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‘Serial’ case: Adnan Syed released, conviction tossed

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

#151

Post by Eisenstein »

ImprobableTruth wrote: post #150
Eisenstein wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While technically correct this is obviously not how people speak. If you ask someone 'what is the percent chance that drinking this glass of water I just got out of the tap in New York City will kill me within a few seconds?' They would respond '0%', even though by a mathematical definition that is not true.

People generally consider context for their choice of words. Alongside 100% they were also given options such as 99.9999999%, it's clear that 100% in this case is not just used as "very likely".

I didn't know they were given specific options.

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

#152

Post by bigmattystyles »

bruceb wrote: post #143
bigmattystyles wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt that will happen unless something else is revealed as the prosecutors are the ones that asked for the conviction to be vacated.

There is a third possibility, he pleads guilty to time served. He was a minor when the murder happened. He pleads, gets 25 years, with time served + good behavior, he never actually goes back to prison.

Right, I was even wondering about an Alford plea.

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

#153

Post by bruceb »

bigmattystyles wrote: post #152
bruceb wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a third possibility, he pleads guilty to time served. He was a minor when the murder happened. He pleads, gets 25 years, with time served + good behavior, he never actually goes back to prison.

Right, I was even wondering about an Alford plea.

yes, this is what I meant. A no contest type of plea. He can say he is pleading guilty because he has spent 20+ years in prison and just wants to be/stay out, not that he is guilty. State can say he is guilty but he has spent 20+ years in prison so we are agreeing to this in order save taxpayer $ and move on.

I remember listening to Serial and thinking Adnan Syed's advocate Rabia Chaudry seemed more convinced of his innocence than he was. Like he was maintaining his innocence for his family then she came along and started pushing harder to get him out and he was along for the ride.

Victims don't always act as we might expect. So that might just be the way he is. Hopefully concrete proof will come out to say exactly who it was. I hope this for the family of Hae Min Lee. But is possible it never does.

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

#154

Post by micromacrofoot »

bruceb wrote: post #153
bigmattystyles wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, I was even wondering about an Alford plea.

yes, this is what I meant. A no contest type of plea. He can say he is pleading guilty because he has spent 20+ years in prison and just wants to be/stay out, not that he is guilty. State can say he is guilty but he has spent 20+ years in prison so we are agreeing to this in order save taxpayer $ and move on. I remember listening to Serial and thinking Adnan Syed's advocate Rabia Chaudry seemed more convinced of his…

I think the point of the podcast was to make a case that "probably did it" isn't enough for a life sentence.

Unfortunately I think many people are uncomfortable with the lack of closure behind such a situation, but that's another angle of our justice system more people should probably be conscious of.

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

#155

Post by BeetleB »

robga wrote: post #149
BeetleB wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not listened to Undisclosed, but I did read a fair amount of Rabia Chaudry's book, and to be blunt, it was very off-putting. She was critical of any objective take/perspective. Her presentation was basically the Truth: Adnan Syed is innocent. Anything that supports that statement was accepted relatively uncritically, and anything that didn't was always suspect. BTW, she's not merely a friend - she's his relative.

> BTW, she's not merely a friend - she's his relative. I don't know that she is. She describes herself as a family friend. Her brother was friends with Adnan. I'm sure they now all consider themselves "family", but I couldn't find any statement declaring blood relation. Perhaps in her book she goes further than I could find on the interweb.

Seems my memory was off. I looked at the original source where I had read it, and it also says "friend".

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

#156

Post by DerekL »

scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #142
fasthands9 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness I think Bill Simmons, Joe Rogan, Marc Maron and Adam Carolla have had their praise for moving podcasts along. Same with This American Life. Serial was different, though in that it was a multi episode look at something. This American life had segments and still had to be designed with the radio listener in mind - who was probably only in the car for 30 min. I don't think Serial is that uniquely good - but…

You could also just call them “radio shows”. It’s a weird thing that the company that made iPods for a few years defined that term and we have gone with it since. As for the earlier part of your comment - it’s there in the name, “serial”. That was the experiment. But there have been serialized radio shows back when radio was the leading medium. We just don’t remember that time. What I think is key here is that these…

> It’s a weird thing that the company that made iPods for a few years defined that term and we have gone with it since.

Apple didn't coin the term. People started using the word in 2004, but iTunes didn't have podcast support until 2005.

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

#157

Post by splistud »

geuis wrote: post #34
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' was the podcast that launched all podcasts Sorry, but this statement is objectively wrong. Podcasts have existed for close to 20 years in the way we understand them today. Serial may have helped to popularize podcasts, but in no way was original.

No post body was provided.

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

#159

Post by mecha_ghidorah »

BeetleB wrote: post #136
mecha_ghidorah wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hated Serial so goddamn much. I honestly felt like it did a terrible job of establishing much reasonable doubt and it just sort of... ends? Would you still recommend Undisclosed?

> I honestly felt like it did a terrible job of establishing much reasonable doubt and it just sort of... ends? The goal of Serial wasn't to establish reasonable doubt. She was asked to look into the case, and she's reporting what she found. There was hope that there would be some conclusion, but it wasn't the expectation when she began the story. As for the ending, what exactly would you want? I thought it was clear…

I'm not mad that Serial didn't provide doubt or prove guilt, though I am somewhat frustrated that the reporter seemed to have so much doubt that (in my opinion) wasn't justified by what she presented in the show, what I am mad about is that it largely amounted to just several hours of someone saying "Maybe he is guilty, but also maybe not?" without any real narrative or arc or progression. I felt like the story ended exactly where it started with no real meaningful change in how the reporter felt, the facts of the case, or even without giving us a particularly compelling biography of Adnan.

Everyone made such a fuss over this podcast and in the end absolutely nothing happens in it on any of the axis that could have been interesting and it felt like such a waste of my time after I finished it

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

#160

Post by rayiner »

cobaltoxide wrote: post #141
rayiner wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serial left me thinking that Syed was probably guilty, or at the very least the case was a close call. The practical truth is that if we required this level of scrutiny for every conviction to stick, we’d multiply by an order of magnitude or two the number of guilty criminals who cannot be convicted.

> The practical truth is that if we required this level of scrutiny for every conviction to stick, we’d multiply by an order of magnitude or two the number of guilty criminals who cannot be convicted. The standard for criminal conviction is "beyond a reasonable doubt." There is no possible way Adnan Syed's conviction reached that standard.

A witness (Jay) testified at the trial that he saw Hae Min’s dead body in the trunk of Syed’s car. He stuck by that testimony when he was interviewed later: https://theintercept.com/2014/12/29/exclusive-interview-jay-...

Forget the feels and focus on Bayesian probability. Hae had left Syed and she winds up dead shortly thereafter. Just statistically, it’s almost always the ex husband/boyfriend that killed her. Jay’s testimony clinches it.

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