Serial

There was about a 15-minute pod on the Serial feed today confirming much of what was in the WSJ story. Namely:

- The original case files had handwritten notes that identified two possible suspects, one of which who was never thoroughly investigated by police. However, neither were divulged to defense attorneys originally, which is a pretty clear violation. (Not that it'll justify his imprisonment, but this alone probably means Adnan is going to get a large settlement.)

- Koenig says she knows the names of the two suspects, but isn't going to release them because they haven't been charged. One has served time for sexual assaults, while one has family property close to where Lee's car was found.

- There is brief mention of "new" DNA advancements, but no match. This makes me think that they did some work with the familial / genome DNA that's been developed since the initial case though, i.e. the stuff that caught the Golden Gate killer. While they might not have a match now, given Adnan's unique DNA profile, it wouldn't surprise me if a more thorough analysis of the DNA evidence they had kind of rules him out.

- The D.A. noted that Jay's story continued to change, and after considering that and talking with three more cell phone experts, those records can't be used to corroborate and vice versa.

 

He can ask the thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, prior inmates who have been wrongly convicted in our country's history. Sad how much power the govt. has and what can come to bear from that power.

 

David Simon of "The Wire" fame has spent his morning tweeting about these two (very, very long) articles, which pretty thoroughly take a bat to the notion that Adnan Syed is innocent, to Serial's journalistic standards, to Rabia Chaudry and to the Baltimore AG who set Syed free under laughably flimsy legal ground.

The Wrongful Exoneration of Adnan Syed Part I: A Straightforward Murder Case

The Wrongful Exoneration of Adnan Syed Part II: The Legal and Media Circus

I guess the author is a former defense attorney who has repped some death row cases and now writes freelance on crime. I had never heard of the website, but Syed's defenders are saying it's a right-wing pub. These stories seem down the middle, though. Simon, naturally, is having a field day.

 

That whole kit and kaboodle is interesting; thank you for flagging this.

 

The biggest error which the prosecutors made was in closing that they said that the first call to Jay was after he committed the murder and was to get him instead of the second call. The fact that Adnan never mentioned his conversation with or letters from Asia to his lawyers or had them testify is damning to me.

 

I thought the DNA evidence they were testing, as they announced his release, had to be a kind of "smoking gun" when it came to an alternative suspect. But, it's been pretty radio silence on that end.