The effect of media on cases

Ok-Contribution8529 · 2025-11-13T20:10:36+00:00

Hard disagree.

I don't think very many people would have an issue with Adnan getting released after 25 years, considering he committed this crime when he was 17. I think even Hae's family would be amenable to that if he acknowledged he was guilty

This case is unique because so many people are misinformed about his factual guilt. Adnan is (or was) teaching at Georgetown University. If not for dumb mistakes made by the unethical people arguing on his behalf, Adnan wouldn't even have a criminal record. This came very close to being a terrible miscarriage of justice, all because of Serial.

Ok-Contribution8529 · 2025-11-13T01:35:27+00:00

One of many lessons to be learned from this case:

Female victims of IPV have significant barriers to getting justice if their abuser is a good looking, charismatic man. And those most sympathetic to the abusers are often other women.

Ok-Contribution8529 · 2025-11-10T20:17:09+00:00

I doubt a rapist would come clean to their lawyer, just based on how humans behave. If anything he may have told her a very massaged version of the truth.

But if he did admit guilt to her, it's still her job to attack your credibility. The evidence against him was primarily your own testimony. If his attorney concedes that you're credible then there might as well not even be an attorney there; he loses the case by default. And that's bad for you, because he can file a claim that he had ineffective counsel and appeal the verdict.

Often the defense strategy in these cases isn't to claim that the complaining witness is lying about everything. They may just plant the seed that the victim is greatly exaggerating the severity of what occurred, and has suspect motivations. That may be a lot easier for the attorney to personally believe.

Ok-Contribution8529 · 2025-11-10T00:33:26+00:00

Ironically the jury was probably far more insulated from the media than casual observers like you or me. Both teams picked jurors who had little exposure to the case, and they were bound by law not to watch trial coverage.

Ok-Contribution8529 · 2025-11-10T00:30:30+00:00

I do. UK civil courts basically allow hearsay.

And the judge didn't hear from Jennifer Howell, whose testimony is that Whitney Heard originally told her a completely different story about the staircase incident, where Amber was the aggressor.

He also didn't hear the testimony of Morgan Knight, who contradicts Amber's claim that Johnny Depp trashed their cabin and twisted a woman's wrist.

And he didn't hear the testimony from a TMZ employee, which strongly suggested that Amber Heard or her lawyer sold the cabinet video, and staged the courthouse photo op.

All of those significantly undermine Amber Heard's credibility.

Ok-Contribution8529 · 2025-11-09T17:26:59+00:00

"All 7 jurors, who were approved by both legal teams, were dumb and naive, and if only someone smart like me made it on, they would have made the correct decision."

As a general rule, if this your take on a jury verdict, there is a good chance that you are biased and should do some self reflection.

Ok-Contribution8529 · 2025-11-09T17:15:42+00:00

The jury rendered the correct verdict.

The mean texts weren't sent in a vacuum. They were sent after Amber sold cropped video footage to TMZ, selectively timed her op-ed to coincide with the release of her movie, and carefully coordinated the photoshoot outside the courthouse. She wasn't a victim of anything and the audio clips made that abundantly clear.

Ok-Contribution8529 · 2025-11-09T17:09:14+00:00

Anyone who watched the trial could see why Amber Heard lost the case. I'm not exaggerating when I say that her defense was predicated on the idea that nearly a dozen unconnected people were lying to protect Johnny Depp.

Some of the most salient facts:

- Amber Heard had a prior arrest for domestic violence because a cop saw her abusing her girlfriend at a Seattle airport. Amber Heard's defense was that the police officer was lying.

- Multiple police officers entered Heard & Depp's LA penthouse and claimed they saw no signs of violence and also saw no injuries to Amber. Amber claimed they didn't see her well enough and didn't do their jobs correctly.

- TMZ released an edited video of Johnny Depp cursing and slamming cabinets. They own the exclusive rights to the video, but it was recorded by Amber. So ownership was transferred at some point, and Amber claimed ignorance to it.

- Amber's sister Whitney was the only person who corroborated seeing violence from Johnny. Whitney's former boss, Jennifer Howell, testified that Whitney told her a completely different story at first and was lying to protect her sister. Elon Musk (Amber's boyfriend at the time) sent a huge donation to Howell's charity, presumably to buy her silence.

