Serial - Urick (part 2): Still Waiting for the Demolition of the Serial Narrative...

Not with a bang, but with a whimper, the Intercept released Part 2 of their narrative-demolishing interview with Kevin Urick... which established absolutely nothing.  

I started to write some thoughts about this, but it started devolving into cynical and sarcastic commentary.  I'd rather not be so negative, so I'm just going to list a few things I learned from Kevin Urick, presented without (much) comment:

• Apparently DNA evidence is hard to collect when there is no blood.  And in strangulation cases where there is no murder weapon, there is no blood.  I guess skin cells don't contain DNA.  What?  There was blood found on a shirt that belonged to the victim likely due to pulmonary edema?  Nah, that must have been totally unrelated and has no bearing at all.
• Kevin Urick is a crusader of constitutional rights.  And all he got for his trouble was an accusation of misconduct.  Shame on us.  For shame.
• "Nobody had any misgivins about someone being a Muslim [before 9-11]."  Well, that's good to know.  
• Urick doesn't "recall ever being contacted by her."  Except the time he was contacted by her the week before the last podcast.  
• Urick is not going to be a spokesman for the case.  And he didn't speak to Koenig out of respect for the family.  But one month later, he's totally fine being a spokesman for the case.  And apparently he no longer is respecting Hae's family.

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." 
                                                                                        -Abraham Lincoln

The Urick interview was not surprising because there really wasn't much he could say.  He can't admit to having questions about the conviction.  He can't admit to having reservations about the myriads of lies his start witness testified in court.  And he refuses to concede any wrongdoing on his part.  He is going to make self-serving statements to defend his reputation.  That's understandable.

But then what was the point of the interview?  The Intercept got their clicks, but did they really want this attention?  The past week was definitely a test of the "any publicity is good publicity" maxim as the criticism of the opinion piece preceding the first part of the interview was (justifiably) harsh and vociferous.  It even gave me the opportunity to practice a bit of satire in critiquing their piece (which was a lot of fun, by the way).  

And to the Intercept's credit, you'll note a different tenor in this part of the interview.  There was no accompanying opinion piece.  There were editorial notes correcting and addressing some of the more glaring factual issues.  But left in its unadulterated glory, the interview was very flat, unimaginative, and boring.  But at least they can't be blasted too harshly for it.

The issue I have is with Natasha Vargas-Cooper and Ken Silverstein's continued drivel from their Twitter feeds.  Martin Austermuhle wrote an opinion piece last weekend on the Intercept's apparent trolling of Serial.  He cited to tweets from the two authors as examples of their attitude throughout this fiasco, which both authors did not take kindly too.  

You can publish an article on Medium based entirely on reading Tweets or you can report. This is reporting. https://t.co/5G7pvmSWAU
— ken silverstein (@KenSilverstein1) January 14, 2015

But what Silverstein fails to recognize is that in today's world, Twitter may be the best insight one can have into someone else's thoughts.  Twitter is the instant, hot take that millions of people make available to the public world, available for public consumption, and embarrassingly difficult to erase or disavow.  Twitter gives each person the opportunity to prove him/herself a fool.  

This is complicated by the fact that Twitter has also become the most powerful promotional tool in today's society.  There have been lawsuits filed to determine who owns rights to a Twitter account that was used for business purposes. Not surprisingly, both Vargas-Cooper and Silverstein posted links to their interview on their Twitter feeds.  

This blending of personal and business life, all displayed in a public forum can cause major issues.  If you expect people to rely on your Twitter feed for your business-related functions, you should also not be surprised when the snarky, juvenile thing you say in other tweets could be used to judge you.  You can't pick and choose what people get to evaluate on.  Anything that you put out there to the world is fair game, and you should be prepared accordingly.  

Serial - A Critique of the Urick Interview (makes more sense if you read the interview)

“Sorry I cant [sic] be your sarah bruh,” Natasha Vargas-Cooper tweeted in response to criticism of part 1 of the Intercept’s exclusive interview with prosecutor Kevin Urick, authored by Vargas-Cooper and Ken Silverstein. 

