"We did not pick Jay to be Adnan’s accomplice. Adnan picked Jay. Remember, Jay committed a crime here. He was an accomplice after the fact in a murder. A very serious crime. And there is almost always during a trial when you’re dealing with people out of a criminal milieu, that they have a lot of things they don’t want to talk about.... Like I said, people who are engaged in criminal activity, it’s like peeling an onion. The initial thing they say is, ‘I don’t know a thing about this.’ And then ‘Well, I sort of saw this.’ You get different stories as you go along. This is the real world. We don’t pick our witnesses, we have to put them on as they are. There were a lot of inconsistencies throughout Jay’s prior statements. Almost all of them involve what we would call collateral facts. A material fact is something directly related to the question of guilt or innocence. A material fact would have been, ‘I was with Adnan,’ and then you’ve got the cellphone corroborating that material fact. A collateral fact would be, We were at Joe’s Sub Shop,’ but then you find out actually they were at the auto repair store. That’s a collateral fact. It’s not necessarily material to the question of guilt or innocence. So, many of the material facts were corroborated through the cellphone records including being in Leakin Park...."
From the excellent Intercept interview with the prosecutor in the case that was the subject of the popular podcast "Serial."
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7 comments:
Thanks for pointing this out.
I ended up frustrated with Serial because Koening got lost somewhere in whether it was a perfect trial, rather than what happened.
She never pushed Adnan for his story, even as she accused Jay of changing details of his.
As Intercept points out and as I've pointed out elsewhere, Koenig had an interest in Syed's being innocent. The show had to be framed around that.
Yes, great point Althouse. It wasn't obvious to me, but it is absolutely true that the proper outcome at trial would have led to no story for a podcast.
I know lawyers who think Adnan shouldn't have been convicted. WTF?
Adnan refused to talk about that day. Had lots of other things to say, but couldn't remember that day. How convenient.
And Koenig tried to paint at least one juror as an Islamophobe, yet never seriously delved into Adnan's backward ass Pakistani family life, you know, the one where the parents show up at prom to take him away, because of the gender-mixing. WTF?
Lyle- Koening also never touches on the defense that he was at the mosque that night, or who made the call to the cops to say Adnan should be a focus. She never talks about why *Adnan* doesn't remember being at the library that day (did he ever go, occasionally go? Never go?). And apparently someone from the mosque pled the 5th. All stuff Koening never touched. The fake mosque cover story makes it seem more likely the parents were looking for an alibi, this the weirdly worded Asia Mcclain "alibi".
But Koening never investigates any of that
Did she even ask Adnan why he gave Jay his phone?
Your perspective on this is so interesting to me. I've followed Serial and even dipped into the Reddit sub for the podcast. The Intercept interviews have been universally panned. The vile invective levied at the prosecutor is amazing. I disagree with the vile invective, by the way, although there may have been some questionable tactics. That said, it's very easy playing Monday-Morning Quarterback 15 years after the fact.
MayBee,
I agree with you. I felt like she wasn't asking the right questions always.
And the idea that the defense lawyer was ineffective counsel is ludicrous.
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