Serial Episode 8 - The Deal With Jay

Warning: There will be rants.

As the title suggests, this episode focuses predominantly on Jay.  It's also a bit disjointed as SK jumps from person to person, trying to get their thoughts.  But basically, this was a wasted episode.  In an episode that is supposed to be devoted to the linchpin of the entire case, there is just nothing here.  There is a pointless "debrief" of a conversation with Jay that establishes nothing.  Some snippets of friends describing Jay, which amounts to nothing.  An investigator's assessment of the police investigation, which doesn't matter.  And some absolutely infuriating comments from jurors who were on the case.  Let's take these in turn.

Talk with Jim Trainum - SK spends a decent chunk of time getting Trainum's thoughts on the case.  He used to be a homicide detective in DC and is now a bit of an expert in false confessions and an advocate for better interrogation techniques.  He explained why Jay worked well for the police -- he completed a circle for them.  They were suspicious of Adnan, they investigated him and his phone records turned up Jenn, Jenn led to Jay, and Jay fingered Adnan as the culprit.  This was perfect.  Trainum said that he believed the investigation was technically sound.  But he had reservations about Jay's inconsistent stories.  And he said if there was some "mischief" it would have occurred during the pre-interview, before the recording started on Jay's statements.  

He does note that the police went easy on Jay.  They never searched his house.  They never subjected him to a polygraph.  He speculates that Jay was on their team now and didn't want to push too hard.  The cops "probably settled for what was good enough to be the truth."  He notes that at the stage where they are talking to Jay, they are trying to build the strongest case possible rather than focusing on getting the truth.  There is verification bias: if something fits their case, they will embrace it; if it doesn't they will ignore it.  

It's hard to tell whether SK's outrage over the comments about building a strong case rather than finding the truth authentic or played up for the audience.  It seems pretty naive for an experience crime reporter to genuinely feel surprised by this.  It's pretty apparent that at some point, the police made up their mind that Adnan was their culprit.  That's why they put up with Jay's lies, shifting statements, and did what they could to find a story that could sort of fit Jay's statement.  

Personally, this doesn't surprise me.  But I like to think there was some reason why the police were so convinced that Adnan was the culprit.  SK sort of leads the audience in this direction when she describes the detectives as good investigators in an earlier episode.  They were experienced, good detectives - they must have seen something to make them so sure.  Initially, that was my main basis for not falling into the "Adnan is innocent" camp.  I can't believe that an anonymous call was enough to make them convinced he was guilty. Or maybe I'm giving them too much credit.   

Conversation with Jay - For the most part, SK's narration style has been effective in grabbing my attention and making me invested in the story.  You can hear her investment into the case.  Her doubtful rhetorical questions mirror what we the audience often are thinking.  But there is one major difference -- she actually got to talk to these people while we are left to listen to what she recounts to us.  

That's what was so frustrating about this segment.  What was the point?  The effect of this is that SK and her colleague (blanking on her name) were super excited about talking to Jay.  And then they had a 20 minute conversation that took the wind out of their sails.  That's it.  Of course he is going to back up his story.  Of course he is going to maintain Adnan was guilty regardless of whether Adnan really is guilty or not.  He is not going to change his story now.  Whether Jay "looks tired" or that he was "polite and sweet" or that he was "forceful" in insisting Adnan did it really don't add anything.  Basically, I could not help but feel that this was a wasted opportunity.  

Now, I realize I'm not the person who was actually there, and I realize that SK has other obligations and protocol to follow.  But if all they got from the conversation was this, then the build up was unnecessary and aggravating.  A simple, "we were able to speak with Jay briefly.  He was tall and wary and looked tired.  He was polite and sweet but it was clear he didn't want to talk to us about the events.  What struck us was how forceful he was in insisting Adnan was guilty and scoffing at the notion that Adnan would maintain his innocence."  That takes 30 seconds -- about the time that this segment deserved.  I understand this was a narrative choice, but I was annoyed by her choice.  And I know others have expressed their disapproval as well.  
  

