Serial's Adnan Syed Exonerated?
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- čas přidán 3. 11. 2022
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What about the possible Special Counsel if Trump starts running for office while legal cases are proceeding? Or what happens to his political bids if he's convicted? Can he be re-elected President and then be convicted?
On theme you should look at the case of Joey Watkins
Ild love for you to cover the court case in Kentucky where the state took children from a mother because she mouthed off to the worker. The Federal Court overturned the termination because the state violated her constitutional rights.
On the podcast trend, a video on the Flores trial, which is covered by the Your Own Backyard podcast would be fascinating
One thing I found legally odd about this case, according to what I've read: In 2019, the Maryland court agreed that Syed had deficient legal council, but also ruled that he could not challenge the cell phone records because that issue was not raised in the first trial.
This is puzzling to me, since the latter seems directly related to the former.
It seems a bit crazy that not challenging a piece of evidence during a trial prevents you from challenging it in a later appeal, when new information may bring that evidence into question.
Yeah, the purpose of that rule is to keep people from attempting to relitigate the entire case on appeal, but when council is found deficient they really should just grant a new trial full stop. There’s just too much that can get screwed up when a lawyer is incompetent.
Also maybe nobody knew about questioning the technology in 1999 because the flaws in the technology weren't known back then. Technological developments should matter.
They argued that the counsel was deficient *because* they didn't question a witness as they should have. Appeals court decided that the reason they were accused of being ineffective didn't impact the outcome. It doesn't seem reasonable to me that the fact that they agree that a move constituted deficient performance would mean they will now assume that every other unrelated decision that a lawyer makes now also constitutes deficient representation. It's not like "oh a lawyer made a critical error that could change the case, must be that they have no idea how to lawyer and every single decision they made was unacceptable". If they could show that the lawyer had been notified about issues with the phone records and didn't follow up or look into them at all, maybe they could use inefficient assistance to bring it back it, but a lawyers choice of legal strategy doesn't fall under that umbrella.
@@teelo12000 that’s a good point. Law is fun
I think, innocent or guilty he should not have been found guilty with as little that they actually had. There was so much internal bias during every single part of the investigation
This was exactly my thought. I couldn’t decide if I’d render him innocent or guilty because I didn’t feel I had enough evidence. I’ve still never decided if he did it for not, and that’s not up to me. I just keep thinking “beyond a reasonable doubt.” There are so many doubts.
@@norge0209 yeah. I think he did it.
I don't think they had enough to convict
He did it. He did it for sure.
@@kleeklee4572 If it's so clear he did it, then it should have been easy for the state to build a solid case. We can't just put people in prison because we're convinced they committed a crime. Even if we're positive, if we don't have the evidence, then they walk. Tbf, we put people in prison on shakier cases than Syed's, but that doesn't make it "just."
that was my thinking as well. regardless of actual guilt, the prosecution was severly lacking and I never thought that they proved his guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt".
I was left feeling very ambivalent after Serial ended. I wasn't convinced that Syed was necessarily innocent, but I definitely felt that his trial was utterly inadequate in proving he was guilty. My heart goes out to the victims' family, I feel like they have been utterly disregarded in their grief as people got caught up in the sensationalist aspects of the case. In the end that poor girl is still dead.
I agree with your sentiment. The issue I’m left with is that in our country, you are innocent until proven guilty. This case shows how someone can be convicted of a crime that the state has not truly shown guilty with substantial evidence. How many have been subject to capital punishment in much the same way? It’s scary if we allow someone guilty to walk the streets but it’s also injustice if we allow someone to rot in prison for something they did not do. That’s why we’re supposed to rely on the rule of law, and in this case I’m just not sure that the prosecution did the right thing. It seems more that they relied on bias about who he is culturally rather than evidence that proves his guilt. Unfortunately there are only victims in this case and I wonder if that would have been the case had investigators done their due diligence.
@@Les020519 Poor people get way less legal work done on their cases then Adnan did. If the same standard were applied to them like 95% of cases against poor people would have to be thrown out.
@@takanara7 Agreed. It’s why the rich rarely face consequences at all. On top of that our bail system operates in much the same way. These who have money, no problem.
I felt the same. There has since been new info about the case though that has absolutely convinced me he is innocent
That's pretty much how I felt after the podcast. It didn't really highlight his innocence, but identified the shitty trial he got and his temperament as a person more than anything.
I have kept away from this case due to the uh... social media "investigators" who are often little more than gossips on reddit, so it was good to see a simple legal breakdown.
I've literally never heard of this guy or the podcast that's apparently the most popular one of all time?!
@@bensmith3890 you are so lucky, I envy you. I love "true crime" but steer clear of true crime podcasts and the like because honestly most of the time the fandoms for them are...too extra for me, but didn't manage to avoid hearing about this one.
@@bensmith3890 Neither have I.
@@bensmith3890 second most popular, after the adam friedland show (and its predecessor)
@@bensmith3890 I live in Baltimore and I only heard about it because someone told me to avoid going past the courthouse the day he was freed. It was wild.
Whether you think Adnan is truly innocent or not is besides the point. Just based on the evidence presented, he should not have been convicted. The case had all the hallmarks of bad criminal investigation practices: poor/misuse of technical forensic evidence (cell phone records), conditional and shaky testimony from Jay that was based on reduced charges for other crimes, failure to record Jay's initial interrogation, tunnel vision on a single suspect... It is a good thing for all of us when bad convictions are overturned and the government is forced to reckon with its mistakes and encourage better practices.
Its true that its a good thing when they overturn bad cases, but the amount of bad cases doesnt go down from it... they are encouraged to keep going because of the supreme court removing remedies and deterrents based on legal fiction
@@alexham7356 I mean, it's possible that the real killer was arrested for an unrelated crime and is in prison, but yeah, chances are that whoever killed Lee is currently not in prison.
Let's also add "a heavy dose of racism" to the list of bad criminal investigation practices while we're at it.
Well, that's certainly your opinion.
@@alexham7356 If the real culprit is the "serial sexual assaulter" that person is likely already in jail for something else.
I'm an electrical engineer and I remember reading the AT&T Expert Witness testimony about the cell calls at 7 PM. He vastly overestimated the reliability and precision of triangulation technology available at the time. The defense should have been able to have an expert witness shoot down this testimony, but the prosecution was able to use it as if it was fact. Not good.
Not mentioned in this video, but the original expert witness was in the most recent hearings, testifying against the prosecution, and noting that his first testimony was based on bad facts.
Are you coming from this with a prospective from the future or a perspective from that time. Was he vastly overestimating the reliability of a cell Trace even for the time or would technicians just have not known any better
@@ZombiZohm I'm not the person you're asking, but I worked for a cell company in the early 2000s and even at the sales level it was common knowledge that triangulation of towers being accurate was bull. I had it explained like this: your call goes to the closest tower, except if there's a lot of traffic, then it goes to the next one with capacity.