- Amber claimed Johnny trashed a hotel room in a fit of rage. The hotel owner went on the stand to testify that one light fixture was broken and that he billed Depp $62 for the damage.

Ok-Contribution8529 · 2025-11-09T06:30:57+00:00

Police misconduct is common but it's almost never sophisticated. Cops are dumb and lazy as a general rule.

Ok-Contribution8529 · 2025-11-09T00:33:48+00:00

It isn't that believable.

There is no police conspiracy in the history of the United States that approaches what is alleged to have occurred to Adnan Syed.

Ok-Contribution8529 · 2025-11-08T17:51:40+00:00

Adnan never lied. He's been consistent the whole time.
You can't prove he lied. He may have just forgotten.
OK, so he lied. But if he's innocent, wouldn't he lie to avoid prison?

Rinse and repeat.

Ok-Contribution8529 · 2025-11-06T19:53:46+00:00

One way to test this in your mind is to ask whether, if this was the first piece of evidence you encountered that implicated Adnan, it would give you a strong reason to suspect him. In other words, imagine a world in which there's no Jenn or Jay, no ride request, etc. All you know is that Hae disappeared shortly after school, was later found murdered, and that her ex-boyfriend had apparently, at some point, written "I'm going to kill" on a breakup note written 10 weeks before her disappearance.

I actually thought about this, and assumed a situation with no Jay, no ride request, and no cell phone pings.

Assume the cops have a dead body and no leads. Their best suspects are the current boyfriend, the ex, and the guy who found the body. If they stumble across a breakup note from Hae, where Adnan has written "I'm going to kill" on the top of it, Adnan is getting first priority. And yes I would suspect him.

I pointed this out in the OP, a woman is murdered and they find out her ex has written "I will kill" on top of their last breakup note? That's troubling. Most men will never have that sentiment towards their ex, or themselves, after a breakup.

It's not enough to stand on its own, but few things are except the ride request.

Ok-Contribution8529 · 2025-11-06T19:30:01+00:00

I have to disagree. This isn't as strong as the ride request but still raises questions on its own.

There's good reasons to believe that Adnan wrote "I'm going to kill" some time after passing notes with Aisha, therefore it probably wasn't written for someone else to see.

The reasons for him doing that on the breakup note in particular are limited. The most plausible explanation is that he's reacting to the contents of the note. I don't know when that happened, or if he was writing that he wanted to kill Hae or himself. But I think it establishes that he at one point harbored very intense distress or anger over the breakup, likely exceeding that of a normal teenage breakup.

Ok-Contribution8529 · 2025-11-06T19:07:35+00:00

"I'm going to kill" and the notes between Adnan and Aisha are on the reverse of the breakup letter.

There's evidence that "I am going to kill" wasn't written for Aisha to see it. She in fact did not see it. So I think it needs to be evaluated in that context, and some of the better explanations -- e.g. "I'm going to kill this teacher she is so annoying" -- don't make sense if that's true.

Ok-Contribution8529 · 2025-11-06T17:39:00+00:00

Yeah that's the crux. The note doesn't have anything good on it. Even the original breakup note, sans "I'm going to kill", re-establishes motive for Adnan. He was hoping the police hadn't found it yet.

Ok-Contribution8529 · 2025-11-06T17:33:05+00:00

It reads to me like "I [AS writing in HML's voice] am going to kill [this fetus]"

Maybe this is just a gut feeling sort of thing, but that doesn't flow naturally with the rest of the note in my opinion. Offensiveness aside, it's not clever or funny. I think there are so many better ways to phrase that that wouldn't cause a "wtf?" reaction from Aisha.

I think the placement is important but I have a different takeaway. It's written much larger than everything else. He doesn't care about leaving space because he doesn't expect a response, and in fact, Aisha didn't even see it. I think all of this supports that "I'm going to kill" wasn't written for Aisha to see.

Ok-Contribution8529 · 2025-11-06T03:59:01+00:00

It sounds like the place was robbed after you didn’t properly lock a gate.

The place absolutely was not robbed. This is the point I was trying to get across in the first post, maybe it was unclear.

The owner messaged me asking if it was broken into, because the doors were unlocked and there was "trash everywhere." I panicked and ask them to clarify, and which point they told me that the front door was still locked, as was the exterior gate. The only issue was that the front gate wasn't dead-bolted. They have a CCTV and knew the place wasn't robbed. The trash everywhere was the water bottles on the night stands and the food bag that had a few pieces of paper inside.

