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Merged Serial Podcast

In the latest episode, Koenig finally (at the very end) acknowledges that Adnan's appeal includes the fact that his lawyer never asked for a plea deal. But she presents it in the best possible light, letting Adnan explain that very few first-degree murder trials end in acquittal. I don't know if this is true (OJ comes to mind as a counter-example), but why is Koenig only disclosing this to us in Episode 10? Did Adnan conceal this from her?

And she still has not mentioned the problems with the alibi witness on the show.
 
Brainster said:
In the latest episode, Koenig finally (at the very end) acknowledges that Adnan's appeal includes the fact that his lawyer never asked for a plea deal. But she presents it in the best possible light, letting Adnan explain that very few first-degree murder trials end in acquittal. I don't know if this is true (OJ comes to mind as a counter-example), but why is Koenig only disclosing this to us in Episode 10? Did Adnan conceal this from her?

And she still has not mentioned the problems with the alibi witness on the show.
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If she's a U.S. crime reporter, she wouldn't exactly see plea negotiations as a smoking gun.

We also learned for the first time that the prosecutor set Wilds up with a lawyer. That is quite unusual and a point for the defense. But, none of this changes the core facts of the case.
 
Charlie Wilkes said:
If she's a U.S. crime reporter, she wouldn't exactly see plea negotiations as a smoking gun.
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Not a smoking gun as far as Adnan's guilt or innocence. But at this point I see it as a smoldering gun as far as Koenig's objectivity.

We also learned for the first time that the prosecutor set Wilds up with a lawyer. That is quite unusual and a point for the defense. But, none of this changes the core facts of the case.
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It is interesting, certainly. I am not sufficiently experienced in the law to say that a prosecutor recommending a defense attorney to a prosecution witness is out of the ordinary.
 
Charlie Wilkes said:
Hmm.

No, he's not an obvious killer.

You might be interested in the Kathleen Peterson case. Her husband Michael was convicted of her murder, but the conviction was overturned, and I believe he's awaiting a new trial. He's a likable and highly intelligent man, a successful writer. He has a following of supporters who are sure he is innocent.

His story is that his wife fell down a staircase. (Interestingly, it's the second time in his life this man has been first on the scene of a fatal staircase fall involving a woman he knew well.)

But, the pathologist who examined Kathleen Peterson noted injuries that were incompatible with a staircase fall. So, Peterson's supporters came up with the theory of an owl strike that precipitated a staircase fall. Could be, right? I don't happen to think it is very likely, but I can't say it's impossible. Nor is it impossible that Jay Wilds killed Syed's ex-GF for no apparent reason.
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I watched that documentary, too. It was flat painful to witness the defense team trying so hard to come up with a way the horrifying amount of blood could have happened under their falling-down-the-stairs theory. To me it was obvious they knew it wasn't going to fly.

Michael Peterson is getting a new trial, is that right? I find the owl theory a LOT more believable than the idea that he killed Kathleen: the marks on her scalp, the feather, the quantities of blood . . . but Serial has convinced me that I might just be irrationally willing to give people more benefit of the doubt than they ought to get.
 
Brainster said:
In the latest episode, Koenig finally (at the very end) acknowledges that Adnan's appeal includes the fact that his lawyer never asked for a plea deal. But she presents it in the best possible light, letting Adnan explain that very few first-degree murder trials end in acquittal. I don't know if this is true (OJ comes to mind as a counter-example), but why is Koenig only disclosing this to us in Episode 10? Did Adnan conceal this from her?
And she still has not mentioned the problems with the alibi witness on the show.
Click to expand...

She certainly knew about it; she studied the documentation herself & it's in the appeal that has already failed. I think she put it into the 10th episode because it was part of the trial, not because she was trying to hide it. It's not evidence of anything that he asked his lawyer what might be possible. He'd been in jail for 10 months by the time the first trial began, right? That was plenty of time to hear about plea deals from other inmates.

As far as the alibi witness . . . Koenig outright said that the 2:36 call from the Best Buy did not happen. She found a credible person who told her that she is 100% positive that Hae Lee was still at the campus then.

Both these things -- the failure to follow up with the alibi, and the failure to ask about possible terms of a plea -- are the basis of the current appeal, correct?
 