Take that explanation for what it's worth, but pretty much tower ping accuracy is only in the movies.
There are other reasons to think the critical incoming calls aren't useful for determining location, but the bad assumption that strongest signal in an area around a year later was the one his phone would have used often gets overlooked.
@@ZombiZohm It was more an issue of the prosecutor overstating the expert's findings, turning a finding that the evidence is consistent with this conclusion into the evidence proving that conclusion to the exclusion of others (he could be there versus he had to be exactly there).
However, there also was a problem with the technician not being aware of specifics of the way the data was recorded because his expertise was in the radio signals. Once seeing the disclaimer about incoming calls, he acknowledged that he couldn't make any findings about them anymore.
Why do I have a feeling this poor woman death will never be cleared up? The police and the court have really failed the community.
I think only like 6% of murders are solved in the US. Check me on those numbers but either way it's not a lot.
EDIT: it's closer to 50% my bad
@@pedrogarcia8706 still not great
Multiple DNA profiles, though. They have what they need to find the killer. Only question is whether they will.
I theorise that like a lot of murders, it will eventually be conclusively solved, just not in our lifetimes. It will require technology that hasn't been invented yet.
@@GarrettPetersen I thought about this. DNA on shoes is questionable, though. Do we know what it was? Blood? Skin flakes? Sweat? Blood could be worth an investigation, but anything else could have come from anywhere. She had been in a school. Skin flakes and sweat are slashing around all over the place while the students are in close quarters. And gravity does its thing as usual. Shoes could have picked up anything off the floor/ground.
The Adnan Syed case lays out, better than almost anything I've ever seen, all the ways that things can go wrong during a criminal case. Witnesses can be self-serving, evidence can be botched or misinterpreted, lawyers can screw up or engage in shady behavior, and technology never, *ever* works the way you think it should.
A case for the law books, for sure. Perhaps the basis for law school curriculum for decades to come?
The technology works fine for what it was. It's just that newer technology has come out since then that is more refined and accurate. Maybe someday technology will be accurate enough that we will know the truth
Uhh did we watch the same video? Jay Wilds still maintains his position and Asia McClain has nothing to gain from her proclamation (neither do the classmates that say she's lying), there was no evidence to botch, the lawyers here didn't engage in shady behaviour during this case, technology worked as intended?
Yet another arm-chair investigator assumes the justice system, and the dozens involved, are all wrong... without knowing f-all about the actual case.
Look at the actual evidence and the testimony. Witness was shown the body and told the manner in which the victim was killed. Witness told this to yet another witness. Both witnesses told investigators that the victim was strangled (and where her car was) before this was even known to the public or the investigators.
Yeah and if you're poor and can't afford good lawyers no one will even bother checking any of that stuff.
What I find most depressing is there's no "good" ending. If he's guilty and now benefitting from technicallities, then a murderer is loose and the victim's family has to live with knowing he won't be fully punished. If he's innocent then he's lost years of his life due to an unfair bias against him and if anyone looks him up thry're going to find a bunch of true crime podcasters saying he's killed someone. Plus the real perpetrator has faced no consequences. It's just sad all around.
Exactly my thoughts. Although, I stand with Lee's family in thinking Adnan killed her. Just my opinion tho and nothing more than that!
If he was guilty, he still spent 23 years in prison for a crime he committed as a child. I know people have different ideas about what constitutes adequate punishment, but that's not nothing.
@@EebstertheGreat Yeah that's something at least - That timeframe is roughly considered "Life" in parts of Europe, unless there are circumstances.
@@EebstertheGreat Yup, as a European, I'm honestly shocked how frequent life sentences are in the US. For comparison, in my country, which is home to around 8 or 9 times less people than America, we don't even have half a thousand of prisoners for life. In the US that number is bigger than 200 000 from what I could find, so more than 40 times the amount, and that's already taking the population difference into consideration! Heck, there's only two times as many prisoners for life here than there are death row inmates in the US (both per capita). I assume justice is ubiquitous, so how come? Is it really just the difference in crime levels?
This comment turned into something of a semi-related rant, I'm sorry for that, but I still wanted to share what I found out.
@@Jasmixd There may be differences in enforcement (i.e. the fraction of criminals caught, convicted, and sentenced) and in criminality (i.e. the number of crimes committed), but I expect the biggest difference is in the length of sentences. The U.S. has some of the longest prison sentences on the planet. It's not really the life sentences that are the biggest contributor, it's all the other felony sentences, which can often exceed 20 years, particularly for repeat offenders. A repeat thief in Ohio can theoretically get a sentence of 21 years for a single offense. In some states, repeat drug offenses can lead to sentences of 30 years or more, which is basically a life sentence. Most people don't serve the entire sentence behind bars (with up to half served on parole), but some do, and either way it's an incredibly long sentence.
Capital punishment is even worse, albeit very rare in all states except Texas. That's not just for murder or treason either. I was shocked to learn that aggravated kidnapping is a capital offense in many states.
Thank you SO MUCH for mentioning the DNA at the end. I'm a laboratory scientist and while DNA evidence is good evidence to have, it is not the smoking gun that some people think it is. And absence of DNA is definitely not proof that someone wasn't involved. There are so many reasons that DNA wouldn't be detected on a piece of evidence.
I was actually almost brought on as an expert witness in an estate dispute that I performed the DNA analysis for. They ended up settling so I didn't have to testify.
Was on a jury once where defense tried to make a point that neither the defendant's DNA nor fingerprints were on the gun. Which was an absurd point since prosecution stated gun was in a small bag (a Chivas Regal liquor bag). Interesting experience being on that jury!
@@kellyalvarado6533 I'm not a lawyer, but it was probably a good strategy for the defense. It doesn't prove the defendant didn't handle the gun by itself; hope there was more evidence to back up that claim.
That's the thing. It's not about finding the one magic piece of evidence. You want as much evidence as possible and reconstruct the scene as best you can.
There's a fascinating case where a Washington state resident was arrested for a bombing in Paris because fingerprints matching his were found at the scene. The man had never left the US in his entire life and had alibis to the moon and back. Eventually an Algerian national was apprehended for connections to an extremist group and his fingerprints also matched those of the Paris bombing, which he completely confessed to being a part of. The Washington guy was held by police for weeks because he just happened to have nearly identical fingerprints to a man halfway across the world.
@@austinluther5825
The whole case was that he was in possession of the gun. It wasn't that he *used* it for any crime. Police claimed it fell out of his pocket while they were chasing him. That was literally the entire case. It boiled down to the word of one police officer saying that's what he saw. Defense was essentially arguing that if there was no DNA or fingerprints then he couldn't possibly have been in possession. Which is simply a silly argument.
@@kellyalvarado6533 Wow. Yeah, that's not a lot to go on either way.