The only interesting thing I took away from this segment was that Jay exchanged emails with SK before ultimately declining an interview.  This was odd because the natural reaction in his shoes would be to decline to comment and not let them in the door.  Not only did he let them in, he acted as if he were accommodating them, even extending this process with the promise of an interview before providing a gentle letdown.  This was a very deft way of handling the situation he found himself in.  The descriptions of Jay focus on how he was "polite."  But I think it goes beyond that.  He is charismatic and knows how to interact with people in different situations.  

When faced with a highly disruptive situation - two journalists knocking on his door to discuss events he didn't want to re-live - he handled it remarkably well.  To me, this suggests that when sitting in a police interrogation room, he is capable of deftly massaging a story to fit what the police wanted while hiding certain details.  By the time the police picked him up, they wanted Adnan.  Their focus was already on Adnan, and Jay could pick up on it.  So he gave them a story that satisfied what the police wanted and gave them Adnan.  In short, he quickly understood the game the police were playing and played along with them.  There was a lot of talk last episode of whether Adnan was a charming sociopath.  Should that inquiry be made about Jay instead?

Discussion with Jay's Friends
SK also recounts her discussions with some of Jay's friends:  Chris, Laura, Patrick, and Cathy.  On balance, these discussions provide a little bit of insight into Jay, but again, there is hardly anything substantive here.  Overall, Jay was considered an oddball, the "Rodman" of the group.  Some people found him mean and intimidating.  Others said he was not serious and was just a goof.  Lots of contradictory statements, depending on your perspective.  Not very helpful.  

Chris:  The discussion with Chris yielded some information relevant to the case.  Apparently, Jay had told Chris about the murder and told the police that he had done so.  Yet, the police never questioned Chris.  But the story he was told was vastly different from any iteration of the story Jay told the police.  To recap, Jay was shooting pool when Adnan called.  Adnan dragged him out and showed him Hae's body outside the pool hall.  He forced Jay to help because of Jay's illegal activities.  Jay told him that Adnan killed Hae because he thought she was flirting with a car salesman.  When Hae said Adnan was crazy, he snapped and strangled her.  This happened in the parking lot of the Woodlawn public library.  And Adnan kept Jay in line by threatening Stephanie.  Jay told him that Adnan arrived at Jay's house with Stephanie, to demonstrate how easily he could get to her.  According to Chris, Stephanie was Jay's weakness:  "He would move heaven and earth if it came to protecting Stephanie."  

Let's start with the story.  It's hard to construct the timeline, but it sounded like Jay told Chris before he was picked up by the police.  But this is different from the story he supposedly told Jenn the night of the murder.  So why tell Chris a completely different story and then go back to the Jenn version when talking to the police?  There are bits of the story that are appealing.  The fact that Adnan allegedly killed Hae in a fit of rage makes more sense than the premeditated version of the story (for reasons discussed in context of earlier episodes).  Strangulation seems to be more a passion/rage kill rather than a cool, premeditated kill and that fits more.  Unsure about the car salesman bit, but that could have been Chris mis-remembering details.  Maybe they were arguing about Don.  That makes the story more plausible.  

But the other details don't make sense in terms of why these details would change.  Why would it matter what Jay was doing at the time or where he saw the body.  He gave three different locations:  outside the pool hall, by a strip off Edmonson Avenue, and the Best Buy parking lot.  The first two locations appear to be more associated with Jay, while the Best Buy maybe had meaning to Adnan...  The murder location shifts as well.  Why tell Chris the parking lot of the Woodlawn public library?  That seems to be a pretty silly claim given how public that location is.  Maybe he was trying out different stories?  Not sure.  

Not sure what to make about the last comment about Stephanie, though.  My gut reaction is to discount that because of the things we know about Jay in relation to the case (that he was cheating on her, that he didn't call her on her birthday until at the end of the night).  But then you have to stop and remember that we know very little (if anything) about these people.  So maybe Jay did feel this level of protectiveness and love for her.  But then again, maybe he knew people knew that about him and thought that would be an effective excuse for how Adnan would keep him in line.  Who knows?

