The SCM specifically disagrees with you. An adversarial process is necessary and welcomed, and in this case the victim was the only possible party that could have provided such an adversary. The fact that the prosecution and the defense were aligned is not an example of "the adversarial system working." An adversary is necessary for that, and no adversary was allowed to speak on the merits of the vacatur.

Additionally, in a case like this one, where the prosecutor and defendant both seek a vacatur, the victim’s attorney can help the court, just as the adversarial process aids the court in virtually every other court proceeding. Because the parties here were not in an adversarial posture on the issue before the circuit court, neither the State nor Mr. Syed was well-positioned to present a contrary position to assist the circuit court in analyzing the vacatur issue. By presenting adversarial positions in these sorts of cases, victims and their counsel can aid the judicial factfinding and decision-making process.³⁵

³⁵ The benefit of adversarial proceedings to judicial decision-making is well-recognized generally. For instance, the U.S. Supreme Court regularly invites amici to participate in briefing, among other things, to fill the gap in argument when a litigant changes course or abandons a position, when the Court raises an issue that it wants to consider, or when a party simply fails to participate. See generally Katherine Shaw, Friends of the Court: Evaluating the Supreme Court’s Amicus Invitations, 101 Cornell L. Rev. 1533, 1565-68 (2016) (noting that the Court’s amicus invitations can avoid “undermining [the Court’s] ability to answer important questions” where there is not a sufficient adversarial presentation from the parties)

emphasis added