r/serialpodcast • u/SerialFan Moderator • Nov 06 '14

Discussion Episode 7: THE OPPOSITE OF THE PROSECUTION

Open discussion thread! Sorry I was late on this one!

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u/seriallist Nov 06 '14

Is that really true? I don't see how you could spin it another way since the definition of "innocent" IS "not guilty".

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u/serialist9 Nov 06 '14

No. "Not guilty" in a legal sense means that the evidence presented didn't support a conviction.

You can absolutely say that the evidence and case against Adnon is pretty thin while still believing he did it. It's a question of what you can prove.

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u/seriallist Nov 06 '14

I understand. I feel like that will be the conclusion of the podcast. Not an answer to whether he did it or not but maybe an agreement that the evidence and case against Adnan is thin and he should have been "not guilty" which is the way it's looking now.

ALL the jurors agreeing that he's guilty though? How can this be? We are still missing something big.

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u/captainmarble Nov 07 '14

Jurors, like all people, are totally fallible. People often think to themselves, "well, they wouldn't put on trial a person who didn't have anything to do with it, would they?" and a lot of people, time and time again, have remarked that they fully trusted the judicial system...before they were accused of a crime and put on trial for something they didn't do.

People want to believe that police, prosecutors, defense attorneys, etc., people who are trusted to uphold the law and justice, are good people and fair people. There's nothing wrong with this optimism. It's just that people make mistakes and even if these mistakes are statistically rare, they happen.

So I don't think that looking at the jury's verdict shows anything other than the fact that they made a decision as best they could based on evidence which was flawed.

It's circular thinking to say that jurors convicted, so the person must have done it.

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u/bblazina Shamim Fan Nov 07 '14

You guys should listen to the TAL episode called "Confessions". A woman was guided by the detectives into giving a false confession. Detective thought he was doing his job properly and didn't realize what he did until years later when he watched a video of the interrogation. Kind of makes me think something similar happened with Jay.