Charlie Wilkes said:
. . . the case against Syed, stripped to its essentials, is as follows:

- When questioned, Wilds made an accusation against Syed, a plausible suspect, and he corroborated the accusation by taking police to the victim's missing car.

- Cell tower data puts Syed's phone, if not Syed himself, in the area where the victim's body was found, on the night the victim went missing, at the hour when Wilds claims he and Syed were burying the body at that location.

That's it. Either it is enough to convict, or it's not. I think it is enough. As lean as this evidence is, it is hard. It defies any alternative explanation other than Wilds did the crime on his own or with a different accomplice. That is deeply unlikely IMO.
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Right there with you, up until the final sentence. :)

I would probably hang the jury based on that case, especially if I knew that Wilds had told both friends and the police multiple conflicting versions of the event, had a reputation as a teller of tall tales, had been charged two weeks after the murder (and two weeks before the discovery of Hae Lee's body) for resisting arrest, and had been given a pro bono lawyer specifically chosen by the prosecutor.

That would add up to reasonable doubt for me. And if I then looked at the evidence suggesting that Syed was hiding murderous rage, I don't think I could have been persuaded to lock him up for life.
 
Brainster said:
In the latest episode, Koenig finally (at the very end) acknowledges that Adnan's appeal includes the fact that his lawyer never asked for a plea deal. But she presents it in the best possible light, letting Adnan explain that very few first-degree murder trials end in acquittal. I don't know if this is true (OJ comes to mind as a counter-example), but why is Koenig only disclosing this to us in Episode 10? Did Adnan conceal this from her?
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Or maybe she has to organize the material somehow, and any kind of linear (serial?) presentation of the material must necessarily put some revelations ahead of others. Even if you binge the entire series to date, there's only so much ground she can cover in the first hour, or the first five.

I've come to realize that this story is less the story of Adnan Syed's guilt or innocence, and more the story of Sarah Koenig's journey through the case. So I don't begrudge her the order of her revelations. She's trying to make sense of the case, for herself, and she's inviting us along for the ride. Maybe we'll make the same sense of it she does, maybe we won't. And if we don't like the ride, we can always pull the cord and get off the bus.
 
kwill said:
She certainly knew about it; she studied the documentation herself & it's in the appeal that has already failed. I think she put it into the 10th episode because it was part of the trial, not because she was trying to hide it. It's not evidence of anything that he asked his lawyer what might be possible. He'd been in jail for 10 months by the time the first trial began, right? That was plenty of time to hear about plea deals from other inmates.
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Except that it would have been logical to bring it up in the prior episode, where she talks about how Adnan was adamant about not expressing remorse to the judge in the penalty phase of the trial, because he intended to continue maintaining his innocence. In fact, Koenig seems a bit resentful that she even has to mention it in this episode because the news stories have brought it up.

As far as the alibi witness . . . Koenig outright said that the 2:36 call from the Best Buy did not happen. She found a credible person who told her that she is 100% positive that Hae Lee was still at the campus then.
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But that's not the alibi witness I am talking about; I am talking about Asia McClain, who was the focus of the very first episode, and who is an important part of the current appeal.

Both these things -- the failure to follow up with the alibi, and the failure to ask about possible terms of a plea -- are the basis of the current appeal, correct?
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Yes, that is my understanding.
 
kwill said:
Right there with you, up until the final sentence. :)

I would probably hang the jury based on that case, especially if I knew that Wilds had told both friends and the police multiple conflicting versions of the event, had a reputation as a teller of tall tales, had been charged two weeks after the murder (and two weeks before the discovery of Hae Lee's body) for resisting arrest, and had been given a pro bono lawyer specifically chosen by the prosecutor.

That would add up to reasonable doubt for me. And if I then looked at the evidence suggesting that Syed was hiding murderous rage, I don't think I could have been persuaded to lock him up for life.
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We are approaching this differently. Your approach seems to be intuitive - you find it hard to believe Syed would do this, whereas Wilds seems like someone who might.

That is not how I think. You have mentioned my instincts a couple of times. I don't think my instincts are especially good, which is why I don't rely on instinct or character assessments in a case like this.

