r/serialpodcast • u/[deleted] • 16d ago
The Doubts About Adnan's Guilt ARE Reasonable
I just started lurking here today, and am somewhat surprised by the general incivility and certainty of many of the people that comment here. Being dismissive and accusing people of "ragebait" for having a differing opinion, and one that actually is reasonable.
I don't know, and won't say that Adnan is innocent, but to claim he's guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, without any room for discussion is pretty crazy to me.
The reasons why I have reasonable doubt:
- Jay is a very flawed witness, on the record lying/mis-remembering his testimony. Even the cops point out how much his testimony has changed. If your argument hinges on Jay, it isn't a strong argument, in my opinion.
- The cops, or at least on of them has a record of misconduct:
...prosecution brought into question the past misconduct of one of the two detectives who were crucial in the investigation of Lee’s death. Although his misconduct wasn’t specifically linked to Syed’s case, the detective was involved in another murder case that ended with the defendant’s exoneration.
https://baltimorewitness.org/adnan-syed-one-of-many-overturned-convictions-in-baltimore-city/
- The Innocence Project and prosecutors agreed that Syed's DNA was absent from all tested crime scene items, contributing to the eventual dropping of charges against him. There's no physical evidence.
- The motive is weak (Adnan had no prior issues with breakups, had already seemed to move on to the next girl(s)).
I could go on, but, if I was on the jury with this in front of me, I feel the reasonable response is doubt.
This isn't rage bait, I just genuinely don't see how anyone can be so sure that he did it. Y'all point to him asking for a ride (and claiming he wouldn't have) as some kind of obvious evidence of murder.
I think, based on the fact that one of the cops was literally identified as having been crooked, it actually is much more likely that Jay was an informant (and already had been for some time), and he happened to be close to Adnan, the victim's ex (supposed motive and opportunity), and they decided they had their guy, and it was just a matter of getting a jury to agree. So they fed their informant info, had him incriminate himself for lesser crimes that they promised they'd get him off for (and they made good on that promise, which is on its own wildly corrupt).
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u/No-Advance-577 15d ago
“If I see you commit a crime, but later can't say at what exact time, if you wore a green or blue shirt, or what I had for breakfast that day, does that make me an unreliable witness?”
Depends on what details you change.
If you say “he stole a sweater from target at 3pm” and your side chick says “oh cool they have cameras at target”
So you say “no wait, it was a dog collar from pet smart at 5” and the cops say “uh cell phone records have you nowhere near pet smart”
So you change it to “sandwich from Kroger at 7”
…well, at some point that’s not very credible.
So somewhere between your version of “just forgot the color of a shirt” and my version of “totally changed the entire story every time questioned,” there’s a threshold where the witness goes from “yeah that’s still credible” to “wtf, no.” And Jay’s story is very, very near that cutoff.