Hey, Mr. Scientist, why not mention that it was touch DNA that has a very short shelf-life and would not survive well at all given the body was buried in the wilderness for a month, and that the evidence was 20 years old and not stored in a manner which would preserve touch DNA since that technology didn't exist at the time?
I must admit what I immediately thought when this case was being described (first time I'm hearing about it) was the sheer number of times I've been investigating a crime story and found out that the "witnesses for the prosecution" were literally all people who were in legal trouble themselves and had almost certainly been offered plea deals by police in exchange for their testimony towards conviction.
There are SEVERAL prominent cases like this where someone has been convicted of a murder but it turns out the "eyewitness testimonies" do not agree with each other and it also turns out that literally all of the eyewitnesses were facing potentially life-destroying consequences for their own illegal activities from the same police department or prosecutor when they agreed to testify against the suspect.
What's particularly infuriating is that this most often happens to low-income suspects who have associates in the drug trade or sex work, while wealthier criminals are usually basically immune from having police and prosecutors coerce witnesses to testify against them because their associates and neighbors have less to fear from law enforcement and the courts.
If you want a little more context on innocent people being convicted then look up the speech R. Budd Dwyer gave on the day that he died. He was absolutely positive that the state had executed innocent people. Content warning: the speech ends with his death, so turn off the video as he's handing out the various envelopes to people in the room.
Don't forget that most of the time those activities are things that shouldn't be illegal like drug use. The state has no business telling adults what substances they use. Especially when the majority of used recreational drugs are less harmful than alcohol.
“You want to know what this [war on drugs] was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying?
We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news.
Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
~ John Ehrlichman, Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under President Richard Nixon
@@poiu477 Where's that citation from?
@@Melesniannon "Dan Baum, the author of 1996's "Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure," wrote in Harper's Magazine in 2016 that while researching his book, Ehrlichman gave a reason for the war of drugs that had little to do with protecting Americans from reefer madness."
@@Melesniannon So, from an article in Harper's, by an author who interviewed Ehrlichman.
Wait. The only evidence you need to convict someone for murder, a potentially lifelong sentence, is: a proper motive, an unreliable alibi, and some evidence that you *maybe* may have been in the vicinity of the victim within the timeframe of their death? That's insane.
Don't forget an unreliable witness who was (probably) coerced into testifying by the investigators. Remember Wilde was facing a decade and change himself for dealing marijuana.
Reading between the lines, also skin color.
Welcome to the stupid side of US criminal procedure
@@meinelust Yes, this story doesn't happen to white christians.
Oh and religion apparently
I'm not sure who killed Lee. However the part of the story that never sat well with me was Jay's piece. By Jay's own account, he and Syed were not great friends. Sooo, you have a casual weed-smoking friend and you not only keep quiet about a murder that person confesses to you (including showing you the body), but you then help that person dispose of the body, making you an accessory to murder? Whether Jay was dealing weed or not, I don't think anyone would actually act that way.
I mean... maybe he was high?
@@ccggenius I don’t think being high makes you more likely to hide a body. Unless there was a promise of Doritos 😂
> Sooo, you have a casual weed-smoking friend and you not only keep quiet about a murder that person confesses to you
He didn't keep quiet about the murder at all, that's how Adnan got caught. He had been telling people about what happened, and he talked to the cops about it once they interviewed him.
I think Jay killed her. All of the info about what Syed had done, came from him.
@@picklefish74 sounds logical to me. Benefits him to put it on another manas well.
In the end, the main thing I feel is outrage for the victim's family. Either the person who killed their daughter has been unjustly exonerated, or shoddy work by the both the prosecuters and the defense allowed her real killer to escape justice, while an innocent person took the fall. Both are unacceptable. Worse, if I were them I would fear that I may never know for sure what happened to my child. This is horrible. My hope would be that some definitive conclusion can be reached, so they may have closure.
“What we’re those reasons [that other known suspects weren’t pursued]?”
Oh, that’s an easy one. Because investigators already decided they had their man. There are countless examples of police and DAs not following up other leads or suspects because they think they’ve already got a case so why muddy the waters? Police and prosecutors, on the whole, aren’t concerned with the truth of the matter, they care about closing cases and getting convictions.
I know literally nothing about the Syed dude or the case in question and have no preconceived notions regarding any of it but the lawyer with a CZcams channel that makes short videos about how the LE is untrustworthy saying that shit without expounding on it is weird af
One thing he didn’t mention that the podcast did was that one of the detectives was apparently charged with misconduct a few years after the trial? Not for the Syed proceedings, but it still throws suspicion on how everything was handled by the police in this investigation.
Exactly. Corrupt police who only care about getting their arrest and conviction will not do anything that might reveal evidence that could ruin the story they are working with at the time.
Just look at what happened when they misread the cell tower data for a bit. It wasn't relevant to the murder whether they were in a particular area at that time, but it was important for the case that Jay's story matched the cell tower locations. When it didn't, they pressured him into saying they went somewhere that matched where they believed they had to be and then when they realized their mistake, they had to pressure him to say that he was mistaken again.
@@RisingSunfish he wasn't just charged. Multiple of his cases were thrown out because it was proven that he intimated witnesses, threatened to pin drug charges on them of they didn't say what he wanted them to, etc.
Sounds familiar? It should, because the only witness in Syed's case was a known drug dealer who got no jail time after he agreed to testify.
Attorney Generals, Governors and Mayors are elected officials with a pressure to convict so that their communities “feel safe.” They don’t in fact have to be safe. I’m not sure what the answer is, but it just seems that their incentives may not be aligned with the “innocent until proven guilty” belief our justice system seems to purport.
The whole, "He did this, then called his bro and they did that," bit was so convoluted, I was surprised the jury could follow it.
This is one of those cases I'm honestly 50/50 on whether he's guilty or not. But what is a fact is that his lawyer was horrible.
If it is 50/50, then by definition you have not proven the charge beyond a reasonable doubt, and anyone familiar with American law knows that is the standard.
He wasn't very helpful in his own defense either.
im just hearing of this case from this video, and i cant decide either. the legal eagle special indeed.
So what you mean to say is that you believe he's innocent, because you've not been shown enough to convince you for sure that he's guilty. There is no 50/50 about this, you are innocent until proven guilty, unless you disagree with that notion?
It goes a little deeper: his lawyer actually wasn't horrible, and it was his second lawyer. Cristina Guttierez was simply used as a scapegoat by Rabia Chaudry which led to Sarah Koenig/Serial imparting us with that narrative. The Asia letter (the basis of the motion to vacate) was actually a mis-dated forgery, and Guttierez rightly rejected it.
Growing up in Baltimore County, having had a HS girlfriend who went to Woodlawn (about a decade before this), I know all these locations, and drove around them... and from my personal experience, I always had doubts about the timeline given how long it can take between locations... the roads and congestion sucks, and while one could look at a map and see Woodlawn is just around the corner from Best Buy, for example, it's not a 2 minute trip, it takes a lot longer than one would think. Same as to getting to the I-70 Park and Ride and to Leakin Park.
