaking apart each piece of the prosecutions evidence, like Fonda did in 12 Angry Men, sure puts enough reasonable doubt in my mind. It's pretty crazy how the testimony of a single witness can put someone in prison for their life. If they scrutinized Jay's timeline better, done a better job making him seem less reliable, as a jury you could have easily seen reasonable doubt.

[d_phaneuf]

ya just from thinking, Jay had soemthing like 4 seperate timelines?

just put them all up on a whiteboard, show the jury the inconsistencies, and ask if they are going to take the word of someone who himself doesn't remember what happened

plus no physical evidence, no history of violence from Adnan etc.

that would seem enough to cause reasonable doubt for a lot of people

[Walks44]

Totally binge listened the first 10 episodes while driving around Saskatchewan over the past few days. (How do people wait a week for one of these things?)

A few things strike me as very important:

Spoiler!

1. The pool hall story from Chris? That Jay was at a pool hall when Adnan showed him the body. Chris would have no reason to fabricate any part of this story.
2. Pool hall, accounts for Jen's inconsistent story and what seems for the most part to be covering for Jay.
3.I'm not sure how this would line up with the Cell phone tower pings, but thats rather unreliable now anyways.
4. Jay is definatly more involved than he's let on.
5. Jay showed the police where Hae's car was, that right there is a huge part of why Jay's story is credible, but he's clearly covering something up.
6. Without listening to 11, I am not convinced that Adnan is innocent

Gooing to go listen to the next episode now......

[J epworth]

Originally Posted by Walks44

Totally binge listened the first 10 episodes while driving around Saskatchewan over the past few days. (How do people wait a week for one of these things?)

A few things strike me as very important:

Spoiler!

1. The pool hall story from Chris? That Jay was at a pool hall when Adnan showed him the body. Chris would have no reason to fabricate any part of this story.
2. Pool hall, accounts for Jen's inconsistent story and what seems for the most part to be covering for Jay.
3.I'm not sure how this would line up with the Cell phone tower pings, but thats rather unreliable now anyways.
4. Jay is definatly more involved than he's let on.
5. Jay showed the police where Hae's car was, that right there is a huge part of why Jay's story is credible, but he's clearly covering something up.
6. Without listening to 11, I am not convinced that Adnan is innocent

Gooing to go listen to the next episode now......

No need for spoilers for stuff that was said in the episode. Think only spoiler it if it's supplementary info (Like from Slate's Serial Spoliers podcast and articles found on Reddit etc.).

To the Chris story, I thought it was by far the most plausible timeline for Jay, so why did he give a totally different timeline to the Detectives? Who is lying here? Jay showing the police the car is the smoking gun. It shows he was definitely involved in Hae's death, either in the action or the disposing of the body. It doesn't prove that Adnan was part of the murder. To the point about the cell tower pings, the 4 pings Jay gets right are all after 6PM, all dealing with the burying of Hae. Really shows that the timeline from 2-6 is really unreliable for Jay, he's either misremembering what happened or lying about his whereabouts in that time.

It would be interesting if Koenig looked into Chris' credibility a bit more, I didn't think too much of it at the time but now I'm more interested in that timeline. Good observations.

[fatso]

the last two episodes were somewhat 'meh' for me. Not a lot revealed but perhaps there's nothing else to reveal absent a confession.

Tomorrow is the last episode. Funny or Die nails the only satisfying conclusion:

http://uproxx.com/webculture/2014/12...pisode-ending/

[East Coast Flame]

I just binged on the episodes this week and I am all caught up and ready for the finale! Such a great podcast.

At this point I think Adnan did it....but I don't think there is nearly enough to convict. I definitely think Jay's story is bunk and the best buy timeline doesn't add up at all. However, I do think Jay was involved.

The two things that tipped the scale for me into believing Adnan did it where the call to Nisha while Jay supposedly had the phone and as Girly mentioned, the fact he never tried to get a hold of Hae after she went missing.

[Wormius]

I would be disappointed if it ended with no closure on the matter, but
short of some extremely exculpatory evidence, or we find that Adnan is indeed a psychopath I am not sure how this would end.

Is the last episode going to be long enough to wrap everything up? Or can real-life circumstances just be cleanly wrapped up because people listening in want it to be. I guess one shouldn't necessarily expect a satisfying conclusion to this particular series.

[East Coast Flame]

I think if you are seeking closure or looking for this to be "wrapped up" you are going to be pretty disappointed. This isn't CSI where the murders are all wrapped up with a bow at the end of the episode. These are real people. We know he is still in jail.

Would Sarah's opinion on what happened be enough of an ending? Do you think she even will give her opinion?

[Wormius]

Well, I don't mean closure like he goes free, but possibly Sarah's work with Adnan and the innocence project (?) lawyer resulted in something hopeful for him.

I haven't checked into the timeline between Sarah's reporting vs the air date of the episodes, so that's another thing. It's possible that a lot of time has passed between the 10th and 11th episodes, and tomorrow's episode would fast forward to today.

I am not sure whether or not she could even report on any legal proceedings, if there were any going on.

This is just speculation though, I haven't seeked out any other information. I have only been listening to the episodes.

I think she gives her opinions each week, although she always seems to doubt them despite that the experts and lawyers seem to be clearly on the side that he is innocent or at worst just didn't receive a fair trial.

[GirlySports]

Yeah I think it's a story with no ending. I don't mind that, I like the story-telling aspect of the podcast.

Perhaps there will be more details on the innocence project? We could be reading news articles in the months to come about this case that before the podcast we never knew about.

[J epworth]

Just listened to the last episode. Lots of new information to take in and digest. I have a busy day today but I'll come back later to give my opinion on what Sarah concluded.

Thought it was a great episode and about the best way she could wrap this up; however, I'm sure there will be some upset people.

[GirlySports]

I thought it was nicely wrapped up as well.

And i still think he did it.

[Bob]

I tend towards thinking he did it as well -- far too much "bad luck" as one reporter put it for it to go another way -- though the possibility of a rogue serial killer released a few weeks prior is an interesting one. Perhaps the genetic testing will reveal something.

Fascinating story, either way.

[JiriHrdina]

I think he did it.
But I also think he shouldn't be in jail as there isn't enough evidence.