The other interesting story Chris tells SK is how Jay tried to stab Chris because he had never been stabbed before.  Jay said Chris needed to know what it felt like to be stabbed.

W. T. F.  And why the hell was Chris laughing about this story?  I'm sorry, maybe I'm soft, but if you try to stab me, I am not going anywhere near you.  Just a bizarre story.  Does it mean anything?  Maybe it suggests Jay was a little "off" too?  Probably not that important, but it does add quite a bit of color to the picture we have of Jay.

Laura:  Laura is a friend of both Adnan's and Jay's.  She talks about how wonderful Stephanie is and how she was probably too good for Jay.  She was the good thing in Jay's life.  She said that Stephanie would not talk about this with anyone and Laura said it probably caused the end of their friendship.  Laura said she hung out with Jay during the summer before the trial.  But Jay wouldn't talk about it either.  

Nothing substantive here.  Just some more filler to paint a picture about Jay.  Of course, the best thing about Laura is this wonderful quote:

“Well then who the fuck did it?  Like why would... like why would... it doesn’t make sense.  Why would ki- eh- aleh- why wou- Hae was a ... I just... I can’t... I’m probably just as confused as you are.”

Patrick:  This is a different Patrick than the drug friend who appeared on the call log.  He said he had drifted from Jay when this happened, but they reconnected years later in around 2005.  Patrick asked Jay about it, and he said  he was afraid Adnan was going to hurt Stephanie.  He pushed for more details but Jay wouldn't go for it.  Patrick believed that the Stephanie explanation sounded pretty thin.  

Patrick's take that he didn't buy the Stephanie explanation was also echoed by some other people SK spoke with.  SK recounted that some "could not square" Jay feeling threatened by Adnan.  I tend to agree.  As I noted in the Episode 7 discussion, it appears that Jay and Adnan acted friendly after January 13th.  If Nisha's testimony is correct, Adnan put Jay on the phone at the video store, which means Jay and Adnan were on good terms after that date (remember, Jay did not have the video store job then).  And if Adnan were keeping Jay in line by threatening Stephanie, it would be colossally dumb to put Jay on the phone with the girl he was seeing.  So yeah, I don't buy that explanation.

"Cathy":  Cathy helpfully makes the observation that Jay lies about everything... but he wouldn't lie about something this big.  This is helpful.  Of course, in an earlier episode, she told SK that she only knew Jay through Jenn, so it's unclear where she is drawing this observation from.  She also justifies her conclusion because of how Adnan was behaving at her house.  

Eh, this isn't really anything either.  She seems to think Adnan and Jay were acting weird.  But it really is hard to put that in context.  She was forced to think back on the night after Adnan was arrested and Jay was being questioned by police.  With that piece of information, it is easy to look back and make assumptions that they were acting weird because they were guilty.

Also, one of the most important things about trying to read body language is to get a "baseline" reading.  Everyone has their own "normal" state.  The trick to getting physical tells is to compare this baseline reading and noticing any deviations, and to draw conclusions on what that deviation means.  (This comes into play in poker a lot.  But sorry Rounders fans.  A plate of Oreos isn't going to help you win at poker.)  Physical tells are very different from verbal tells in that generalizations can be drawn from differences in language, word choice.  But such generalizations really can't be made for physical tells.

Given that she met Adnan for the first time that night, I don't expect her to know how Adnan normally acts and that she is qualified to know if he was acting weird.  You need that baseline.  

Jenn:  SK mentions Jenn again in the context of Jay's friends.  SK reports Jenn was not rude, but clearly not interested in talking to her about this.  She said she believed Jay then and that has not changed over the years.  She said she could understand the kind of lie Jay told (like initially telling her that he didn't help bury the body).  But she said she didn't believe that the murder happened at Best Buy.

Another key person who SK seemed to let off the hook too easily.  If she doesn't want to talk about it, then what's the point in talking to her now?  It's clear Jenn knows more that she let on, or she lied for Jay.  So this was also profoundly disappointing.  I just can't take any of her statements at face value.
  
