It is one thing to confuse the events of an average day. If
nothing significant happens, commonplace events tend to run together. So, if
Adnan is in fact innocent, it is totally conceivable that he would not remember
the details of January 13, 1999 when Detectives Ritz and McGillivray start
asking questions a little over a month after Hae’s disappearance. But, to Jay,
January 13, 1999 wasn’t a run-of-the-mill day. According to him, it is a day in
which he was roped into aiding and abetting a murder. You would think that
Jay’s memory of the day, then, would be pretty keen. So why does his story keep
changing? Did he really forget where he claims Adnan showed him Hae’s body? As
hard as it is to believe that Jay would have such a lapse in memory, he does
have one thing going for his account of the afternoon: he knows where Hae’s car
is. However inconsistent his stories may be, Jay knows something about the
crime.
One thing that Koenig touched on was the minimal force with
Detectives Ritz and McGillivray press Jay on his conflicting stories. I found
this interesting. Here, the detectives have a supposedly key player a murder
case who is willing to “come clean” and give the details of the murder after
what seems like a fairly short period of reluctance. Yet, this person is not
giving consistent recounts of the day of the crime. What do the detectives do?
Do they let the inconsistencies slide because they don’t want to lose the
relative trust they have established with Jay? After all, he does seem to have
some pertinent information on the crime. And while the detectives could always
threaten Jay with potential charges for his involvement in the crime, those
threats could make him less willing to divulge details of the crime. Or do they
notice the inconsistencies, and just move on, for the sake of maintaining Jay’s
apparent trust, and gleaning the most information from his that they can? Ritz
and McGillivray seem to choose the latter option.
But this raises a tricky question about ethics. Is it
ethical that the detectives are so lenient with Jay’s inconsistencies just
because he is a potential source of information? Or should they be more
concerned with getting to the consistent truth? Because Jay’s inconsistencies
(and this is just my opinion here) seem a little like lies. That is not to say
I think his whole testimony is a lie. I don’t. I think there are some elements
of truth woven in there, but the holes in the narrative, the inconsistencies seem
too big to ignore. Yet, the detectives and the State use Jay’s testimony as the
primary component of their case against Adnan. This whole episode got me
thinking about what is more important thing to investigators and prosecutors,
that they get a person behind bars for a given crime, or that they get the
right person behind bars. It all seems a little sketchy.
I think the ethical question you raised is an interesting one. Police are often criticized for being too aggressive in interrogations and coercing often falsified confessions from suspects, but the detectives in this case are accused of the opposite. Were the detectives too laid-back in their interrogation of Jay or were they afraid of losing the rapport of their main witness by putting pressure on his story? I believe it is the latter. If the detectives had any other avenue of information and were not wholly reliant on Jay for information in the case, I believe they would have felt at liberty to heighten the pressure of the interview environment, but they did not. Jay wasn't just a key witness in the case to find Hae's killer he was the ONLY witness the police had. He was their only link to the crime scene and so the detectives could not jeopardize their chances of getting information, no matter how consistent or flawed, from Jay because they simply had no other options. I don't have a problem with this particular aspect of the police tactics used, however, outside the interrogation room, I feel the detectives could have put more pressure on Jay's story. If the police could have delved deeper to fact check Jay's story and maybe find a credible witness or receipt or any piece of evidence that corroborates Jay's story or falsifies it, they could have had more freedom to interrogate Jay more harshly. Before, if Jay, their only avenue of information, shut down because he didn't feel comfortably sharing his story, the police were at a roadblock. If the police were able to find some evidentiary support either going in accordance with or going against Jay's story, they would have had options. But unfortunately, whether it was due to lack of detective work outside the interrogation room or a simple lack of evidence, Jay was their only option, making their situation precarious and delicate.
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