They did accomplish the drive on Serial, but that's knowing every step and where to go to.
I lived in Woodlawn around the time of this murder & drove past Woodlawn HS every day, but I don't remember hearing about this murder until Serial came out. You're right, the traffic was always a headache.
The only big crime I remember from those days was when a guy held up a gas station/convenience store, and the owner pulled out a gun and they killed one another. This was about a block from where I worked, right next to the Double T.
Really? It's 0.6 miles west on Security Blvd, 2 minutes easy.
And Adnan was laughable claiming he didn't know where Leakin Park was... a total BS artist.
@@loner1878 That drive by the folks on Serial proved to me that they didn't know enough about the method used to murder Hae to be doing a podcast on the case. Manual strangulation is very difficult to do & it’s not quick. I’ve learned this from watching and reading so much true crime and hearing that from cops, detectives, prosecutors, forensic experts, and medical examiners. According to the police timeline the Serial hosts used, Adnan had just moments to kill Hae. No one is arguing Adnan had ever committed a murder before Hae, so he would not have been an efficient killer if he had done it. Don’t think about how Adnan looks today; he’s much bigger because that’s how you survive in prison.
At the time Hae was murdered, he was much trimmer. Adnan was a high school athlete, but so was Hae. Hae would have been able to put up a fight for sure, even if Adnan would ultimately be able to overpower her. But that means it would have taken some time for Adnan to kill Hae. This means that the police/prosecutor’s timeline simply doesn’t work. Adnan could have driven that route with a few minutes to spare, but to manually strangle Hae in that same time frame isn’t possible. Even if he was able to knock her out before strangling her (which he didn’t, as there were no other significant wounds on Hae), it still takes several minutes to kill someone by manually strangling them.
Side note: I also don’t think Adnan had a motive. The prosecution said that Adnan’s and Hae’s families were both opposed to their relationship because both families wanted them to date people from the same cultural or religious heritage. Both had problems with their families when they were caught sneaking around and telling some white lies so they could see each other. The family pressure caused them to break up a few times (and breaking up & getting back together with a high school bf or gf is a common thing bc teens are fickle) before their last break up, which has been presented as having more finality to it. But do we know they wouldn’t have gotten back together if Hae hadn’t been killed? When Adnan says he had no reason to kill Hae because those breakups were due to family pressures and friends of both Adnan & Hae said they never really took those breakups seriously because they never lasted, I believe them.
@@paradoxical_taco oh please, she was 120lbs and skinny. The breakup was due to Adnan being a pain in the ass and not accepting that she was over him. He called her a devil.
I don't see how this is even controversial. The only part that is controversial to me is the rarity of which convictions are overturned.
The unbiased legal view is always refreshing. Honestly, what it sounds like is that this case was a mess on both ends. I'm honestly not convinced if he's innocent or guilty, but I do think there is reasonable doubt. There's too many variables up in the air to be 100% certain.
Yeah, I agree. Reasonable doubt is a strong standard, but having Wild testify that he saw the body and then relayed that information to another person at the time would be pretty damning on its own (and he hasnt changed his story about seeing the body).
And if there is reasonable doubt, then the legal standard is they must go free
I kinda think he is probably guilty, but there are reasonable doubts and mainly so since both the prosecutors and the defense investigations were pretty poorly done.
It is certainly worth having someone competent dig a bit, if he actually is innocent that means there is a murderer walking free which I think we can all agree is bad or new evidence might prove he is guilty.
I don't think someone else DNA on the shoes means someone else must have killed her though, there are plenty of reasons why someone's DNA would end up on the shoes. On the underwear is one thing, that is pretty hard to explain away but they found nothing there.
That was my takeaway from the podcast. I can't confidently say he's innocent but it seems like there's reasonable doubt here, hence the whole podcast about it.
Please listen to Undisclosed and/or watch the HBO documentary. When I first listened to Serial I came away thinking that there was reasonable doubt but that he may well have done it.
An actual, in depth look at the case shows that Syed is innocent. Jay Wildes was a young and vulnerable black drug dealer who was threatened and manipulated by Baltimore cops into closing their case. His entire story was made up - it doesnt fit with forensics such as lividity and DNA. The other witnesses supposedly corroborating his story have been debunked. Multiple cases prosecuted by these same cops have been found to be wrongful convictions for similar reasons. This was a not-uncommon practice in the Baltimore PD.
Some cases are legitimately hard to parse even when looked at closely - this isn't one of them. I really wish people would stop making statements about the case without doing actual research.
Can more news be like this, where an expert just lays out the facts without frothing into opinions?
People don’t often pay for the truth, just what they want to hear. Bias is unavoidable when it comes to wider reaching news coverage.
Wouldn't make money
There actually is a lot of that if you bother to look for it
Theres a difference between news, opinion/editorial, and expert analysis (expert opinion). the cable news channels (somewhat purposefully) make this confusing to the viewer.
This is the thing about true crime audiences. What the audiences says they crave, and may even believe they crave, is justice. What they actually crave is emotional satisfaction - the satisfaction of finding a thing they can label as true, the satisfaction of finding the 'real [insert crime]', the satisfaction of karmic reprisal of consequences befalling someone who sought to evade them. This is normally fine - these are some of the reasons we've been telling stories since before we could write - but they have very real problems whenever they step onto the territory of actual crimes with real consequences.
Justice is hard enough to come by in the justice system; the best you can usually hope for is for the scales to be tilted slightly closer to where they would have been before the crime. But emotional satisfaction is completely absent. The best possible outcomes is that someone who was innocent and had their life destroyed gets the slight vindication of being found not guilty and the reduced harm of no longer facing a prison sentence, or that someone who has done irreparable damage to lives has some damage done to them and will do less damage to others in future. There's no satisfaction to be found there. We don't get the 'truth', we get the vast scope of reality reduced to two perspectives with limited information forced to batter against each other to find the winner. We don't get the certainty of finding the 'real killer' since even the cleanest cases will always have elements of doubt or incompletion. We don't get the satisfaction of karmic reprisal, because the best you can hope for is for some damage to be done to the person who seems most to blame, and nobody to be made better.
That is what makes the true crime genre dangerous - people who are crusading for emotional satisfaction are going to manufacture it for themselves. When audiences want a killer, they will find the least-worst fit and assign them as killer regardless of how bad the evidence is. When audiences want conclusive evidence, they will identify the evidence that seems the most relevant and assign it as conclusive regardless of how relevant it actually is. When audiences want a clean narrative that explains it all, they will put the pieces that fit together most neatly and assign it as a conclusive explanation based entirely on its elegance - never mind that elegance and reality are simply not the same thing. Worst of all, because they believe this quest for emotional satisfaction is actually a quest for justice - and therefore inherently justified - it can become a crusade. When you seek to dissuade them from doing damage in the quest for satisfaction, you are seen as denying the world justice, and if need be must be removed or destroyed - in the most extreme cases up to and including the very victims of crime that these audiences proclaim themselves to be seeking justice for.
