Serial - the podcast *spoilers*

D:

A pretty important thing though: The biggest 'real life consequence' of season 1 of Serial has been that what is pretty clearly a miscarriage of justice is being reconsidered. And that's whether or not you think Adnan did it, he was pretty clearly railroaded. Whatever you think of the podcast, the real villains are the prosecution who created the story, much more than the people who told it, however flawed they did it.

not that important really since he was still guilty

He didn't have the greatest defense attorney ever but I'd hardly say he was "railroaded." He's getting a new trial because of a failure to interview a shaky alibi witness whose story may have actually conflicted with Adnan's own. And we don't know the whole story as to why she was never interviewed.

I mean unless you think that justice requires an airtight, CSI-style meticulous recreation of the events of a crime in order to convict, there was enough to convict him.

not that important really since he was still guilty

― President Keyes, 2. april 2018 22:00 (twenty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

um, wrong

Adnan was convicted on a witness who kept on changing his story, and cell phone data that the cell phone company said couldn't be used the way the prosecution did it, a warning that wasn't entered into the trial and was the cause of the lower court giving him a new trial. It was shady as fuck. Whether or not he was guilty, the prosecution fucked it up. And THAT is the reason the case didn't go away, much more than NPR or anyone else. The prosecution are the ones who in the end are doing this to the family of Hae.

I have to go back and read both opinions at some point because I'm confused as to how the lower court gave him a new trial on the cell phone issue but then the higher court said that issue was waived because it wasn't raised.

Yeah, I don't quite get that either. But the arbitrariness of it all is fucked up.

The "witness kept changing his story" angle however is idiotic. No witness is going to give 100% consistent accounts of an entire day where a month had already passed by the first interview. It's really not hard to conceive of what happened -- they interview him, he shakily tries to piece the day together, then they look at the phone records (which may even have misled them) and they say "are you sure that didn't happen at 4:30?" And he says "yeah, maybe it was 4:30." Experienced investigators and lawyers say 100% consistency is actually much more troubling because it suggests rehearsed testimony. No one can actually point to a reason to doubt Jay's claim that Adnan killed Hae, so it's just this vague insinuation of "he's not credible."

And afaict it has nothing to do with why either the lower or higher court granted a new trial.

'He isn't credible' is not a vague insinuation, it's a fact. His changing stories go way beyond just bad memory. And even the way you are describing it, he was coached. And of course, when the story is that the phone calls and the testimony coincide, the idea that the witness was coached based on the phone calls undermines the whole thing quite a lot.

But no, it has nothing to do with the new trial. Again, it's all just arbitrary.

But, again, the word "coached" is as vague as "not credible." You can't just say "he was coached so throw out the trial" you have to actually show that it mattered. Even assuming my speculation is correct, there is no reason to believe he was "coached" to say that Adnan killed Hae when in fact he didn't. That's just not even plausible based on the way the investigation went, which is that police interviewed Jenn, then Jenn told police that Jay had told her that Adnan killed Hae, and then Jay confirmed that in interviews. I'm not sure what you mean by "the story is that the phone calls and the testimony coincide." It would never be reasonable to expect a witness to remember an entire day's worth of events including a couple dozen phone calls and what time they took place at. There is nothing wrong with a witness using documents to refresh his recollection of events, in fact it is even done in the midst of depositions or trials. If I say "What time did you email Mr Smith?" and you say "I'm pretty sure it was about 3pm," and then I show you an email that it was actually at 5pm and you say "Yeah that seems right, I guess it was 5pm," that's normal and not problematic, and in no way impeaches the credibility of the witness. Or even if you say "I remember emailing him on Monday morning" and then I show you that it actually happened on Tuesday morning. Because that's exactly the kind of thing that people easily forget all the time.

I mean, again speculating, but if the interview goes like this, I would not even call that "coaching" -- "I remember he called Nisha" "Around what time was that?" "Around 4:30pm" "There's a record of a call to Nisha at 3:30pm, could that have been the call?" "Yeah, I think that's it.'

You can read the transcripts, man alive. No reason for us to waste time on you speculating.

The line from the prosecution was that Jay was credible because his testimony was backed up by cell phone records. Which is easy when you let him change his story until it matches cell phone records.

And, btw, I'm discussing why the prosecution is to blame for the podcast. Not that Adnan is innocent or that Jay is guilty.

I have to go back and read both opinions at some point because I'm confused as to how the lower court gave him a new trial on the cell phone issue but then the higher court said that issue was waived because it wasn't raised.

― Fedora Dostoyevsky (man alive), Monday, April 2, 2018 4:44 PM (three hours ago)

this is not my specific area but afaict they raised it for the first time during a second post-reopening post-conviction hearing where it could have been raised in the first hearing, so the waiver is not by not arguing it in the post-conviction court it was by not raising it at the appropriate time

You can read the transcripts, man alive. No reason for us to waste time on you speculating.

― Frederik B, Monday, April 2, 2018 5:06 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I thought the theory was that the coaching was done off the record/outside the transcript. But if there’s anything in the transcript you want to point me to that suggests Jay is lying about who killed Hae be my guest.

I thought the theory was that the coaching was done off the record/outside the transcript. But if there’s anything in the transcript you want to point me to that suggests Jay is lying about who killed Hae be my guest.

― Fedora Dostoyevsky (man alive), 3. april 2018 03:58 (nine hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

And, btw, I'm discussing why the prosecution is to blame for the podcast. Not that Adnan is innocent or that Jay is guilty.