By this, she means, Sarah Koenig, creator of the wildly popular “Serial” podcast, presented a biased view of the circumstances surrounding the murder of Hae Min Lee in 1999 that unfairly manipulated the audience to by [be] sympathetic to Adnan Syed, who was convicted of the murder of Ms. Lee.  The staff behind Serial disagree, stating that they are “committed to reporting that’s comprehensive, fair, and exhaustively fact-checked.”  Reddit may disagree that Koenig and the Serial staff presented a biased story.  Critics of the Intercept’s Urick interview may disagree.

But Vargas-Cooper and Silverstein, who prefaced their interview with a scathing criticism of Serial, remain certain that there were “no significant errors or changes” in their article. 

This week, Vargas-Cooper and Silverstein published an interview with prosecutor Kevin Urick in the hopes of finding a miscarriage of journalistic integrity.  The result was the January 7th article with a scathing introduction rebuking Koenig and the Serial staff.

The disproportionate amount of outrage sparked by the article can be explained, in part, by the sharp contrast in the journalistic practices displayed by the Intercept .  The Intercept presented an archetype of the biased reporting story:  the accused is charming and charismatic, the journalist fails to contact key players of the story, and the readers are manipulated by a well-crafted story designed to sway their sympathies.  All these problems, sadly, occur often in journalism, but there’s no indication they impacted this story.

The basic facts are simple.  Sarah Koenig was contacted by Rabia Chaudry, a family friend of Syed, about the case in late 2013.  Koenig was intrigued by the case and her and the rest of the Serial staff conducted a year-long investigation into the case, reviewing evidence, transcripts, and notes, and attempting to contact numerous individuals who were associated with the case.  The centerpiece of Koenig’s efforts were regular conversations with Syed himself, who is currently an inmate at the North Branch Correctional Institution.

Koenig presented the result of her investigation in a 12-part podcast titled “Serial,” which concluded on December 18, 2014.  She was unable to find any “silver bullet” exonerating Syed, but stated her opinion that while she could not be certain Syed was innocent, she would have voted to acquit if she had been on the jury.

The Intercept portrayed Serial as a combination of biased reporting and manipulative storytelling designed to captivate an audience.  This viewpoint infused the scathing introduction to the Urick interview.  While Vargas-Cooper and Silverstein never explicitly accused Koenig of bias, they insisted that there was an ulterior motive behind the presentation of the story.  “The storytelling device was to amplify claims that favored Syed’s defense and contrast that with a watered-down version of the state’s case,” Vargas-Cooper and Silverstein wrote in their article.

When a community of thousands of people come back with support for Koenig’s attempt to present a balanced view of the facts, you’d think that attacking Koenig’s integrity would require some evidence.  Yet Vargas-Cooper and Silverstein did not produce evidence, and mostly presented contested proclamations by Jay Wilds (the state’s key witness) and Kevin Urick as truth without thoroughly fact-checking their assertions, such as publishing doctored screenshots of online conversations provided by Wilds, claims that a witness pled the 5th Amendment in front of the grand jury out of fear of incriminating himself, and allegations that Koenig only attempted to contact Urick less than a week before the podcast concluded.

None of these charges have survived scrutiny.  That was demonstrated by information made available after the Intercept published these claims.  The screenshot provided by Wilds was proven to have been altered when the person Wilds was communicating with brought this to Vargas-Cooper’s attention and then posted on reddit when no action had been taken (the screenshot has since been removed from the Wilds interview – without a correction from the Intercept).  Chaudry posted notes showing that the witness in question did in fact testify before the grand jury, proving Wilds’ claim that the witness had pled the 5th Amendment to be erroneous (despite the Intercept having fact checked this with two sources).  And the Serial staff posted their full response  to the Intercept’s allegations regarding attempts to contact Urick by posting the full text of their statement to the Intercept on the issue, outlining the attempts made to contact Urick for the podcast.  Nevertheless, Silverstein maintains that alleged factual inaccuracies are “smoke and mirrors.” 

The reality is that the Intercept’s interviews could maximize the benefit of the popularity of the podcast if they could express a controversial and contrarian view criticizing the efforts of Koenig and the Serial staff.  If Koenig had done her due diligence, there would be no attention.  The strategy wasto criticize Koenig’s failure to get the story from important figures from the case while luring these individuals with softball interviews that allowed them to present their narratives unchallenged.  There is supposed to be a presumption that additional information will enrich the discussion.  But when the information provided are self-serving statements that are unreliable, there is no added value.

