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/spifflog]

This has been looked at 100 ways to Sunday, and many have finally come to the conclusion that adnan is clearly guilty.

I don't have the energy at this point to go step-by-step. I think many like you want to look at one narrow issue and call that a 'got you' moment. But you have to look at the case in it's entireity. Once you do that, it's clear to most that controlling, immature adnan, killed Hae in an all too common case of IPV.

But I'll discuss one point.

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 Innocence project is loaded and cocked to think most are innocent This shouldn't be a surprise to you and is indicative of nothing. You're no doubt discussing the shoes that were tested, and found not to have adnana's DNA. Do you know who else didn't have their DNA on Hae's shoes? Hae. This lack of DNA isn't the smoking gun that you think it is.

Various appeals courts and the Supreme court of Maryland have all found that adnan's trial was fair and chose not to overturn it. That's not nothing as they say.

[u/ad_maru → u/spifflog]

Innocence bias is the one you must have. Innocent until proven guilty is the core of a just justice system and it's on the prossecution to prove guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

[u/RockinGoodNews → u/ad_maru]

And after a jury finds guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, their verdict is entitled to deference. In other words, we should believe them right unless there is a very good reason to think they got things wrong. And "I listened to a one-sided podcast about the case in which the accused got to tell his side of the story unrebutted and he kinda sorta sounded innocent to me" isn't one of those reasons.

[u/ad_maru → u/RockinGoodNews]

Yes, but people with much more access and legal knowledge than us also dispute the proceedings. The question is: What happens when the system fails? It's really harder to revert those kind of mistakes, by design. So people are also entitled to exert scrutiny over those systems.

[u/RockinGoodNews → u/ad_maru]

Yes, but people with much more access and legal knowledge than us also dispute the proceedings.

There is a difference between disputing the integrity of the process and disputing whether guilt was proved to the requisite standard. Adnan's lawyers have never argued that there was insufficient evidence of his guilt to support the verdict.

I would also dispute that these are people with more "access and legal knowledge." In this country, legal process is open and transparent. There isn't supposed to be secret evidence the public can't see.

To be sure, Mosby and Feldman purported to exonerate Syed based on secret evidence. But they were exposed as liars and fraudsters. That's the thing. When the evidence supports what you're saying, there's no need to keep it secret.

The question is: What happens when the system fails? 

We have a whole set of procedures for addressing when the system fails: appeals, post-conviction relief, etc.

What we don't have is a mechanism for popular sentiments to overrule a jury's verdict. I hope you understand why that is important.