The first four episodes of Serial for me had me convinced that Adnan was innocent, that Jay was a jerk for locking someone up in jail, and that Jay had something to hide and was using Adnan to further his own agenda. But after Episode 5, I am a lot less sure of that fact.
It is not as if I'm clearing Jay of all his inconsistencies, but at the same time I think it is very powerful that Jay's story, albeit inconsistent, has remained the same at the core. His details of the incident, 6 weeks later, are understandably mixed up. And if I put myself in his shoes, I think I too would waver back and forth on minor details like who I called, which house I went to, what time I went to smoke, etc. The crucial parts of his testimony however; things like burying Hae in Leakin Park, dropping off Hae's car, etc. continue to line up and are proven to have been true. The fact that Jay knew these parts of the case I believe is a strong indicator that although he may be hiding things from the police or changing his story, he overall may actually be telling the truth.
I think the question is not so much who is telling the truth and who isn't, but whether or not it was fair that the prosecution claimed that the cell phone tower records and Jay's testimony backed up one another and was proof that Adnan did it. For me this brings up questions like, What sort of fact checking is done in court/if any? How is it that the prosecution as able to claim the cell phone records as proof, when Koenig was able to herself debunk those claims? Ultimately, I think we should be questioning the reliability of the legal system more than we should be questioning the reliability of the witnesses
I completely agree with you about how it really feels like the prosecution’s problem, and that’s what’s really wrong with this case as opposed to if Jay was or wasn’t a reliable witness, or even if Adnan did it. What’s weird about this case is that I’ve always believed that the American legal system was all about “innocent until proven guilty” and “guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt.” Yet, with Adnan’s case, there are tons of doubts! How was Jay considered a reliable witness? Why didn’t the defense rip Jay apart? How did the jury come to a consensus?
ReplyDeleteI know this is just a movie, but it reminds me of what happened in “12 Angry Men.” In that movie, it was a huge deal that the jury couldn’t come to a consensus about a case they had, but in the end, they all agreed that there was no way that they could know for sure that the person on trial did it. Then, I think of the jury in Adnan’s case, and it seems so crazy that they all actually came to a consensus. It makes me wonder if there was something going on.
Then, I thought about what would it mean if Adnan was innocent and was locked up. Is it better that an innocent man is locked up so those guilty will be locked up too? Or is it better for a bunch of guilty people to walk free for an innocent man to not go to prison? Turns out there’s a principle in criminal justice called “Blackstone’s formulation” which states that it’s better for ten guilty men to go free than one innocent man to be locked up. Naturally, there’s the opposite view, and this has been argued for centuries. I guess Adnan is just another case in that debate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone's_formulation