Podcasts

[kostgard]

The fact that Adnan wasn't sending Hae a million "Where are you?" pages (Pagers. How quaint.) like the rest of her friends is the biggest check in the "guilty" column for me. But it still doesn't explain everything else away.

I don't get how this kid didn't leave a shit-ton of forensic evidence. It seems everyone else does. How did he manage to leave behind only easily - explained - away fingerprints?

And I still don't quite get his relationship with Jay. They must have been closer than people thought or Jay was more directly involved, otherwise I don't understand why Adnan thought Jay would keep his mouth shut out of fear that he would turn him in as a weed dealer. I think most people would rather face the music as a small-time weed dealer than an accomplice/accessory to murder (which is what Jay ultimately did).

I can buy that Innocence Project lady generally doesn't deal with sociopaths. I'm sure there is a vetting process before clients meet with her. I'm guessing most sociopaths are guilty, so they get weeded out before they make it to her, and all she sees are the hapless wrong place/wrong time people.

[mementomori]

Has anyone been reading Rabia Chaudry's blog Splitting The Moon as an accompaniment to the Serial podcast? I've read all the entries and I'm still not convinced of his innocence. Chaudry' implies that Adnan''s "otherness" as a religious minority in Baltimore worked against him in conviction. She believes that Jay is guilty and that his personality as described is inconsistent. Being a family friend of the Syeds, she knows Adnan better than we do but...I'm still not buying what she's selling. I think the jury found the right guy 15 years ago. Any thoughts on the latest ep or this blog?

[canuckcutie]

Well I just listened to the latest Serial episode. I'm definitely in the "there's enough reasonable doubt" camp.

To me the only reason Adnan got convicted was Jay. That and having the misfortune to be Hae's ex. The police seemed to zone in on Adnan and Jay was more than happy to supply the motive and the eye-witness account. If Adnan didn't do it (and to be honest I'm really not convinced of his guilt) then I think Jay flipped on Adnan and semi-implicated himself as an accessory because he was the murderer. I think he was covering in case he was spotted with Hae or her car or had left evidence behind. There are giant holes in Jay's story - the lack of the phone at Best Buy, the changing locations where he allegedly met Adnan, then going off in the middle of nowhere to smoke weed, the phone calls not lining up with the locations or the times.

I think Jay's changing stories were because he was trying to weave Adnan into the narrative so he could shift blame to him instead.

[americanchai]

I finally listened to all of "Serial" that's available (#10 comes out this Thursday). The storytelling is so compelling. The story itself is intriguing enough and so gray that I neither like nor dislike any one person in this narrative. The witnesses were all teenagers at the time so their impressions are those of teenagers and not of mature adults and this happened in 1999. The body wasn't found until a month after the actual murder. They seem pretty sure that Hae's current boyfriend, Don, was at work all day at LensCrafters. The only opinions we know from Hae are those from her teenage diary (I really should burn my diaries before I die!).

So Jay admits to helping Adnan bury the body. He's the only person in this whole story who admits to seeing and handling Hae's body. Adnan has never turned the tables and said "I helped Jay bury the body after Jay killed her". He can't remember details of the day at all. He swears he was at track practice and he remembers smoking weed with Jay. New witnesses who were not questioned by police say that Hae couldn't have been murdered around 2:30 because they saw her around 3:00.

Adnan's like-able. Sarah says Jay seems like-able. We don't hear directly from Don, Hae's family, the wacky streaking janitor that found the body, etc. Shitty or non-existent analysis of DNA evidence. At this point, Adnan's done more time than a lot of people who have admitted to committing equally or more heinous murders. If he gets out on appeal, I would not think justice hadn't been served. There probably isn't enough evidence to put Jay away for anything.

The one thing that stands out for me in this case is the parable: very strict, controlling parents would use this exact scenario to demonstrate to their kids why you don't a) date someone outside your culture/religion/race b) hang out with drug dealers c) be a drug dealer d) lie. If you lie, it will always stick to you like tar. Parents could go "look what happened to her" and also "look what happened to him" when they ventured outside the strict boundaries of their family's cultures.

