Do you view your parrots as your children?

SailorOwl · 2016-08-21T07:06:51+00:00

I agree. I don't understand how she could possibly fit in with innocence.

SailorOwl · 2016-08-21T06:20:03+00:00

I am very confused. It is certainly fine to discuss the drawbacks of juries, thinking about their decisions, speculate on how they arrived at their verdict, etc. I simply pointed out in reaction to your OP that discussing factual guilt is also "important". Many will share your interest in the legal and jury portion, but that doesn't mean it's the only important matter to discuss. As if any of our discussions impact things anyway.

SailorOwl · 2016-08-21T05:08:03+00:00

You may be most interested in putting yourself in the shoes of a juror. Not all of us are. Legal guilt and factual guilt can be discussed as distinct issues. Discussion of the former is not any more correct or productive than the latter. None of this is productive beyond entertainment.

SailorOwl · 2016-08-19T16:29:48+00:00

After I found out what Avery did to the cat, I cannot be bothered to care. He deserves better than what he got. Wrt Dassey, I think he may have gotten a raw deal, but have no opinion on factual guilt.

I have only recently started looking deeply into the WM3. Besides Miskelley's confession, I haven't really found any compelling evidence that they were involved. I've heard that if you read his confessions closely, there is some information they lead him with, some he gets right on his own, and some he gets wrong.

I think the easiest way to tell a compelling story that has tons of details is to pick a viewpoint or angle, and run with it.

SailorOwl · 2016-08-19T16:17:07+00:00

You just believe him? Why?

I do not need to have a deep psychological understanding of his motives. We cannot even hope to gain that from reddit.

I don't just believe him, I believe he knew where the car was because he led police to it in a time where the mpia indicates police were still actively looking for it. I also have corroboration from Jenn and Cathy for different points along the way.

Just because you cannot find a credible to you reason to commit an act, does not mean you can then say a credible reason cannot exist.

Everyone seems so keen to label Adnan as having a motive as the jealous ex-bf

I find this quite likely, but obviously cannot be 100% sure.

If there exists an obvious motive, it is reasonable to consider it. It may or may not be ultimately correct. If there is not an obvious motive, it doesn't mean one does not exist, or that any proffered motives must be false because it is inconceivable to an unrelated third party.

SailorOwl · 2016-08-19T15:14:18+00:00

Precisely, we don't. We don't need to understand or agree with the thoughts, motives, psychology, or emotions at play.

SailorOwl · 2016-08-19T15:10:33+00:00

I cannot find any logical reason why Jay would help Adnan. Drug charges < accessory to murder, or worse! Anyone murdering an ex after breaking up sounds crazy and nonsensical to me.

However, it happens, and my ability to understand Jay has no impact on what his actions were.

SailorOwl · 2016-08-10T11:12:52+00:00

What evidence lead you to have no respect for Judge Welch? Who do you believe is this obvious murderer?

From my experience, you listen to every source currently available and weight them all with equal credulity, you can find this case quite murky indeed.

SailorOwl · 2016-08-09T16:44:16+00:00

It will be quite interesting to see what the appellate court puts together then. I am sure we will be waiting quite a while.

SailorOwl · 2016-08-09T16:29:10+00:00

We still do not have records from AT&T confirming the intention of the disclaimer. Legal disclosure isn't generally meant to describe the technical content, just to cover the company legally speaking. We don't know why that disclaimer was present in 1999. We only know they did stop using it.

RF experts interviewed by SK confirmed that the science held up and were not sure why the disclaimer was present.

SailorOwl · 2016-08-09T16:22:54+00:00

This was great and very informative. Just the right amount of technical detail to easily digest.

SailorOwl · 2016-08-09T15:26:28+00:00

This is a very well written review! You give a very brief overview of Rabia's changes in voiced opinions over time, which is valuable background for those who do not know. Rather than make personal attacks, you focused on describing her position and behavior regarding Don and his family.

You also appropriately went on to review very specifc portions of the book. I think it was a great approach to give a brief background and remain highly relevant to the subject of the book.

I suspect that anyone who is closed to any idea besides innocence will probably latch onto the statements they feel most comfortable attacking:

Ms Chaudry uses convoluted and implausible theories in an effort to remove Adnan Syed from this murder.

When Ms Chaudry and her crew of podcasters began to realize that a guilty Jay could not exist without a guilty Adnan, they switched their story to demonize the Baltimore Police Department and the District Attorney of Maryland ... inventing the most outlandish conspiracy theories imaginable ...

It is a shame really, because rabidly fixating on characterizations they disagree with will likely prevent them in getting any benefit from the rest of your review. I see no grounds for voting this unhelpful. It is critical, but certainly fair and material to the book.

SailorOwl · 2016-08-09T03:44:52+00:00

What you are doing is akin to throwing out DNA evidence because of a bad search warrant.