Yesterday, Silverstein tweeted, “Having a viewpoint is whatfearless, adversarial journalism is about. At least that’s what I thought.”  This was in response to Intercept Co-Founding Editor Glenn Greenwald’s presentation of the article as having Vargas-Cooper’s and SIlverstein’s “own view & critique of ‘Serial.’”

 

Had the authors accepted the audience’s conclusion – that Koenig had diligently investigated the case – there would be no controversy, no general interest in the tepid statements Urick provided, and hence no buzz.  So the authors dismissed the decision of the millions of people who heard the podcast, and even though they found nothing that supported their claims of biased reporting, shifted the burden onto Koenig and Serial to defend their process over the course of the investigation.

The most troubling part of the Intercept’s attack is the staff’s underwhelming efforts to provide even rudimentary support for their accusations.  They stated that Urick contended that Koenig “only emailed him on Dec. 12, less than a week before the podcast concluded, to ask about an allegation that he had badgered a witness against Syed for not making the defendant look ‘creepy’ enough.”  Yet the following paragraph provides an abbreviated version of a response from Serial’s executive producer Julie Snyder stating that they “reached out to Kevin Urick multiple times, at multiple locations, during the winter of 2014, about nine months before the podcast began airing.”  But the authors dismissed out-of-hand Snyder’s account and credited Urick’s protestation that “the first time he heard from Koenig was in that mid-December email.”  At best this is a factual dispute that is contested.  If the Serial staff had reached out to Urick on multiple occasions, there is simply no basis for the Intercept’s criticism of Koenig’s underwhelming efforts to speak with Urick.  

[EDIT:  The Intercept issued a correction to the article with some edits, one of which added to a quote from Urick stating "They may have left a voicemail that I didn't return but I am not sure of that."  The accompanying editor's note stated:  "In the editing process, Urick's quote was shortened.  When provided originally with Urick's full statement, 'Serial' producer Julie Snyder declined to respond beyond her original comments.  'Serial' now, via Twitter, says, 'Koenig left numerous messages for Urick, starting last winter and into the spring, many months before the podcast started airing.'"  

It's unclear under what circumstances Urick's quote would have been "shortened" to omit the very statement that supports Serial's version of what transpired -- that the Serial staff "may have left a voicemail that [he] didn't return."  If Urick had actually said this, editing this statement out from the quote is a bad faith attempt to distort the facts to further the Intercept's narrative.  If this is some clumsy post hoc attempt at damage control by Urick, it is disingenuous to claim this was omitted from the original quote.  In either case, this is just another example of sloppiness from the Intercept.]

Urick didn’t have any new facts to tell Vargas-Cooper and Silverstein – just as he would not have had told to Koenig and Serial, especially since Urick said he “did not and would not have agreed to be interviewed by Koenig.”  But his wildly contradictory and self-serving interview where he parroted the mantra that the cell phone records and Jay’s testimony corroborated each other, despite the fact that the one key product of the Serial podcast was a systematic dismantling of the State’s timetable and Jay’s testimony, explains why the Intercept article is an attempt to create controversy and cash in on the attention generated by the podcast. 

Urick acknowledged that Wilds had told conflicting versions of events, but contended that the defense was only able to challenge “collateral facts,” and not “material facts” directly related to the question of Syed’s guilt or innocence.  But the article failed to press Urick’s assertion and question why issues such as (1) when an alleged phone call from Syed to Wilds establishing the time of death occurred, (2) when and where Syed allegedly showed Wilds the victim’s body, directly tying Syed to the murder, and (3) when Syed and Wilds allegedly buried the victim’s body (when cell phone calls purporting to place Syed at the burial location at 7:09 pm and 7:16pm) were merely “collateral” facts. [EDIT:  Susan Simpson's latest blog post notes that the call logs AT&T sent to the police included a section labeled "How to read 'Subscriber Activity' Reports" which states, "Outgoing calls only are reliable for location status.  Any incoming calls will NOT be considered reliable information for location." (emphasis in original).  This document calls into question the validity of Urick's contention that the call logs definitively show Syed was at Leakin Park at that time.]