This is the responsibility that true crime journalists bear. You know going into every case that you may find yourself at the head of a large and voracious audience. You know how easy it is to feed the audience and create a crusade, even by accident. You know that by far the best way to short-term success and profit is to manufacture and steer this crusade. You know that the most successful formats - sharp twists, fast answers, clean narratives, obvious villains - are the least realistic, and inflict the most collateral damage. And you know that the only way you can actually make a difference in a case is to cause disruption, and that the more you disrupt the less you can predict where the consequences will fall. It's incredibly hard to balance, and so easy to slide that you can do it by degrees or even by accident, without realising. You are bearing the responsibility for the irrationality of others, and the only way to offload that responsibility is to have no audience at all. The Serial podcast is often held up as one of the best examples of casual True Crime investigation in terms of thoroughness and responsibility - and the sad part is that it is leagues ahead of most. When this is the best you can reasonably expect, and this is as good as it is, it speaks very poorly of the... genre, if you like.
How come Miles isn't a suspect? He's inserted himself in the whole act. He admits to burying the body. He doesn't have an alibi other than this Jennifer chick. She didn't clear him for the time of the murder?
seems like he said what he was told to say so they didnt bust him on the drugs.
No real motive.
No real access to the victim while she was alive.
Spent so much time with Syed that afternoon that it is almost unimaginable that he could be involved without Syed being involved. This was a 2 person operation (at minimum).
No witness saying he murdered HML. In addition to Wildes testifying against Syed, the reason Syed came under scrutiny was because a tip phoned in to the cops implicated him.
@@noxnc if you had killed someone you would have pointed the finger at someone else.
As for motive... The victim was not well liked.
As for "it's a two man operation" not really. Dude is to inserted into the story and the accused really isn't.
@@johnnamorton6744 The finger was pointed at Syed first, without the phone tip Syed’s cell phone would not have been investigated, so Jen wouldn’t have been questioned, so Jay wouldn’t have been questioned. I don’t know where you are hearing that HML was not well liked, I’ve examined a lot of documents on this case and you are the first person to say that. It takes at least 2 people to manage the 2 cars.
@@noxnc You've examined a lot of documents on this case? Lol. You should understand now that absolutely nobody believes that and it just makes you sound like a complete idiot.
Ahhh yes the highly paid Lawyer intern as meat shield good move Mr. Eagle.
I mean if I can get paid as much as he does for being a meat shield...anyone know where I need to stand to block the spears?
@kempolar yeah, right behind me 😝
I feel like muddy evidence and multiple people with various stories makes it hard to convict without any doubts, and the other suspects that's the kicker. I think it might be a more complex situation as in multiple people involved.
Well done. Having listened to all the podcasts and read the habeas pleadings, y'all did an excellent job summarizing the history and IDing the issues that remain. Bravo!
I think people often forget that there are many people who commit murder and get 10 to 15 years sentences. He sat in jail for over 20 years, that's the entire reason it was dropped. He essentially served his time, the new DA would look silly spending millions on another trial for him that would likely fail. Much easier to just let hin out knowing he did a murder sentencem
Also he was a minor at the time all of this happened so it's insane that a 17-year-old can get a life sentence in the first place.
I agree he did a murder sentence.
I mean. The prosecutors said they were letting him out because they believe he is innocent. Do you know some secret information that they are lying about their motives?
I don't exactly see him on talk shows or social media proclaiming his innocence. The best thing to do after all this time would be to try to quietly live his life and hope this whole nightmare Fades away
Unless technology greatly advances this will just be another unsolved mystery
@@ZombiZohm The investigation is ongoing with multiple viable suspects. As far as cold cases go I think there is a real possibility of it being solved. It was never properly investigated in the first case because the cops immediately decided Syed did it. Some of that investigation can happen now.
"The legal eagle thing, annoy every one that has a strong opinion"
I love it
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you THE most brutal transition to a HelloFresh ad in human history.
Being from Baltimore county just a few minutes from all of the places mentioned it’s super interesting to hear this summary and perspective outside of the context of being local. When talking about all of this it always feels like people know someone involved or something similar so it’s hard to just talk about the proceedings
Thank you for your in depth explanations and amazing creativity regarding complex legal issues! You always treat your audience with respect on this channel while informing them.
Devin and Spencer are an underrated comedy duo ❤
Really enjoying these team-ups!! Thank you!
Has this become a two-host show? If so (and if it’s with Spencer) I’m all for it! 👍
Loving These Scowl Owl Videos, Great Job Spencer
This is the first I'm hearing about this case at all and it sounds like a real good way to get into a shouting match with friends.
Excellent presentation, sir. Thank you for your effort.
It's insane we look back at the 70s and 80s as this grossly corrupt time in the justice system, but then we have all these corrupt cases from the 90s and 00s that keep coming out now too.
I guess things have never really improved.
Why look back so far to the 90s and 00s? We have plenty of absurd resolutions even in the modern day. Just look at the catalogue of this very channel.
@@22sfs22 I guess my logic is that cases that have had at least a decade or more to play out have somewhat clearer facts. In this case alone, it took a long time for the DNA evidence to exonerate him and a number of facts came to light later on as well.
I feel like that's basically everything.
Like "woohoo, we're not locking people with mental health issues into mental asylums!"
Instead they're going to prisons.
"Woohoo, we no longer have poor houses!"
Instead they're homeless or in prisons.
The reason the cases are coming out now is that we're actually looking, and have the technology to exonerate more people.
Innocent people have been being wrongly sent to prison, or even executed, for thousands of years.
So vote for the judges you feel are good judges. Rule of law is a living thing and depends on us all.
Ever since i heard Serial it changed the way I approach viewing legal guilt. Yea it is possible or likely Adnan killed her. It is absolutely ridiculous to say there was enough evidence to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. Anyone who hardlines that he should be in prison has to be unable to imagine themselves in that scenario and they are okay with any miscarriage of justice of it doesn't impact their own lives. It is the same thing with people who support the death penalty, it is always based on the assumption they wont have to be the innocent person murdered.
Easier to endorse totalitarianism if you assume it won’t happen to you
Another one that will make you question is Making a Murderer. The legal system is not to be blindly trusted, “facts” must be approached with a skeptically
I'm terrified of being put in that predicament that's why I never talk to the police ever you get a lawyer because they will grill you as long as they please some people even take pleas or admit to crimes under duress just so they can go home
But who killed Lee? Its like that black baseball player who walked free of murder. Atleast this guy served 20 years in jailed
Exactly. There's not evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt his guilty. The most they have is a bunch of inferences that shows is the mostly likely culprit. That is absolute NOTHING.