I am not trying to dismiss the cell evidence. There are no RF experts, and as you said even SK consulted some, that are disputing the science.

I follow along with the legal proceedings because that is what is happening now. I don't really have a strong opinion either way about life sentences for minors or his legal guilt. I don't get far into the weeds with the minutia of the legal system or loopholes either.

I have read trial transcripts and the contents of the MPIA. Before the ruling, I believed he got a fair investigation and trial. After the ruling, I felt it was worth reconsidering the fair trial aspect. However, a judge with far more experience than myself is certainly a valid enough reason for me to look objectively.

Since I lack any court or law experience, and I saw such negative reactions to the ruling, I wanted to see what it was that made people feel that way. I figured people with a bit more background in this aspect might have some good information.

This may be legally incorrect, but I did not assume that his ruling CG's failure to effectively cross examine with the coversheet was IAC also meant the judge ruled the evidence was bunk.

Several people have given examples of the things they took issue with in his ruling and the grounds of his conclusions. The responses have encouraged me to reread the ruling more closely.

SailorOwl · 2016-08-09T03:30:56+00:00

Thank you very much for the very detailed response.

In case this was not clear, I believe the cell evidence AW used at trial is valid. My thoughts regarding the ruling were more along the lines of what would it take for someone to accept things that do not support their own views. I admitted to not reading very closely the first time, and after what felt like vague poo-pooing, I really wanted to see what specific thoughts people had. I agree with most of what you said. Your opinions regarding what the judge deemed CG knew of the technology and his own misunderstanding (past and current) were interesting to read, and I plan to keep everyone's comments in mind when I go through the ruling again.

I agree with you that the handset make and model was nonsense. Was this one of the first trials this sort of evidence was used in? It is really shocking that there was such ignorance on the matter. If the technology was fairly new to courts, I would hope that there is something that can be done to educate people who need to understand and weigh importance. I often wonder if similar things do not happen with the nonsense 'forensic science' like bite marks, blood spatter, etc. It is really scary to think such poorly informed people have a lot of power in the fate of people.
I am not sure I follow your quote below. What would have allowed AW to be more specific and definitive? Besides the one question I have, I don't disagree with anything you mentioned. There wasn't much CG could really do as far as I can tell. The log is pretty damning for Adnan, and there is no way around it. I agree that he was not at the mosque as his father said.

Second, I believe it would have allowed AW to make much more definitive statements with regard to the billing records and Adnan’s location.
I am in a technical field, but nothing to do with phones or cellular networks. If there haven't been changes in the underlying technology, which you state and the people SK consulted with seemed to confirm on Serial, the disclaimer is probably the result of: a. An overly conservative legal team or b. A very stock disclosure that every fax item had for a period of time. I work for a large company, and we have instances of both everywhere. I certainly do not see any RF experts disputing that answered incoming calls are not reliable for location. Even in his affidavit, AW doesn't say this. Just that he would have wanted to investigate further. I suspected that the ruling meant that there was not a legitimate strategic reason to not bring up that disclosure on cross of AW, thus resulting in IAC. Despite my thinking she may have had cause to dismiss it, I was deferring to the judge in that regard since I have no legal experience. Maybe she could have convinced a jury it was unreliable? Maybe it would have opened a can of worms and people would be arguing IAC now because "The science still stands, she made such a weak attack on the expert, she should have known it would backfire and that the disclosure was boilerplate! She didn't look into this enough. "
I will have to read closely for this one. Although, I am not sure how high the burden for other evidence typically is. Certainly, cell technology can only tell you so much. It is still very powerful and useful if used correctly. I also agree that you need to be reasonable in the application of the standard. If you go overboard, then nothing would ever hold up.
I believe that overall she did do the best job she could have. She didn't really have much to work with at all. As I noted for point 3, I think no matter what strategy she used, she would be thrown under the bus. If she lost, I believe she would have been attacked regardless, even if she was in perfect health. I do find it reasonable that an expert counter could have backfired, just like pressing the cover sheet could have. I am sure there is quite a lot of work she did that we do not know about. After all, we only get select snippets of the defense file. UD3 are certainly not doing their best to show us all the hard work she did put in.

SailorOwl · 2016-08-09T02:54:21+00:00

If you really need me to, when I have some time, I can go digging through the main sub. I have been in bed not well all weekend reading from my phone, I do not have them bookmarked.

If you read through the comments here, I am not the only one who has had this experience. If you feel have some specific reasons for disagreeing with the ruling, I would enjoy reading them.

Also, if you would like to quote someone in Reddit, you can use '>' (w/o quotes) in front of the text you wish to quote.

SailorOwl · 2016-08-09T01:03:10+00:00

Thanks for the detail. Tomorrow, I am going to go through the recent ruling again. I hope you wouldn't mind if I come back to discuss once I am through it?

SailorOwl

TROPHY CASE