The focus on distinguishing collateral and material facts misses a larger point.  In investigations, there is the danger of confirmation bias where good facts confirming your theory tend to be embraced, whereas negative facts that contradict your theory tend to be diminished.  Without direct evidence that cannot be manipulated, the circumstantial evidence that is available can be interpreted and spun to the narrative you want to tell.   The evidence did not tell us the story of what happened on January 13, 1999; Jay Wilds’ testimony did. 

And those same cellphone records that Urick contends corroborated Wild’s testimony about the crime in fact contradict Jay’s narrative during several large swaths of the day.  The problem was further exacerbated by Wild’s interview with the Intercept where he told a brand new story of what occurred on that fateful day, which contradicts his sworn testimony and cannot be reconciled with the phone records. 

The authors did not ask Urick the hard questions probing at the credibility of Wild’s testimony as corroboration for the cell phone evidence.  Specifically, Urick was not asked how the State’s theory that the cell phone records demonstrate that Hae Min Lee was murdered before 2:36pm (at which Syed called Wilds) could be reconciled with accounts that both Syed and Lee were seen alive between 2:30pm and 3:00pm or that Wilds himself testified at trial that he did not hear from Syed until after 3:30pm. 

There are stories that are thoroughly researched and make an attempt to support controversial claims that change the prevailing thought.  This was not one of them.

Serial - The Intercept speaks with Urick (part 1)

After some buzz that Natasha Vargas-Cooper of the Intercept would be interviewing more individuals associated with the case, part 1 of an interview with prosecutor Kevin Urick was released today.  As the introduction itself states, Urick "didn't have knew facts" to tell, so whether there is anything substantive here is questionable.  

First off, NVC and co-writer Ken Silverstein come out and state that their position is that Adnan's conviction was not wrongful and that this was not an extraordinary case:

The unprecedented popularity of the show can be explained, in part, by the appeal of its narrative to a progressively minded public radio audience. “Serial” presented an archetype of the wrongful conviction story: the accused is railroaded, the lawyers are corrupt, and the jurors are manipulated by racially charged rhetoric. All these problems, sadly, occur often in the criminal justice system but there’s no indication they impacted this case.

. . .

When a jury of 12 people comes back with a guilty verdict in two hours, you’d think that rejecting their decision would require fresh evidence. Yet the show did not produce new evidence, and mostly repeated prior claims, such as an unconfirmed alibi, charges of incompetence against Adnan’s deceased lawyer, and allegations that information derived from cell phone records is unreliable.

The problem I have with their assertion is that this series of interviews seem to have taken this as a premise, which is coloring the interviews that are being conducted.  Several sources have criticized the Intercept's interview of Jay and how NVC failed to challenge Jay's story and pick at the inconsistencies in his story.  And, at least thus far, NVC fails to challenge Urick's assertions that Jay's testimony was credible enough to sustain a conviction.  

Now the nature of information is that everyone is going to interpret information based on their own belief.  Here, the article takes the fact that "a jury of 12 people [came] back with a guilty verdict in two hours" as an affirmation of Adnan's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.  I view that fact as a demonstration of the failure of a jury system that a jury could reach a verdict in 2 hours after a 6-week long trial.  I am confident in my interpretation after listening to interviews from jurors who were "blown away" that Adnan did not testify on his behalf and who parroted the prosecution's themes of racial/ethnic stereotypes of Muslim culture.  That's the thing about lawyering and in arguments in general -- arguments are nice, but you have to back up your points to make them worthwhile.  Otherwise, it becomes hollow rhetoric.

So let's look at the Intercept's claim that this was an ordinary case.  The article dismisses that "the accused is railroaded, the lawyers are corrupt, and that the jurors are manipulated by racially charged rhetoric."  So let's take a look at these in turn.  

The wonder twin powers of Jay's testimony and the cell phone records

First, was Adnan "railroaded"?  Aside from a brief look at Mr. S, it seems evident that Adnan was the only serious suspect.  An anonymous tip hinted that police should look to Adnan, which led them to Adnan's phone records, which led them to Jenn, which led them to Jay.  As Urick says in the interview:

TI: Was there ever a moment where you felt like there was an alternative suspect? Is there any scenario by which Adnan Syed is not the guilty party?