[Gigiree]

Interesting article about some possible ethical issues in the way in which the investigation and reporting are happening in real time with this podcast.

[mementomori]

Did anyone listen to #10 today? The late Christina Guttierez was fascinating. Adnan's case was truly a circus!!

[kostgard]

The focus on Guttierez was interesting. I don't think she threw Adnan's case on purpose, but I do think she fucked up. She was dealing with some serious health issues, probably some serious financial issues (asking a client to pay you $10K in cash, and then you don't use it to pay the expert witness you said it was for? yeeeaaah), and wasn't cut out to handle the case. She was an amazing lawyer at one point, but definitely was not towards the end.

And I'm with Koenig in that she comes across as really irritating in the court recordings. She's either shrill and shriek-y, or sing-song-y and speaking way too slow, or she's talking in circles and making no sense. I know that if I had to listen to her for hours on end, I'd probably develop some negative feelings toward her, and probably her client (unfair as that is).

As the defense attorney, all she had to do was poke holes in the state's case and create reasonable doubt, which seems like it would have been pretty easy in this case. She couldn't pull that off. And it really seems like she effed up the first trial by pushing for a mistrial, be cause it seems that jury was going to acquit.

In her defense, she was absolutely right to flip out when she discovered that the prosecutor got a lawyer for Jay for free. That just isn't done. I can't believe the judge overruled her objection to that because Jay didn't seem like he realized he was getting special treatment. The bottom line is that he did get special treatment, and that's weird.

But I still don't know where I come down with Adnan. So much doesn't make sense. I don't get how he's so forgiving of Jay and Guttierez. Maybe he's learned to let go after 15 years, but I would still be pissed. Or maybe it's because he's guilty.

Jay's story kept changing. The cell phone records do NOT back up his story for a good chunk of that day, including the time of the murder. The prosecutor gets him a free lawyer. He's basically an accomplice to murder (knew it was going to happen before hand, picked up the dude who did it, helped him dispose of the body) by his own admission, but he only got a light slap on the wrist. All really weird.

But if it wasn't Adnan, who was it? Why would Jay kill her? The Innocence Project has brought up the possibility of another dude who killed another young Asian woman in the area in the exact same way Hae was killed just a few weeks away from Hae's murder - but if he did it, then why did Jay concoct that story? If it was Mr. S, or Don or anyone else, why would Jay come forward with that story? If it was Adnan, how did a teenager manage to pull it off in a very small window of time while leaving no physical evidence? Why did he trust Jay with his crime?

The only things I still know for sure are that I don't think there was a "beyond a reasonable doubt" level of evidence and Adnan shouldn't have been convicted, and Jay knows a lot more than he's told.

I've been checking out Rabia's blog too, and it was been interesting seeing the bits of evidence she provides. She's obviously pro-Adnan, and...I just like her. She's clearly smart and funny. It makes me want to believe everything she believes. Yet...I just don't know.

[save lilo!]

Dec 4, 2014 23:04:01 GMT -4 kostgard said:

The focus on Guttierez was interesting. I don't think she threw Adnan's case on purpose, but I do think she fucked up. She was dealing with some serious health issues, probably some serious financial issues (asking a client to pay you $10K in cash, and then you don't use it to pay the expert witness you said it was for? yeeeaaah), and wasn't cut out to handle the case. She was an amazing lawyer at one point, but definitely was not towards the end.

And I'm with Koenig in that she comes across as really irritating in the court recordings. She's either shrill and shriek-y, or sing-song-y and speaking way too slow, or she's talking in circles and making no sense. I know that if I had to listen to her for hours on end, I'd probably develop some negative feelings toward her, and probably her client (unfair as that is).

As the defense attorney, all she had to do was poke holes in the state's case and create reasonable doubt, which seems like it would have been pretty easy in this case. She couldn't pull that off. And it really seems like she effed up the first trial by pushing for a mistrial, be cause it seems that jury was going to acquit.