Something that I didn't hear covered here is the reputation of the investigating police on this case after the fact. The detectives on this case had other life sentences overturned for fabricating evidence and railroading people into confessions that they didn't do.
I don't know who did it, but Jay wasn't a trustworthy witness and the physical evidence was completely absent. I'm not certain whether he is guilty or innocent, but I am certain that Adnan did not get a fair trial.
Yes, the police seem to have a pattern of wrongful convictions, which I wish more people were talking about. What do you think of the lividity evidence and Kristi's story?
Your claims are untrue. There were only ever non-corroborated rumors of ONE investigator doing something somewhat crooked on OTHER cases way in the future.
But, go ahead, cry me a river for a murderer. It doesn't change the actual evidence.
@@pennyether8433
Ritz also worked the case of Ezra Mable, who was exonerated of murder after 10 years, and the case of Sabein Burgess exonerated of murder after nineteen years in prison, where he withheld an interview of another man confessing to the murder, and was the lead detective in the case of Malcolm Jabbar Bryant, also wrongly convicted of murder and exonerated after seventeen years (including many years of appeals for DNA testing (which was fought tooth and nail by the State). In another case, appealled in 2002, judges noted that “Detective Ritz candidly acknowledged that he intentionally withheld the reading of the Miranda warnings during the first 90-minute stage of the interrogation”.
Ritz left the BPD in 2012 “under a cloud”, after being named in Burgess’s lawsuit. He is not named in the BPD alumni website roll of honor for retired officers.
But I'm sure that boot tastes incredible.
For me, it's entirely possible Syed killed lee, its also entirely possible he didn't one testimony of a drug dealer scared of going to prison is not enough to comvict someone
Turns out it is tough. And that is the worst part
I think it's more likely that he didn't kill her than that he did. The alleged motive is super thin. They were teenagers and had broken up a bunch of times. Why kill her on the 10th breakup and not the first?
There is also no evidence against him.
At that point you don't have a case beyond "the drug dealer said he did it in exchange for no jail time for all his drug charges, that could have gotten him 10+ years".
Could Syed still have dome it? Sure. It's just extremely unlikely.
@@koenvandiepen7651 a lot of people stating that the answer isn't clear one way or the other. I wonder what you are basing that on? What do you think of the lividity forensics, which disproved the entire prosecution's story years ago? If you are going solely based on this video you should know that the vast majority of exonerating evidence wasn't even mentioned.
@@alisonstevens7376 I don't know maybe the fact that he was convicted? Personaly I would not know if he was guilty or not. Or if the case was strong or not. Or if there is anny evidance that builds a strong case for his innocance. I am just saying that as it turns out. The word of a drugs dealers is appearently enough to get you convicted. And that is the worst part about all of this. Cause that is likely not limited to this case. The jury system allows to manny convictions bases on appeals to emotion instead of law or reason.
@@koenvandiepen7651 While I do agree with your point regarding the risk of jury trials, I would point out that the prosecution in the original trial were aware that Jay was a bad witness, which is why they leaned on the cell records so hard to prove his story. Cell records which do not appear to be reliable for triangulation for incoming calls (what they were used for at trial) making them terrible evidence as well that the defence didn't really challenge...
Always a treat to see an absolute banger of a video pop up, with the Jag no less!
Outstanding summary. fabulous analysis.
Y'know, as someone who classically supported the release of Adnan Syed, and largely still does, I wanted to thank you @ScowlOwl for the complete rundown, catching me up on years of happenings and feelings all around. I feel like you disclosed everything with a healthy focus both balance and brevity, while respecting both parties.
In other words, if anyone gets mad at you, I don't think it's legit. Great job, and thanks @LegalEagle for having him on for this.
I don't think those jurors from the original conviction understood what "Beyond a reasonable doubt" means.
Seems like they did understand means, motive, opportunity, and no reliable alibi
That's my take too. Seems plausible that Adnon killed Hei, maybe even probably, but undoubtable? Beyond any doubt? Far from it.
@@lephtovermeet beyond any doubt isn't the bar
@@paulthomas963 If half of me acts that way then how does the other half of me act?
Reasonable doubt is not the same as no doubt. The key word is reasonable. You can come up with farfetched explanations for doubt, but that is not the same as reasonable doubt.
Thank you for examining this case. At the time I listened to the podcast, I remember coming away thinking that he did not get a fair trial. That the testimony and evidence that convicted him was shaky at best and his lawyer did not represent him well. I also felt the prejudice of the time against muslims was a factor. However, the podcast did not convince me he was innocent or guilty, just the need for a fair trial. I was as surprised as anyone when he got out of jail.
Speaking as someone who loved Serial but then continued to follow and learn more about the case... the journalism presented in Serial has aged VERY poorly. To understand why even the prosecutors now believe he's innocent I suggest watching the HBO documentary and/or listening to the Undisclosed podcast.
@@alisonstevens7376 I tried to watch the HBO documentary series but it really was not that well put together and it came out long after the 'Serial Podcast'. I have never listened to 'Undisclosed'.
@@TheCinder24 How far did you get into the HBO documentary? Yes, it did come out long after, but it corrects factual inaccuracies Serial made and includes a lot of additional information that changes things. It isn't the same info. That said, if you don't find it approachable, that's fine.
Undisclosed is the podcast that Rabia started with a couple of lawyers who listened to Serial and reached out to her. Obviously that makes her takes biased in favor of Adnan so I didn't trust it at first. But I did my own fact checking and it all checks out. They started by covering Adnan's case but then branched out to investigate other wrongful convictions around the US. Their work has resulted in 10 full exonerations before Adnan's release. They really are legit
Serial left me wondering whether Syed was innocent or guilty. By the end of the Undisclosed podcast, I was convinced.
@@suepongalloconvinced that he was innocent or guilty? Just asking
Great work improving your energy and paceing it is obvious you are working hard to improve your hosting skills
My heart is broken for the victim and her family.
Really liking these crossovers... guest episodes? Very good so far.
As a Marylander having a nice level headed take on the legal (and slightly dipping in to the political) issues around the exoneration has been super welcome.
I love that Spencer keeps coming back!!!! I loved his Tom Cruise series commentary with you and love that he keeps coming back!
The prerequisite for depriving someone of their liberty should be strong faith in the integrity of the conviction. If prosecutors want to make sure someone goes to prison for a crime, they need to get it right the first time and make sure that the proceedings respect the civil rights of the person accused.
@Tom Pike - that’s why the death penalty is a flawed sentence; bit hard to make amends if you convict the wrong person, at least with jail time you can give monetary compensation to make partial amends for getting it wrong.
@@lordofuzkulak8308 100% agree. I also oppose the death penalty on other grounds. Namely that it is murder. Once someone is in custody, killing them is not an act of self defense.
@Tom Pike
They did
ScornOwl 💀 This episode was an awesome dressing-down, thank y'all!
He’s so obviously guilty it drives me mad.