KU: No. The reason is that once you understood the cell phone records, in conjunction with Jay’s testimony, it became a very strong case. Even with Jay on the stand for five days, with the defense presenting Jay’s prior inconsistent statements–they presented all that. The problem was that the cell phone records corroborated so much of Jay’s testimony. He said, ‘We were in this place,’ and it checked out with the cell phone records. And he said that in the police interviews prior to obtaining the cell phone evidence. A lot of what he said was corroborated by the cell phone evidence, including that the two of them were at Leakin Park.

Urick admits that there really was not an alternate suspect.  The reason, the cell phone records, in conjunction with Jay's testimony.  But how much of Jay's testimony is actually corroborated by the cell phone records?  I think the thing the podcast did do was effectively eviscerate the State's timeline of events.  And it also killed Jay's story of what happened between 2:30pm until 6:00pm.  And the Intercept's interview with Jay killed the remaining story of what happened after they left Cathy's apartment.  So what part of Jay's testimony is still intact?  

This is even more troublesome in context of Urick's own words:

“Jay’s testimony by itself, would that have been proof beyond a reasonable doubt?” Urick asked rhetorically. “Probably not. Cell phone evidence by itself? Probably not.”

But, he said, when you put together cell phone records and Jay’s testimony, “they corroborate and feed off each other–it’s a very strong evidentiary case.”

So basically, Urick's position is that Jay's testimony on its own isn't enough, and the cell phone records on their own aren't enough.  But it's that they corroborate and feed off one another...  Problem is, Susan Simpson's latest post puts a big hole in this idea.  The police showed Jay the phone records before the recorded March 15th interview.  So from that point on, Jay had the phone records and could manipulate his story to correspond to those events.  Now magically there is a friend named Cathy who they visited.  There is magically a call to this girl in Silver Spring.  Jay's story -- which is full of holes in the first place -- was formed after he was walked through the phone records.  This is not independent corroboration!  

Urick tries to wave away the inconsistencies of Jay's story be casting them as not "material" but rather "collateral."  A few things are wrong with this attempt.  As an aside when anyone tries to wave away facts as not being important... well, chances are, they are pretty damn important.  

First, the time when Jay got the call from Adnan is a material fact.  It establishes the time of death, it is relevant for alibi purposes, and it is basically the most fundamental piece of information.  Urick specifically states:

 "Now the thing about the cellphone records [is that they] corroborate Jay, his statements that he got a call around 2:45 p.m. or around that time from Adnan to come pick him up. And the cell phone records show that there was an incoming call around that time. So there’s corroboration of Jay’s statements to the police and the cell records. Like I said, Syed never made mention of the library before those letters."

Problem is, Jay always maintained that he got a call from Adnan after 3:45pm.  When your witness testifies -- under oath -- that he got a call from the defendant at 3:45pm, that does not corroborate a timeline in which he received a call at 2:36pm.  So that is a key, material fact that where Jay's testimony and the cell phone records are in direct conflict.

Second, I would argue where Adnan showed Jay Hae's dead body is a material fact.  It further establishes the time of death, it corroborates Jay's credibility as a witness/accomplice, and it places Adnan with the body.  Especially since there are no witnesses who saw Adnan with Hae, the only two relevant points of time that establish Adnan is the murderer are (1) when Adnan showed Jay the body, and (2) when Adnan and Jay went to bury the body.  Both of these events are highly material.  The fact that Jay is lying about this event in terms of location and time through each iteration of his story greatly undermines the credibility of his testimony.

Urick's repsonse?  

TI: In our Interview with Jay, he said he saw Hae’s body for the first time at his grandmother’s house not in the Best Buy parking lot. He said the time of the burial took place several hours after the time he gave under oath. Again, do these inconsistencies alarm you?

KU: Like I said, people who are engaged in criminal activity, it’s like peeling an onion. The initial thing they 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 cell phone 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 cell phone records including being in Leakin Park.

