As a person who consumes true crime podcasts like candy, it may be surprising to some to hear that I only recently listened to Serial, the podcast that ushered in an entire wave of true crime junkies like myself, crusading for justice and advocating for victims by telling their stories and soliciting the help of their listeners. I like to think I am interesting, unique, and cool, so of course I tend to go against the grain of mainstream podcasting. However, as I learned with Stranger Things and the Tiger King doc, sometimes stuff is so popular because it is actually good. Listening to the case against Adnan Syed absolutely blew my mind and was something I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs about. As I listened to the podcast, after spending 4 years in the forensic department at my former school, I sat and shook my head because I had reasonable doubt. If I did, why did they not?
That being said, I raise questions about Adnan Syed’s guilt, and more importantly, two concepts that are common in the American justice system: reasonable doubt and witness testimony. First, reasonable doubt in and of itself has some degree of subjectivity to it. Something I find reasonable may not be reasonable to, say, a 17-year-old guy or 65-year-old man. Reasonable doubt does not necessarily leave room for circumstances as it should, and in an article by Picinali (2013), the author stresses the dual meanings of reasonable doubt, and how in a justice system such as ours, the term reasonable doubt does not really fit into the sliding scale we would typically refer to it in. Simply put, there is no real way to define reasonableness objectively and thus this standard should be re-evaluated.
For those who are not familiar with the case, on top of using Adnan’s nationality and religion against him, the prosecution also used the testimony of his friend, Jay. The issue with this, as it stands, is the inconsistencies in Jay’s testimony. Much of the story he told, which essentially was that Adnan strangled his ex-girlfriend in a 3-minute timeframe, then called Jay from a payphone, was inaccurate, or at least the police were unable to corroborate his story. The issue was that the alleged payphone did not exist and the timeframe was impossibly small, even for an able-bodied, athletic male. So much of the trial hinged on witness testimony from a teenager and very little on actual physical evidence. This is what created reasonable doubt for me. It just didn’t add up.
According to Bull, Valentine, Williamson, & Williamson (2009), witness consistency is of the utmost importance to judges, litigators, and legal scholars. So, when it comes to Adnan’s case, why was Jay’s testimony used when it was known to be both inconsistent and full of non-truths? Maybe some biases were in play. Maybe there was more to it. But much like the West Memphis Three (who had to take an Alford plea to even see the light of day!) something in this case stinks – and it certainly doesn’t smell like justice.
You can listen to serial here (Adnan’s case is season one): serialpodcast.org
References
Bull, R., Valentine, T., Williamson, T., & Williamson, D. T. (Eds.). (2009). Handbook of psychology of investigative interviewing : Current developments and future directions.
Picinali, F. (2013), Two Meanings of ‘Reasonableness’. Modern Law Review, 76: 845-875
I’d rather see 15 guilty individuals set free than see 1 innocent person behind bars. The concept of reasonable doubt is to first protect this notion. This seems to be the first option for anything in regard to defense. Giving the accused the tag of being the victim. I’m not familiar with the case. It seems that the prosecution used the broad objectivity of reasonable doubt to question a witness testimony that aided accusation against no discovery of DNA evidence. The inability to find any physical proof of murder should be an example of reasonable doubt. The testimony of a witness can be considered more valid through a truth or a lie.
Reference
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Hae_Min_Lee