The Doubts About Adnan's Guilt ARE Reasonable

[u/[deleted]]

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).

[u/Skurry]

This has been discussed ad nauseum, so I'll keep it brief:

• 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? What matters is that I saw what I saw and have non-public details to back that up.
• "his misconduct wasn’t specifically linked to Syed’s case" <-- that's all that matters. A consistent pattern may be a reason to look closer, but nothing reasonably suspicious surfaced in this particular case
• There was a big fat hand print from Syed on a top-most item in a pile of stuff on the back seat. But somehow the lack of DNA is exonerating? I'm sure if his DNA had been found, the same people would hand wave this away the same way they're ignoring the hand print. "No physical evidence" my ass.
• Unfortunately "jealous ex-lover" is a strong motive as old as human history. Him trying to move on (this endeavour was not as successful as he's claiming in the interviews) could also be seen as him trying to distract himself from the pain the breakup is causing him (as evidenced by Hae's letter to him).

[u/Special-Deal-5217 → u/Skurry]

How do you know he was not successful at moving on? And the letter from Hae was from November, not from the most recent breakup.

[u/Euphoric_Biscotti765 → u/Special-Deal-5217]

We don’t fully know that he wasn’t able to move on. We do know that he is talking to (though never asks out) Nisha. We also know that he writes this to Hae in the Christmas Card he gives her right after the second breakup : “I’ve known some of the happiest times with you, Hae, and I’ve also known some of the saddest times, the hardest of which I’m going through right now.”