So let's talk about the cell phone records being in Leakin Park, then.  In the Intercept interview, Jay says that Adnan did the trunk pop at around 6-7pm, then came back to his house close to midnight, at which point they went to bury the body.  Given that the calls pinging Leakin Park were sandwiched between pages to Jenn (suggesting Jay was with the phone), this is another direct contradiction between Jay's story and the cell phone records.  This is a third material fact that is in conflict.

This brings us to the greater issue of what can be dismissed as "collateral" as opposed to "material."  Urick seems quick to dismiss the portions of Jay's story that don't fit the cell phone timeline as being collateral.  But how does he know what is relevant and not when the only thing establishing the relevant time periods are Jay's own testimony?  Without Jay, there is no clear timeline for when the murder takes place (although indications are Hae is at least incapacitated by 3:15pm).  Without Jay, there is no evidence of when Hae's body was buried at Leakin Park (which Jay did reverse himself on).  So if Jay's story is establishing what is material vs. collateral, how can you dismiss inconsistencies in Jay's story as merely collateral?  That's just a basic logical fallacy.  

One of the things the Intercept's introduction fails to address are the gaping inconsistencies in Jay's story.  And I think that's one of the biggest things the podcast accomplished.  If you remove Jay as a credible witness, then the State's case simply falls apart.  So if that's the case, what supports the conviction?

Corrupt prosecutor?

While the Intercept dismisses the notion of corruption or misconduct by the prosecution, they fail to provide any support for this, aside from a parenthetical statement noting Urick denies yelling at Don for not making Adnan sound creepy.  So basically, the prosecutor being accused of being corrupt (or at least underhanded) denies it.  Is that really convincing?

Here's what I wrote about Urick in a previous post based on the information we received from the podcast:

For me, the worst part was the actions of the prosecutor, Kevin Urick, and his office.  To recap: 

       ·         He offered a pro bono attorney to his star witness to "defend" him in his sweet plea deal.  

       ·         He went out of his way to commend Jay for his cooperation to the court.  

       ·         He interrupted a witness on the stand to prevent her from saying something damaging to his case.   

       ·         He yelled at another witness for not lying to make the defendant sound creepy.  

       ·         He advanced a theory of the case that was contradicted by his own star witness's testimony.  

       ·         And he played up the spectre of religious fear mongering as the theme of his case to secure a conviction.  

       ·         Not to mention his colleague who made up lies about a pattern of young Pakistani men murdering their girlfriends and fleeing to Pakistan.  

I think there needs to be a little more work shown here to dismiss the claim of corruption or impropriety.

Religious rhetoric

And finally, the Intercept is quick to dismiss the possibility of racially charged rhetoric manipulating the jury.  But they put in absolutely zero effort to refute this claim. 

Rabia Chaudry noted:

Nearly 300 references to "Islam", "Muslim", or "Pakistani" during Adnan's trial. Disgusting. Help us #FreeAdnan http://t.co/WFHsfyZu9S
— rabia chaudry (@rabiasquared) January 6, 2015

Yet the Interecept failed to ask Urick about Adnan's religion as a theme.  Urick's opening statement is replete with references to Adnan's religion and ethnicity:

     This relationship caused problems.  The defendant is of Pakistani background, he's a Muslim.  In Islamic culture, people do not date before marriage and they definitely do not have premarital sex.  Their family is a very structured event.  They're not supposed to date.  They're only supposed to marry and engaged in activities after they marry.  

     So he was breaking the cultural expectations of his family and his religion to date Ms. Lee.  Ms. Lee understood this.  She was how it was causing problems for them.  (Jan. 27, 2000 Trial Tr. at 97.)

    "Then he went into the whole explanation of the purpose of the trip to Dallas.  He told me that his religion means life to him and he hates it when he sees someone purposely going against it.  He tried to remain a faithful Muslim all his life, but he fell in love with me which is a great sin.

    But he told me that there is no way he'll ever leave me because he can't imagine life without me.  Then he said that one day he would have to choose between me and his religion."  (Id. at 99 (reading from Hae's diary).)

    The defendant, however, had a different reaction.  In order to have this relationship, he had to live a lie.  He'd had to lie to his parents.  He'd had to lie to his religious friends.  He was living a lie, denying to them that he was engaging in the activities that was forbidden in their culture.

