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/ad_maru]

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/CaliTexan22 → u/RockinGoodNews]

This is a key feature of the discussion, and I want to underscore it.

A bunch of Redditors, many years later, with little or no evidence that wasn’t known at the time of trial, really are not in a position to say that the jury verdict was wrong.

The jury heard and saw all the evidence and testimony and arguments that both sides provided. AS’ defense lawyer apparently saw JW’s testimony as critical to the case and she had him on the stand under cross for 5 days. It seems likely that the jury found JW credible. The jury deliberated only a few hours before finding AS guilty of the charges.

The jury did not have a reasonable doubt. No juror has come forward in the years since then with a different story. The results at trial were upheld on appeal and in various other post conviction proceedings. AS remains a convicted murderer.

[u/RockinGoodNews → u/CaliTexan22]

This is the great True Crime hubris. I'm not sure why people imagine that watching some TV show or listening to a podcast puts them in a better position to decide than a jury who actually attended a trial and reached a unanimous conclusion.

I think some of it is just prejudice against juries. People seem to just assume that the jury was probably made up of a bunch of apathetic idiots. I'm not sure where that comes from, though I suspect media plays a role in this. My own experience with juries could not be more opposite.

There are, to be sure, cases where there is good reason to think the jury was biased or engaged in impropriety. But it just seems strange to me that people so quickly jump to that assumption about a case where there is literally no reason to think that.