― Frederik B, 3. april 2018 00:16 (thirteen hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's honestly kinda pointless discussing with you.

not that important really since he was still guilty

― President Keyes, 2. april 2018 22:00 (twenty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

um, wrong

― Frederik B, Monday, April 2, 2018 4:22 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

And, btw, I'm discussing why the prosecution is to blame for the podcast. Not that Adnan is innocent or that Jay is guilty.

― Frederik B, Monday, April 2, 2018 6:16 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ok so is he guilty or innocent, and if you don't care why do you fight back when someone says he's guilty?

Because he thinks a serial killer did it and jay was forced to cover up.

Or else he's backpedaling from that theory but trying to save face, not sure which.

You're wrong because it's still important even if he's guilty.

And it's important because the bad prosecution led to questions, leading to the podcast, leading to the media circus.

This idea, that miscarriages of justice are okay if only the people it happens to are in fact guilty, this idea is bad. This should not be controversial. Also, according to the law, people are innocent until proven guilty, which means that prosecutorial misconduct ALWAYS happens to innocent people.

yeah, of course shoddy prosecutions are bad, but I tend to feel time and attention spent on overturning the conviction of a guilty person (guilty not in the technically legal sense, but in the actually-killed-someone sense) on such grounds in something that should be left to a legal team and family members of the convicted. Anyone else expending effort on such a thing is kind of perverse. Basically the circus around this is fucked up and people have themselves to blame, not just the prosecutor.

You're using "innocent" equivocally. There's legally innocent, and then there's whether he actually did it or not. I mean I very much believe in the presumption of innocence, but the point of it is to make sure people who actually are factually innocent don't go to jail. We're supposed to err on that side, and yes, I think that generally that's a good thing. But just as a human being, I can't *actually* be pleased to see an obvious murderer get out of jail and never admit to his crime due to the fact that he has an obsessive fan club and due to the ironically lucky break that his counsel is dead and not here to explain why she never interviewed an alibi witness.

Good to see Frederik wackiness unchanged in 3 or 4 years since initial airing.

xx-post: I quite like discussing this with you, much more than man alive, but I still think you're wrong. Very much wrong. Overturning shoddy convictions is important, even for the guilty, and people doing that hard work should be applauded, not called perverse. Someone might have killed a person, but it wasn't premeditated, so the sentence is too strict (this could also very well be the case with Adnan, btw). Or perhaps he is a psychopathic murderer, but he is sentenced to death in a jurisdiction where only black people ever get the death penalty.

Also, in the big picture, is America is going to get something done with mass incarceration, a lot of difficult discussions need to be had. Violent offenders need to be let out. Even without getting into any other questions, there needs to be a discussion of whether or not it's right to send an 18-year old killer to jail for life without parole.

Violent offenders need to be let out.

fuck no.

National discussion. done and done.

I actually agree about that. Maybe 20 years is a long enough sentence for a single murder committed as a 17-year-old. But if we're so concerned about process, I no more want to see him let out for the "wrong reasons" than you want to see him convicted for the "wrong reasons." And I'd like to see him admit his crime.

Sentences for violent offenders are generally too long and there's evidence that most people "age out" of violence.

I think there are a lot better cases to argue for the inequity in the American criminal justice system than this one.

Ultimately the whole miscarriage question hinges on whether it’s terribly credible that Adnan did not commit this murder. In my opinion (as it appears for many others) it’s not because at the end of the day shifting timelines or not no one has come up for a reasonable explanation than the one Jay/the prosecution presented at trial.

Compared to other countries, that 20-year sentence is extremely harsh. Also, I don't think it's 'wrong reasons', nobody is planting evidence or coaching Asia McClain. I'm frustrated by the arbitrariness of it all, I think we agree on that, but it's not comparable to the shoddy prosecution.

well, fwiw my unhealthy obsession with this case is now back, and I really need to get away from it. I'm reading the reddit subs again, it's just awful. Admittedly, I think part of why this case is so compelling is that it's such a strange story however you slice it, whether you think he's guilty or innocent. I mean just the fact that he loaned Jay his car and phone for the day, that's such a fucking weird thing to do whether it was for trying to create an alibi, trying to create an excuse to ask a ride from Hae, or no reason related to any crime, it's just a weird thing to do. So much strange behavior on everyone's part, chalk it up to them being teenagers who were high all the time I guess.

I really hope I'm past the stage in life where there's no risk of the weird things I did as a teenager get dragged into a murder trial.

Don't go on the reddit sub. It's bad even in comparison to other reddit subs.

https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/serial-season-3-premiere-date-podcast-1202927015/

So S3 of Serial will be, um, not serial:

Instead of telling a single story over the course of the show, as the first two seasons did, the third run will follow many different stories with some spanning two or even three episodes.

sound potentially v good though

first episode seems promising. kind of low-stakes. a bit more like Embedded or a Propublica podcast.

or Reveal?

First episode is really good and enraging in it's own small way. Much less is at stake than in the Adnan trial, but because of that it's also much better at just examining how deeply systemic the unfairness of the justice system is. That was always what was the best part of season 1, the way it showed Adnan to have been railroaded and the prosecution to have been flawed, separately from the question of guilt - though it's understandable that drove most of the hype.

this has been enjoyable enough

today's one was pretty harrowing

Wow, fuck judge Gaul

i know. try paying a PI to even find out the judge's address, you won't

Season 3 ended today. Very good overall, but why only 9 episodes after a 30 month break between seasons? I'm always a little confounded by this show.

Because each episode cost approx 6 brazillion dollars