     This is a great sacrifice.  It was a double life for him.  He was leading a lie, and when it ended, that's all he had left, was the lie that he'd been leading.  He became enraged.  He felt betrayed that his honor had been besmirched.  And he became very angry.  And he set out to kill Hae Min Lee.  (Id/ at 101.)

And we know this theme resonated with at least some of the jurors.  From episode 10:

Of course, probing a bit further, it's clear that wasn't the case.  Rather than stereotyping on "religion," there were stereotypes based on "culture" instead.  

William Owens:  

"I don't feel religion was why he did what he did.  It may have been culture, but I don't think it was religion.  I'm not sure how the culture is over there, how they treat their women.  But I know some cultures where women are second class citizens and maybe that's what it was.  I don't know.  He just wanted control and she wouldn't give it to him." 

Stella Armstrong:  

Armstrong:  They were trying to talk about in his culture, Arabic culture, men rule, not women.  I remembered hearing that.

SK:  One of the jur – you mean when you were deliberating, one of the jurors said that?

Armstrong:  Yes, when we were – right, when we were deliberating.

SK:  Mm hmm.

Armstrong:  So um, he had put his whole life on the line for her, you know.  And she wanted to – she didn't want no involvement anymore.

As Stephen Colbert asked Sarah Koenig during her appearance on the Colbert Report:  "Why reopen this case now?  Did you think a guy named Adnan Syed would get a fairer trial after 9-11?"

So how can the Intercept so quickly dismiss the religious rhetoric as a contributing cause of the trial?  

If the interview was to have any value, the Intercept would actually press Urick on some of these questions.  But given what we've seen, this is probably going to be another limp puff piece trying to ride on the coattails of the podcast's popularity.  Talk to the Intercept if you feel you've been mistreated by Serial.  We won't ask you any hard questions, we promise.  

Serial - Jay speaks (fin)

The final installment of the Jay interview dropped on New Year's Eve and I can't help wondering what the point was.  As alluded to in the previous part, the focus on Part 3 was on the impact of the podcast on Jay and (more importantly) his family.

Now, while there are some great things about technology -- such as having a podcast that can grip the attention of millions of listeners -- there are inherent risks and downsides.  And one of the biggest risks is due to social media.  I don't think it's a huge surprise that there are some folks on the Internet who just don't understand the boundaries between appropriate and inappropriate.  The reditter who posted photos of Jay's house and his address clearly crossed some lines.  But by leaving his Facebook profile up (and even leaving it public for awhile), Jay is leaving himself accessible to some of this inappropriate contact.  For someone who claims he wants to be left alone, he needs to be smarter about this. 

But Jay's anger at SK just confuses me.  He claims that "she created an evil archetype" of him and "sensationalized" his motives.  But anyone who listened to the podcast knows that SK went out of her way to not cast judgment on Jay's motives and reasons.  I criticized her for being too lenient on Jay.  It seems Jay's real beef with SK is that she "helped fan the flames of this story that people had already moved on from."  But which people is he talking about?  I'm sure Hae's family have not moved on from this "story."  And Adnan's friends and family have not either.  And probably many of the people who knew them did not move on from the story either.  

So the real issue seems to be that this story has turned up the crimes that Jay committed, which is jeopardizing his new life.  But it's absurd to blame this on a podcast.  Everyone makes their own decisions and must be held accountable for those decisions.  And judging from his interview, Jay was not contrite enough from his involvement with this murder to clean up his act:

People have also posted information about my family, criminal charges against me, my dad and my uncle. I don’t know why that is at all relevant to what Adnan did. I mean, I know that I was a criminal, and I know that even after this happened, I didn’t have an occupation. I mean, I kept doing my job of criminal shit. But I’m past all that now. I made a good home for my wife and kids.

So am I really supposed to feel sympathy for Jay?  After those crocodile tears at his sentencing, he simply returns to his same old "criminal shit" like nothing changed?  He isn't a kid who made a mistake when he was young.  He was a career criminal who consciously got involved in criminal shit for a period of time.  So don't whine about how a reporter drew attention to your shady criminal activity -- blame yourself for doing that criminal shit in the first place.  