Jay's Statement at the End of Trial - The episode plays a clip of Jay at the end of trial expressing his remorse over his role in this.  Jay's attorney speaks up for him.  The prosecution commends him for his cooperation...  Yes, Jay's attorney is paid to do this.  The prosecution got their star witness to play his role.  But why is the podcast trying so hard to paint a sympathetic picture of Jay?  

I'm sorry, but Jay is not innocent.  He's not a "polite and sweet" kid who happened upon a bad situation.  He is a drug dealer who callously helped bury the body of a dead girl (who he knew!) and stayed quiet about it for 6 weeks.  Good people do not do these things.  I am not going to believe he suddenly feels remorse because he can cry in court.  You know what would have demonstrated remorse?  Going to the police and reporting the murder that you supposedly did not commit.  So let's just stop painting Jay as a victim here.  

The Defense Attorney 
The episode plays a short clip of Adnan's attorney in action.  And with that 15 second clip, it was pretty apparent how the jury found Adnan guilty on such flimsy evidence.  

SK notes that Gutierrez's strategy was to attack Jay's credibility.  Yes, that was a sound strategic choice.  Seeing as the prosecution's case hinged entirely on Jay's testimony, it was vital to destroy his credibility.  But it's the execution.  Oh, how awful this was!  SK is spot on in her observations.  She's in Baltimore with a half-black jury.  She's yelling at young black man trying to cow him into telling the truth.  She's shrill, she's condescending, she's rude.  As a result, the jury ended up feeling sympathetic to Jay, which translated into believing him.  Game over.


The Jury - Sigh.  The jury.  What do you do about the jury?  In my opinion, the jury system is horribly broken.  It is one of the most inefficient and error-prone parts of our legal system.  As a general matter, a jury is simply unable to fully appreciate and understand all the testimony and evidence that is presented over the course of a trial.  Here, the trial took 6 weeks.  Yet, the jury took 2 hours to convict. The fact that the jury was able to convict on this evidence is a cause for concern.  The fact that they did so in 2 hours is deplorable.  

So what happened?  Well, as with many cases, this was a battle of credibility.  Because of how the trial was framed, it became an issue of Jay versus Adnan.  If the jury believed Jay, then Adnan is guilty; if the jury did not believe Jay, then Adnan is not guilty.  In the end, Jay held up to Gutierrez's attacks and the jury believed him.  

SK plays recordings of conversations with a couple of the jurors.  Stella Armstrong says she believed Jay and wondered why would anyone admit to something that drastic if you didn't do it since you're going to jail anyway.  But Jay didn't go to jail.  When SK corrects her, she responds, "Oh. That's strange. That's strange."  

--Oops.

She said Jay seemed "street wise" and the type of friend you would call if you were in trouble.  So she found it believable that he would be the guy Adnan would turn to.

--Interesting that she basically parrots Jay's reason why Adnan would contact him.  This is the story that the prosecution fed.  Adnan couldn't turn to his magnet school nerd friends.  He had to turn to someone more "street wise" like Jay.  And of course, no mention of the fact that, you know, Jay and Adnan supposedly weren't good friends.

She said she felt that the defense attorney was trying to blame it on Jay.  But there was nothing to suggest any motive for Jay to kill Hae.  Gutierrez was trying so hard to pin Jay as a liar, but she felt he was telling the truth.  

--As a general matter, people hate to be told what they should think.  So repeatedly calling Jay a liar isn't effective.  It's much more effective to bring the jury to the edge so that they can reach the conclusion on their own that Jay is a liar.  How?  Just establish a pattern of his lies.  Highlight each inconsistency.  Have he say something then play the recording where he contradicted himself.  With all of the shifting stories and, yes, lies, there is no way she should have let Jay off the witness stand with the jury believing a word he said.  

Don't accuse Jay of being the murderer.  Lead the jury to think about that possibility.  Jay is the one who knew where the car was.  That makes him the only person here who definitively demonstrated they have first hand knowledge of the crime.  