In her defense, she was absolutely right to flip out when she discovered that the prosecutor got a lawyer for Jay for free. That just isn't done. I can't believe the judge overruled her objection to that because Jay didn't seem like he realized he was getting special treatment. The bottom line is that he did get special treatment, and that's weird.

But I still don't know where I come down with Adnan. So much doesn't make sense. I don't get how he's so forgiving of Jay and Guttierez. Maybe he's learned to let go after 15 years, but I would still be pissed. Or maybe it's because he's guilty.

Jay's story kept changing. The cell phone records do NOT back up his story for a good chunk of that day, including the time of the murder. The prosecutor gets him a free lawyer. He's basically an accomplice to murder (knew it was going to happen before hand, picked up the dude who did it, helped him dispose of the body) by his own admission, but he only got a light slap on the wrist. All really weird.

But if it wasn't Adnan, who was it? Why would Jay kill her? The Innocence Project has brought up the possibility of another dude who killed another young Asian woman in the area in the exact same way Hae was killed just a few weeks away from Hae's murder - but if he did it, then why did Jay concoct that story? If it was Mr. S, or Don or anyone else, why would Jay come forward with that story? If it was Adnan, how did a teenager manage to pull it off in a very small window of time while leaving no physical evidence? Why did he trust Jay with his crime?

The only things I still know for sure are that I don't think there was a "beyond a reasonable doubt" level of evidence and Adnan shouldn't have been convicted, and Jay knows a lot more than he's told.

I've been checking out Rabia's blog too, and it was been interesting seeing the bits of evidence she provides. She's obviously pro-Adnan, and...I just like her. She's clearly smart and funny. It makes me want to believe everything she believes. Yet...I just don't know.

It really annoyed me that Sarah sort of dismissed the idea of racial prejudice -- I was so confused! Didn't the rest of what she say after that back up the point that it could have very well played a part? It was so weird and clueless.

I hate listening to Gutierrez's voice too. I'm sure they're playing the parts where it's especially grating, and I can see why it's important to talk about the trial but still. I had been wondering why the first trial was declared a mistrial, and that story surprised me somehow.

It is so crazy to me that the only person who admits to having seen the body and aided at least in the burying of the body did not get any kind of jail time. Maybe Jay did it, and he got such a sweet deal by saying Adnan did it, he took it and ran with it.

[kostgard]

I highly recommend Rabia's Post on episode 10. To say that she takes a dimmer view of Gutierez than Sarah did is a massive understatement.

On the anti-Muslim/racism stuff, I think Sarah didn't really mean that it played no part at all, but that it wasn't the main reason why the police focused on Adnan, like Adnan's mom believes (the fact that he was Hae's ex-boyfriend seems to be the biggest factor). It clearly colored the prosecution's approach, and maybe some jury members too.

I too am baffled by Jay getting no jail time. According to Jay's own testimony, Adnan told him he was going to murder Hae before he actually did it (anywhere from a few days to a few hours beforehand, depending on which version of Jay's story you look at) yet Jay did nothing to stop it - didn't call the cops, didn't warn Hae, nothing. Then he picked Adnan up after he apparently called him saying, "I've just killed her, come get me" - again, instead of say, asking him where he was and then calling the cops and sending them over to his location. And worst of all, he helped dispose of the body, even supplying the shovels. Yet no jail time, and only a light slap on the wrist. Insane.

ETA: Here is another blog from a Serial-obsessed attorney who has done a lot of research

[sardonictart]

I think that kostgard and I are developing hive mind. Ha. This case is mind boggling. I'm less resolute in my 'Adnan did it' stance now, but I remain amazed at the reasonable doubt that was present at least as the story has been told so far.

It's sad about Gutierrez. I think that she simply was in denial about how sick she was and effed up a lot of things toward the end. As shrill as I found her, her fight for Adnan and sadness over his conviction is what is making me doubt his guilt a bit more (plus all the ever-increasing gaping holes in the prosecution's case.)

Between this and all the people killed by cops, I'm scared of the American legal system. It just seems so jacked up from stem to stern.