We haven't gotten into 30 seconds of this video, and I already have an irrational anger over the sudden switching of council. Thanks Devin, and I mean that.
"check the invoice" that's my new catchphrase. the aggression with which he said that... yeah. I dig it.
Great analysis, Spencer!
Yes!!! I love this guy! I'm so happy he got another video!
This was pleasant surprise of a video, it really was. You should cover more cases outside the internet/youtube sphere.
Occam's Razor. Think about the insanely complex story you have to tell yourself if all the evidence against Syed is just amazing coincidence. He had obvious and clear motive, he wrote "I will kill" on her breakup letter, his cell phone pinged at both the burial site and the place the car was ditched. And a witness says he was shown the body by Syed. And he can't account for his whereabouts at the time of the murder. He sure is an unlucky guy. Obviously just a victim of a biased system.
I agree, it's baffling that so many people are somehow confused about this.
I feel like your profile/icon graphic changed. If I'm just late to the party or unobservant, wanted to compliment it! Very clean and sharp in my feed. 😎 Love your videos!
Major props to the production team on Legal Eagle videos. I like the visual story telling going on while info is being presented.
I’ve just watched this episode for the first time and need to watch at least once more. So much content covered so quickly. (I wish CZcams had a speed setting.)
Nevertheless, what concerns me more than the guilt or innocence of Adnan Sayed is the justice system we all depend on to protect the innocent and punish the guilty. And the fact that we may not get both no matter how careful we are. I want a system that protects the rights of the innocent even if this means the guilty may sometimes go free.
CZcams does have a speed setting, what are you talking about?
CZcams does have a speed setting
youtube does have a speed setting, look in the gear icon
Thanks to all who shared that CZcams does have a speed setting. I’ll get on it right away.
If someone told me a minor was sentenced to 20 years in prison for premeditated murder. I would not be surprised. Like, sure, i can see why they would want more. But even if he’s guilty, him being free now wouldn’t be that crazy.
A lot states have 17 as the age of culpability tho. Like you can be tried and sentenced as an adult no matter what. That being said, if Sayed had been white… yeah probably would’ve been out by now anyway.
The problem is that to get parole when sentenced for life you have to show remorse. If you insist you are innocent then you can't show remorse.
Well played Legal Eagle and Scowl Owl! That was a good podcast, one of my first.
It's always a good day when there is a new Legal Eagle episode.
Everything I know about this case is what I heard in this video. But I feel confident in judging that this is complicated.
know more. This video did not do it justice at all. It is weird to try and even say that someone else did it. Like If if write down "I'm gonna kill my ex" and then my ex dies and gets buried and my phone pings me to that area in that time AND having multiple ppl come forward saying i did it, then i probably did. Especially if i lie about my alibis (twice i think?)
Syed killed that girl and has never admitted it; indeed allowed for people to lie about the victim, Jay and his case. I cannot believe a murderer walked free. Pathetic.
The start of this is gold. I need to thank both of them for the levity before the managing the awful subject matter
Wow. I knew nothing of these events going into this video and my final impression is that this whole situation is a heaping mess.
Anyone who's interested in this and hasn't already should check out the Undisclosed podcast. It's made by an attorney close to the case and goes a lot deeper into all the evidence in ways Serial didn't have the ability to. I found it a lot more interesting than the original podcast because of how it got into all the nuts and bolts of the case rather than just the feelings and opinions of people around it.
I second this ☝️
I couldn’t get through Serial because they were so good at spinning a narrative and jerking the listeners' emotions around that it felt as if they were treating it like fiction. Maybe Undisclosed will be more suited to my tastes, when it comes to true crime I'm an evidence guy - these are real people's lives, and treating them like a story seems deeply inappropriate to me.
@@CJMGalaxy yes, I think Undisclosed will be much more your speed. While I liked Serial when it first came out, you are absolutely right. Learning more about the case showed me that Serial approached the case prioritizing storytelling far above journalism. Undisclosed has been in part responsible for 10 exonerations across the US. They are the real deal
I scrolled way too long before seeing this! “Adnan’s Story” is also a good summary of his case
Same. Loved it!
Nothing better than a video with the 2nd Leagle Eagle
As someone who never heard of this case, I would love a movie about it telling everything we know and especulate about it without ever taking a side, to keep the audience thinking.
It would be magnificent
It's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. He never should have been tried in the first place. No evidence except one witness who's a drug dealer to children and is afraid of going to jail himself. Never even gone to trial
He wasn't at witness, he was a co-defendant who gave damning testimony and admitted guilt to his role in accessory to murder. That's kind of a big distinction. Also, it is very clear that the drug dealer and Adnan are involved in a conspiracy together, the day Hae Min goes missing. This is evidenced by the numerous phone calls to each other that day, and that Adnan gave him his car, something he had never done before.
You’re doing good work, Spencer. Stay strong while Devon keeps putting you in the hot seat.
I had never listened to Serial before this video. After watching this video, I went and listened to the entirety of Serial at work, and now I’m back here
I love how Devin is in the kitchen preparing a meal with a suit and tie on. Touche
Indochino's new line of cookwear
Doesn't a criminal conviction (especially for murder) require an overwhelming amount of evidence? Motive, and opportunity are of course relevant, but they don't prove the overt act of murder happened. There was only one witness, and it sounds like there was very little forensic evidence at the trial. I won't pretend to know what actually happened that day, but it does not sound like the prosecution proved Syed's guilt beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt.
Am I missing something major here?
You're missing the fact that this is a 27 minute CZcams video, not a multi day or week trial. They aren't going to give you ALL the evidence. And obviously just watching a person testify themselves can tell you a lot if you believe them or not. A trial isn't just words on a page.
Criminal convictions only take enough evidence and testimony to convince 12 people of someones guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. 12 people that then talk to one another and argue back and forth.
Real world criminal cases aren't like an episode of CSI with all that forensic evidence.
The standard is beyond a reasonable doubt, not a shadow of a doubt. Syed had no alibi, had a reason to want that woman harmed, had a witness and some strong circumstantial and testimonial evidence linking him to the crime and the Jury believed that he did it. His lawyer failed him and didn't do a good job at defending him at all.
Part of it was his lawyer being awful, the other could also be racism.
@@Tedfufu he really didn't have a motive.
Also the lead detective has a bunch of his cases overturned. One of which was because he blackmailed witnesses with drug into false testimony. Sounds familiar?
Of course the jury didn't know that at the time but for me now that alone throws more than reasonable doubt on this case.
@@4203105 His motive, in Hae Min's own words taken from her diary, was that he was controlling, possessive and refused to accept the fact that she had broken up with him. He reportedly told Jay Wilds, and allegedly told his mentor, Bilal Ahmed, that he would kill Hae Min. He also wrote the words, "I am going to kill" on a break up note Hae Min had written him.
This along with the other circumstantial evidence seems pretty damning to me.