Playing the victim is not a viable strategy here.  Hae was the victim in this.  Jay was someone who (at least) helped bury her body and stayed quiet for 6 weeks until he was offered a plea deal to testify.  You don't want crazy people from the Internet harassing you?  Take yourself off social media and don't make personal information available on the Internet.  You don't want to foist the damage on your family?  Then don't give an interview where you draw even more attention to yourself.  This interview is simply going to shine a brighter spotlight on Jay and his family.

On another note, I was again impressed by SK's professionalism in handling what appears to be increasingly accusatory emails from Jay.  Jay has no basis to believe SK leaked private information to Reddit.  SK emphatically denies it, the Serial producers deny it, the Reddit mods deny it.  And SK addresses the question directly and upfront (unlike anything we've heard from Jay) in her Dec. 29th email.  Jay's insistence that SK is lying just makes Jay look like a paranoid fool, which also isn't helping his cause.  

The final question of the interview was focused on what Jay bought Stephanie for her birthday.  As Rabia's blog explains, this is theorized to be related to an item found in Hae's car - a gift box and a heart charm with a price tag of $119.95.  There is no proof that the charm found in Hae's car was one that Jay bought -- it seems more likely to be unrelated.  But this last question seemed a bit tacky.  If NVC wanted to probe Jay's story, I feel she should have been more up front about it and conducted a more direct questioning of the new story he gave.  Trying this gotcha type of question that's only going to further fan the flames of speculation is only going to make things worse for Jay.  And considering that the supposedly tone and goal was that they wanted Jay to tell his side of the story, it feels a little underhanded.  

Glenn Greenwald, co-founder of the Intercept, posted a response on reddit to some of the criticisms of the interview (excerpted, in relevant part here):

1) Natasha did explicitly ask him about his inconsistencies, and he explained at length why his story is different now.

2) As any trial lawyer will tell you, there are all sorts of ways to effectively question witnesses who are lying. Attacking them as a prosecutor is often not the best way; in fact, it can be the worst way, since it makes the witness defensive and clam up. That's particularly true when they are there voluntarily.

Natasha is acting here as a journalist, which means she wants everyone to have as much information as possible about Jay's story. That means letting him speak and getting his full claims on the record.

All over the internet, and the comment section, people are dissecting Jay's inconsistencies from this interview, which means it was extremely effective.

3) Rabia Chaudry - the person who did more to bring this case to light than anyone - has repeatedly said on her Twitter feed that she views Natasha's interview as one of the most important events yet in showing that Jay's testimony is completely unreliable, and specifically thanked her for the way she conducted the interview: by letting him speak:

https://twitter.com/rabiasquared

If I were Adnan's lawyer, I'd be salivating over how to use this interview, which contains huge number of Jay's statements that I'd use against him.

It may have been more emotionally satisfying to some pro-Adnan listeners - from an entertainment perspective - if Natasha had gotten in his face and repeatedly demanded that he explain specific inconsistencies, but from a journalistic perspective, she chose the best possible approach for letting readers get as much information as they could.

If you see the inconsistencies in Jay's story, then other readers do, too. Nobody needs Natasha beating everyone over the head with it [for it to be] clear.

So in the end, what did this interview accomplish?  It gave us an entirely new version of the events of that day.  This version contradicts the facts and the cell phone logs and is easily discredited (apparently the Intercept does not buy the story either).  So it just affirms the belief that Jay lies.  It gave us a bit of an insight into Jay as a person, and he comes across as a borderline paranoid personality who is upset that the past is coming to haunt him today.  Thus, it further discredited Jay's story while focusing more media attention on Jay and his family.  It seems like he made things worse on both fronts.  Whatever Jay was expecting out of this interview, it seems clear that he's not going to get it. 

As for the possible legal ramifications of the interview on Adnan's appeals process, the EvidenceProf Blog does a good job explaining a potential avenue of relief.  It definitely seems like Jay is admitting to having committed perjury.  While it is unlikely the State would prosecute Jay for perjury (considering they probably were aware of or even encouraged some of the more questionable aspects of Jay's testimony), it also seems really dumb to admit to lying in court.  

In the end, I suspect we have not yet heard the last of Jay Wilds.