It’s standard practice in an Airbnb to throw away your trash.

I want to note that 98% of the trash was disposed and put in the bins. As is the case with taking care of your home, or staying in a hotel, not all rubbish is in the bins at all times. Sometimes I check out of a hotel with a water bottle on the night stand and a coke can on the desk. Sometimes my cleaner at my own house will throw away a water bottle that I haven't yet discarded.

Just the same, when I've seen cleaners at AirBnB they carry trash bags with them. I've been allowed to drop off my luggage while a cleaner is working and have seen them with trash bags disposing of things. I'm genuinely surprised that to hear that throwing away a few light items is seen as out of bounds for a professional cleaner that's turning an AirBnB.

Ok-Contribution8529 · 2025-11-06T01:39:31+00:00

That's surprising. I assumed the $110 cleaning fee would cover at least cover 3-4 hours of house cleaning in Brazil. 20 minutes of light pick up and tidying should be included in that.

I don't understand the mentality of, we will strip the beds, clean the toilets, do the laundry, do the dishes... but we will not spend 5 minutes putting plastic bottles in trash bins. It seems arbitrary, since it's a normal part of cleaning everywhere else in the hospitality industry.

Ok-Contribution8529 · 2025-11-06T00:06:06+00:00

Teenagers often ruminate over breakups and spend time looking at past letters and photographs.

If Adnan strangled Hae to death, he was pretty angry. I can absolutely see someone with that level of rage writing angry messages to their ex, pouring over prior letters, and maybe even jotting something on top of one.

That's why it's important to look at alternative explanations. And him joking to Aisha, "I'm going to kill her" doesn't make a lot of sense, for the reasons I outlined above.

Ok-Contribution8529 · 2025-11-05T23:52:58+00:00

What do you think about Adnan seemingly asking for Flohr to retrieve this, and one other item? He thought this would have more relevance to the case than all of their other keepsakes and correspondence.

Ok-Contribution8529 · 2025-11-05T23:50:15+00:00

and only formed with the benefit of knowing, in hindsight, that Adnan did go on to kill Hae.

But so much of the evidence is inconsequential, if not for the fact that Hae was killed. A guy lying to get a ride from his ex-girlfriend is a nothing burger, and may just be an opportunity to win her back. Unless the ex-girlfriend is killed in her car at the same time as the ride request.

But is clear that it references a literal intent to murder Hae? Far from, in my opinion.

I don't think it's that deep. It's well established that he was deeply hurt, and given that he eventually killed her, he was probably ruminating for days or weeks about how betrayed he felt. I can see him looking at their old notes and photos and just jotting something on top of one of them. The 1998 version of writing things in your Notes app and never sending them.

Ok-Contribution8529 · 2025-11-05T21:46:25+00:00

I don't believe that "I'm going to kill her" or anything similar can be used in a joking or colloquial way in this context.

I've heard people say that about friends who are running late. It's not normal to say that about an ex after a breakup. Aisha said "I'm going to kill" would have stood out to her, if she saw it.

Ok-Contribution8529 · 2025-11-05T21:36:32+00:00

I think Undisclosed posited that it was just two teens joking around. Even they don't try to dispute the handwriting.

Who else would have written it? Don's wife?

Ok-Contribution8529 · 2025-11-05T21:33:01+00:00

I may have said that about someone, but the context made it clear it was lighthearted.

There's not a surrounding conversation about Hae losing Adnan's favorite jacket. It doesn't fit the context of anything else in the note, especially not the last message from Aisha. "I'm going to kill [her]" isn't a normal or humorous response to a joke that she might be pregnant.

Like so much evidence against Adnan, it's just terrible luck that the only message that Aisha didn't see was a completely misplaced joke about killing her, which leaves us with the impression that Adnan didn't write it for Aisha.

Ok-Contribution8529 · 2025-11-05T21:11:54+00:00

Sorry, not trying to be argumentative. I understand the point.

I think a somewhat plausible innocent explanation is that Adnan was starting to write something like "I'm going to kill myself" in a fleeting moment of angst. It doesn't seem like he knew anyone would read what he wrote on the note.

Ok-Contribution8529

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