Wow this is a very level headed fair review of the recent developments. Thanks !
the dude has a hotline directly connected with Spencer, he doesnt even has to dial!
I like how Devin doesn't even need to dial the phone to make it ring.
That's because telephones are afraid of Chuck Norris and Chuck Norris is afraid of Devin, so no dialing needed.
Thank you for covering this! The case and evidence was difficult to follow with all the different theory’s out there. Also the DAs Marilyn Mosby motivations and criminal charges have an important impact.
I can remember finishing Serial and thinking he was probably guilty but the case was extremely flimsy and he probably deserved to go free not having been proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. But then, I listened to the follow up podcast Undisclosed which takes a much, much deeper dive into the evidence and left that thinking he was 100% innocent.
I wish they could somehow give Jay complete immunity from any repercussions and interview him again in a low-stakes setting. Just tell us if the burial story is true for no reason other than to clarify the record and bring the truth to light.
Yeah, some of the stuff from Undisclosed where they dive into Jay's testimony with it's inconsistencies and how it's extremely likely that it was coached by the police to fit their timeline they made up based off the cell tower data really made me question the conviction. I'm not certain that Adnan is innocent, but I can't imagine finding him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt with the evidence that the police had against him, especially looking back at how unreliable all of the evidence against Adnan was.
If the story was made up, Jay Wilds might still hang on to it, just to avoid admitting that he's a liar. But if he admitted that it was a lie, it would be huge.
@@Pystro Exactly. If he maintained his story we’d still be in the same position as today. But if he admitted it was a lie under police coercion that would be a bombshell.
@@alexharker7223 Problem is Jay has consistently stood by his story and calls Adnan a coward for never admitting his guilt. Also, Jay Wilds is the only person that has admitted to their role in this crime, which I think actually adds to his credibility. It is very clear that Adnan was at least involved in the death, however he refuses to accept guilt.
The ad placement made my jaw drop. Jeez Devin!
Where is Devin?
That suit and apron...😆 I can't sometimes, I just can't.
+the gavel on his cutting board 😂
Motive and Opportunity alone doesn't actually sound very convincing. It seems like a standard, that when paired with a lack of responsibility on law enforcement and prosecutors to pursue alternate theories, damn near guarantees that innocent people *will* be convicted. Shitty people in rural areas will afford having dozens of enemies that all satisfy the simple conditions of hating a moron and having the time to end them. This is quite disappointing.
Regarding the editing: Making a cut at every beat (or breath) to zoom in or out feels unnecessary and is distracting. I find myself watching that so much that I am loosing track of the points being made.
However, I still think this is just one more great episode! Thank you!
Can we get the guests name mentioned somewhere in the beginning of the video? Or in the description?
I'm sure someone has done Devin and Spencer fanart where they are like The Blues Brothers on a mission from Jurisprudence. Or if there isn't, there should be.
Maybe some Eagle/Owl slashfic? "Drop those legal briefs and show me your evidence, Spencer!"
All I can get from this is its a clusterfuck of "he said, she said" now and not a lot of evidence, and a bunch of probable claims from many that contradict each other.
He may have murdered the girl, and it looks like ScowlOwl leans that way. But I would guess no prosecution can meet that bar presently.
And that shes under indictment of her own.....not good.
Adnan Syed is innocent. Look up the Undisclosed podcast for details, and the police are looking into 2 suspects that had motive and means to kill Hae Min Lee.
@@thething1710 kk will check it out! Thanks!
He's absolutely guilty
Yes , food delivery getting sorted here , great show .
I love when ScowlOwl appears. He's awesome!
Uhmmm…. That was… weird? I never heard of this case before (not from the US) and the presentation here left me with a million questions. Like:
- Was being called by the defense the only way that potential alibi witness would be called in court? If she felt she‘d have something to say, would she not make a report to the police and would it not have been then automatically part of the case file and brought up in court?
- If I understand it correctly, Wild‘s testimony was quite relevant to convicting Syed. But not only was this Wild someone who had problems with the law, he helped to dispose of the body? Isn‘t that a crime in itself? And how did the police make sure that it was not him who killed Lee and blamed it on Syed? Or possibly both?
- Why would not finding his DNA on her shoes exonerate Syed?
- While even in an age of DNA evidence, motive, means and opportunity remain vital to proving a case, I don‘t see how proving that somebody would have a perceived reason to kill somebody, the way to do it and the opportunity to do it equals guilt without proving that these points can‘t apply to somebody else. Otherwise, all you would have shown is that somebody could have done it, not that he did do it, right?
- From how I understand it, a basic point of the American judicial system is, that once a case has been ruled, you might appeal it to a higher court and there is a way to a new trial if the defense counsel grossly neglected his/her job. But a case cannot be reopened against somebody or to exonerate somebody if new evidence turns up, correctly? I admit, I fail to see the wisdom in that and find it rather… disturbing.
The primary thing not explained in this video: The information on the other suspects is a Brady violation. The State had this information about other possible suspects, and faults in their evidence, that they (knowingly or not) withheld from the defense. As such, Adnan *should* have received at least another trial due to the previously 'Undisclosed' evidence. With that, and other faults in the case [the State's cell phone expert choosing to now testify in favor of the defense, the new DNA evidence, and Jay's frequent shifts in story], along with, yes, the political reasons for doing so, the State chose to fold the case.
As you described, this is a gross overview of the case, but an element that might have been worth mentioning were the police investigators involved, and who were the ones to interrogate Jay Wilde. That they were known for having been involved in other instances in poor police handling reflects poorly on how they acted in this trial, which could have been seen as bias and, as someone else posted, tunnel vision in a single suspect
Yeah, I was waiting for this point to come up. 🫤
@@RisingSunfish Same. It was noteworthy that the prosecutor was willing to acknowledge his corruption as a reason to doubt this case. They tend to hate to acknowledge that police lie just to get better stats.
"poor police handling" is an interesting euphemism for blackmailing witnesses into giving false testimony.
@@4203105 couldn’t remember the exact details but they were known to coerce witnesses
@@paulthomas963 I maintain I helped you bury the body. I think you should be arrested.
Great Video!
Wow - well done with your summary! This video must have taken hours, just to go through the podcast and all the evidence on different sides. I imagine you went through many drafts.....
Im really happy that you made a video about it. Im convinced there's lots of people like Adnan in prison for crimes they likely didnt commit or get a really bad defense
And a bunch haven't been convicted at all. Sometimes staying years locked up without a proper trial.
@@kingswarthy while theres actual criminals like all those killer cops and white collar criminals who get merely a slap on the wrist
Adnan did do it.
how can you be so sure?
Im not saying he didnt but I am convinced he's innocent
@@Interceptor810
You're not saying he didn't do it but you think he's innocent of it? What ?
As someone who knows absolutely nothing about this case, I can't be offended just informed. And yay, more Spencer!