Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

‘Serial’ case: Adnan Syed released, conviction tossed

apnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 169 posts

Re: ‘Serial’ case: Adnan Syed released, conviction tossed

#41

Post by legitster »

indigodaddy wrote: post #19

When I finished the podcast I was not at all convinced of his innocence. For me was 50/50 or even 60/40 against innocence. Just my takeaway/opinion of course.. EDIT However, reading both of the AP News articles on this now, it does serve to sway me more toward his innocence. Crazy that the prosecutors withheld this at that time.. Par for the course unfortunately I guess. Seems as though the SA office is trying to do…

I was 50/50 after the podcast but Jay's interview after the podcast heavily swayed me towards Adnan's guilt.

Jay was't a suspect, but definitely knew about it and where the body was.

He gave conflicting testimony to the police because he was dealing drugs out of his grandmother's house and didn't want himself or his family in prison. (Using these hostile testimonies to undermine the official one entered in court is very misleading) But he had no reason to continue lying after all these years.

Re: ‘Serial’ case: Adnan Syed released, conviction tossed

#42

Post by yamtaddle »

doitLP wrote: post #22

For a hilarious lampooning of true crime podcasts, check out The Onion’s podcast “A Very Fatal Murder”. Truly a great piece of satire: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-very-fatal-murder/id...

Not a podcast, but there's also the Netflix mockumentary series "American Vandal".

Re: ‘Serial’ case: Adnan Syed released, conviction tossed

#43

Post by wayne »

doitLP wrote: post #22

For a hilarious lampooning of true crime podcasts, check out The Onion’s podcast “A Very Fatal Murder”. Truly a great piece of satire: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-very-fatal-murder/id...

'Only Murders in the Building' starring Martin Short, Steve Martin, and Selena Gomez playing podcasters in a Hulu show is also amazing.

Re: ‘Serial’ case: Adnan Syed released, conviction tossed

#44

Post by legitster »

shishy wrote: post #36
legitster wrote: post #32

I'll be honest and say I found the podcast rather frustrating. Koenig was clearly an outsider to the legal system, and had the benefit of telling a different, big long narrative. But at the end of it, I don't know if it was any more or less truthful than the first one. It was still built on old memories, circumstantial evidence, and bias (she even admitted she only started the investigation because she found Adnan so…

> One of the suspects had threatened Lee, saying “he would make her (Ms. Lee) disappear. He would kill her,” according to the filing. > “Given the stunning lack of reliable evidence implicating Mr. Syed, coupled with increasing evidence pointing to other suspects, this unjust conviction cannot stand,” said Assistant Public Defender Erica Suter, Mr. Syed’s attorney and, Director of the Innocence Project Clinic. “Mr. S…

I would love to hear from an actual neutral legal party if that's actually the case. Adnan had a motive and a strong testimony against him from an accomplice who's story had checked out. Is it actually a big miss to not rule out every possible suspect?

But on your broader point, I largely agree that anyone freed from unnecessarily long and potentially unjust prison sentences is a good thing.

Re: ‘Serial’ case: Adnan Syed released, conviction tossed

#45

Post by indigodaddy »

oconnor663 wrote: post #40
indigodaddy wrote: post #19

When I finished the podcast I was not at all convinced of his innocence. For me was 50/50 or even 60/40 against innocence. Just my takeaway/opinion of course.. EDIT However, reading both of the AP News articles on this now, it does serve to sway me more toward his innocence. Crazy that the prosecutors withheld this at that time.. Par for the course unfortunately I guess. Seems as though the SA office is trying to do…

> For me was 50/50 or even 60/40 against innocence. Totally, but the standard for conviction is "beyond a reasonable doubt". By that standard, a 40% chance of innocence means "not guilty". I don't know whether the law has ever translated "reasonable doubt" into a specific percentage, but I have to imagine it's less than 10%?

I don’t disagree. I guess it’s kind of like an additional psychological bias that one plays into when he’s already been convicted and in prison.

Re: ‘Serial’ case: Adnan Syed released, conviction tossed

#46

Post by willcipriano »

blobbers wrote: post #17

'Serial' was the podcast that launched all podcasts. It was the defining podcast. It isn't that it was hyper monetized or incredibly financially successful; simply it showed that the audience was there. It has over 340 million listens as of 2018 . With this eviction of conviction, I suspect that number will be over a billion. It is fitting that it has come full circle and fulfilled the ultimate purpose of investigati…

Karl Pilkington was eating a knob at night a decade prior.

Re: ‘Serial’ case: Adnan Syed released, conviction tossed

#47

Post by syntaxing »

I forgot the exact numbers we used for this exercise but we did a standard hypothesis test on wrongful convictions in my stat 101 class and even mathematically, only 95% convictions are “rightful”. So essentially there is 5% innocent people. The 5% mainly consist of the poor and/or non-white.

Re: ‘Serial’ case: Adnan Syed released, conviction tossed

#48

Post by karaterobot »

blobbers wrote: post #17

'Serial' was the podcast that launched all podcasts. It was the defining podcast. It isn't that it was hyper monetized or incredibly financially successful; simply it showed that the audience was there. It has over 340 million listens as of 2018 . With this eviction of conviction, I suspect that number will be over a billion. It is fitting that it has come full circle and fulfilled the ultimate purpose of investigati…

Serial definitely was an inflection point in the history of podcasts.

Re: ‘Serial’ case: Adnan Syed released, conviction tossed

#49

Post by Wowfunhappy »

robga wrote: post #11

Serial was blowout success, but flawed in many ways. For me, chief amongst these is not updating the podcast with new (and potentially exculpatory) information as it came to light over the years. What really progressed the case was the Undisclosed podcast [0]. Rabia Chaudry, a childhood friend of Adnan and an attorney, first took Adnan's story to Sarah Koenig, who documented it in the Serial podcast. But in Undisclos…

I tried a bit of Undisclosed but it was... too much for me. In Serial, I was able to keep all the details of the case straight in my head, but Undisclosed went too far.

That said, their objective wasn't to entertain and I respect that.

Re: ‘Serial’ case: Adnan Syed released, conviction tossed

#50

Post by stingrae »

legitster wrote: post #44
shishy wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the suspects had threatened Lee, saying “he would make her (Ms. Lee) disappear. He would kill her,” according to the filing. > “Given the stunning lack of reliable evidence implicating Mr. Syed, coupled with increasing evidence pointing to other suspects, this unjust conviction cannot stand,” said Assistant Public Defender Erica Suter, Mr. Syed’s attorney and, Director of the Innocence Project Clinic. “Mr. S…

I would love to hear from an actual neutral legal party if that's actually the case. Adnan had a motive and a strong testimony against him from an accomplice who's story had checked out. Is it actually a big miss to not rule out every possible suspect? But on your broader point, I largely agree that anyone freed from unnecessarily long and potentially unjust prison sentences is a good thing.

> "accomplice who's story had checked out"

I'm not sure that's how i would put it. He changed his story several times until it fit.

Post reply on HN