I rely on a certain method of thinking, which I have developed from studying many crimes. I have found that most murders, even the strangest of them, usually fit into broad categories, involving motives and patterns of behavior that have become familiar to me.

I therefore start my inquiry by asking myself what happened. What kind of crime am I looking at?

This case does not look like a sexual homicide, which is the first thing I think of when a teenage girl is murdered. Nor does it seem to be criminal enterprise. It wasn't incidental to some other act, it wasn't random violence by a deranged individual, and it wasn't terrorism or political violence.

Everything I have learned tells me this was a personal cause homicide. Somebody wanted this girl dead.

That means the killer was in the sphere of people she knew well, and it was someone who had a reason to kill her, however screwy that reason may seem to us. That fits Syed, but it doesn't fit Wilds.

And if Wilds had done it, he wouldn't have told Jenn that Syed did it, before anyone even knew the girl was missing much less dead.

To me, given the corroboration for Wilds' accusation, and the fact that his story is familiar from other murders, this case is a slam-dunk. New, factual information could convince me I am wrong. Character assessments won't convince me, because I do not trust character assessments, behavior, demeanor, or any of that. That is for the people on websleuths.
 
Thanks, that's completely logical and straightforward. I suppose that my reluctance to say, "guilty" has to do with wanting to think there are going to be reasons that are findable and understandable.
 
Serial - the podcast

Anyone been following this? It's a production by people involved with This American Life, a long form investigation into a murder case from 1999 cast over 12 episodes that range from 30-50 minutes a piece. It's been a smash hit and become the most downloaded podcast of the year and after plowing through 8 episodes today I can really see why, it's very engaging journalism. It's set over a number of different narrative arcs that really have you questioning whether the kid (he was a kid at the time) is innocent or whether he is guilty as the jury in the case found. The team go back over the case in minute detail, revisiting key characters and trying to get to the bottom of the whole affair.

If you haven't heard it already I'd certainly recommend it, perfect holiday season fare to while away the lazy afternoons.

Check it out:

http://serialpodcast.org/
 
Brainster said:
In the latest episode, Koenig finally (at the very end) acknowledges that Adnan's appeal includes the fact that his lawyer never asked for a plea deal. But she presents it in the best possible light, letting Adnan explain that very few first-degree murder trials end in acquittal.
Click to expand...

From my learned position as someone who has watched a lot of crime documentaries (:p) this seems to me a pretty common thing in the US criminal justice system - people are offered deals that see them out in 20 years or face the chance of getting death or life (sometimes multiple life) sentences. His explanation did not sound far fetched to me.

I dunno. I'm very conflicted by the whole story. I want Sayed to be innocent, I really do - I was sucked in by the narrative and his personality. But the case made by the "Dr Spock" fact checker on the podcasts team made a very good rational and objective case that if he is innocent he must be really unlucky.

I will be very interested in what the Innocence Project team come up with from the DNA requests (again, I want them to exonerate Sayed) but it is very hard to square the notion of a serial killer with Jay's evidence and overall story.

And, again, based on my deep and earned understanding of Baltimore (I watched all 6 seasons of The Wire at least three times) I find the whole issue of Jay freaking out over the van outside the video store and the "West side killers" to be strange and anomalous. Wasn't Jay supposed to be the guy with the criminal connect? If anyone had a hook into the proverbial Marlo Stanfield then it would be him and not Sayed.

I dunno. A lot doesn't make sense to me.
 
theprestige said:
Or maybe she has to organize the material somehow, and any kind of linear (serial?) presentation of the material must necessarily put some revelations ahead of others. Even if you binge the entire series to date, there's only so much ground she can cover in the first hour, or the first five.

I've come to realize that this story is less the story of Adnan Syed's guilt or innocence, and more the story of Sarah Koenig's journey through the case. So I don't begrudge her the order of her revelations. She's trying to make sense of the case, for herself, and she's inviting us along for the ride. Maybe we'll make the same sense of it she does, maybe we won't. And if we don't like the ride, we can always pull the cord and get off the bus.
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I binged all 12 episodes and I would agree with you.
 
Is interesting nonetheless. I'll certainly be interested in Part 2 where he makes a claim on the anonymous caller that sparked the interest in Adnan.
 
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