• Jay never told the police that Adnan killed Hae until the police picked up Jay for questioning.  
• The whole case against Adnan is because Jay says Adnan did it... but Jay is the one who knew where the car was.  
• The prosecution says Adnan did it because Hae broke up with him... and the police thought that because Jay told them that.  
• Jay just happened to have Adnan's car and cell phone on this particular day. 
• Jay got his friend Jenn to lie about an alibi until 3:45... which is the window of time when Hae disappeared. 

The dumbest question was asking him straight out if he killed anyone.  Of course he's going to say no!  But you can ask him so many questions that he has to say yes to.  

• "You didn't tell the police that Adnan killed Hae until the police picked you up for questioning, correct?"  
• "You were the one who showed police where Hae's car was, correct?"  
• "You told the police that Adnan killed Hae because she broke up with him, right?" 
•  "You testified that you were at Jenn's house until about 3:45, correct?"  
• "And you had Adnan's phone and car with you until this time, right?"  
• "On the cell phone log, there is a call to Jenn's home at 3:21PM, do you see that?"  
• "So it is your testimony that while you were at Jenn's house with Jenn at 3:21PM, you called Jenn at her house?"

Bring the jury to the very edge, but let them take the final step.  She didn't have to prove that Jay was the actual murderer.  She just had to leave enough reasonable doubt - and that could be having them think Jay could have been the murderer.  

And then there is Lisa Flynn.  Her statement was that "it was huge" that Adnan didn't testify himself.  As she put it:

“We all kind of like gasped.  Like were all just blown away by that.  Why not?  If you are a defendant, why would you not get up there and defend yourself and try to prove that the State is wrong.  That you weren’t there that you’re not guilty.  We were trying to be so open-minded.  It was just like get up there and say something.  You know, try to persuade even though it’s not your job to persuade us but I don’t know."

<Infinite facepalms> I mean, what can you say to that?  One of the most fundamental tenets is that you have the right not to incriminate yourself.  Juries are specifically instructed that they may not hold a defendant's decision not to testify against him.  Yet, the jury found it "huge" and were "blown away" that he would "get up there and defend [him]self."  This is so fucking backwards and why I hate the jury system.  

The majority of people are simply not capable of processing information that they are not familiar with and making a rational decision based on a set of unfamiliar rules.  That's basically what the jury system is.  We put a collection of people, throw a bunch of testimony and evidence at them, give them some basic legal principles to keep in mind, and then ask them to make a determination about a critical issue that could effectively end someone's life.  When faced with this daunting task, rather than process the evidence and testimony and make an informed decision, they simplify the task.  Who do I believe more?  The credibility could be for the star witness.  It could be the police detective who testified about the investigation.  It could even be the attorney speaking in court.  Things like "evidence" and "burdens" and "presumptions" are not what drive's the jury's decision.  It's going to be based on credibility.  Who do they believe.

Here, they obviously found Jay credible.  Without Adnan testifying on behalf, Gutierrez basically became Adnan's proxy.  And after watching her try to bully Jay (and failing), the jury determined they believed Jay over Adnan's attorney, and hence Adnan was guilty.  

Now I am not blaming the jurors themselves.  It's not their fault.  Most jurors are simply not equipped to make these determinations.  I consider myself a reasonably intelligent person.  But if you put me in an operating room and force me to remove someone's appendix, I am going to fail.  Spectacularly.  So then why are we forcing jurors to do something they are not really capable of doing?  

My initial reaction to this case was "Adnan should not have been convicted."  That is the only definite conclusion that I have.  I still am leaning towards believing that he killed Hae or was involved in her death.  But these are two different concepts.  When finding something guilty of murder, it can't be a guessing game.  It has to be a reasoned decision based on a compelling case made by the prosecution, which is the result of a thorough and diligent investigation by the police.  Depriving someone of his/her liberty is a drastic act.  That's why the burden of "beyond a reasonable doubt" is present.  All I see here is reasonable doubt.