Serial - the podcast *spoilers*

I'll grant that I have been snide in response to you so obnoxious (pot meet kettle to be sure too). Trolling not so much (also don't remember much Dane mocking but I can believe I made a joke about it--have to scan later to see if it was funny one.)

She clearly says 'I respectfully ask that the Court not admit those letters' on page 12. So I guess I'm just assuming that the text of the letters are somehow included in the affidavit or in the correspondence to Ms Gutierrez?

xpost Fine, Frederik. But I would suggest either ignoring him in the future or just writing "..." or something archly dismissive.

Hmm, I guess that's possible. It's a little unclear. I assumed "correspondence to Ms. Guttierez" meant letters to Guttierez.

It's a bit confusing, looking at page 11 of the opinion, it sounds like they were admitted later (they were Exhibit 7, the exhibits in the transcript are 1-4), so maybe we are both correct -- they were not presented that day but admitted later, and the subject had come up so part of the argument was about the letters themselves.
http://www.courts.state.md.us/cosappeals/pdfs/syed/baltcityccmemorandumopinion.pdf

I still think the part about pressure from the family refers to the affidavit -- it says "statement".

It hardly matters, because the letters were admitted, and the reason the judge found them unpersuasive as to ineffective assistance had nothing to do with whether they were written under pressure.

And again, the "witness tampering" and "obstruction of justice" and "perjury" claims are absurd. Remember, again, Urick is no longer even an attorney for the state at this point. His only hypothetical interest in the case is "protecting the win" -- in a 15-year-old case where there's only a miniscule chance of things getting overturned. So what motive does he have to deliberately "obstruct" a witness from testifying? And again, giving someone your opinion as to whether it's worth testifying is not the same thing as tampering, which generally at a minimum has to involve some kind of intimidation.

Well, actually it says 'statements. The afidavit is only one statement. And now we've gone completely down the hole, I think... But, furthermore, further down, presumably the afidavit had already been admitted at this point? Adnan's lawyer says they will try to introduce the letters (page five), then the state attorney argues against 'any of the documents pertaining to Asia McClane' (page 11).

I'm sure Asia never thought she'd end up being a key player in a world famous case in 2014. That has to color how she feels about her interaction with Urick now. But really, why would she expect the guy who put Adnan in jail to tell her anything other than "Yes, he did it"?

I can't say I'm 100% sure here, but the list of exhibits says "offered" so it's unlikely they are already admitted. It would be odd for a transcript to contain only a list of already admitted exhibits, and then for there to be a totally different list of exhibits being argued about but never given in the transcript.

ok.

However, as noted above, the opinion seems to refer to the letters as Exhibit 7, so I guess they were admitted some point, so \O/

Well this is unexpected:

http://www.maxim.com/entertainment/article/exclusive-serial-podcast-bowe-bergdahl-2015-9

Heh forgot this crazy thread.

memory is a funny thing, you know

Lol at the serial producer complaining journalists are intruding into a story in process by promoting wild speculation.

This is kind of dumb. That case in the 1st season was one very few people not directly involved even knew about. This is one that was a national discussion topic already. There's probably already sub-reddits devoted to it.

otm xp

It's back.

Almost a year to the day since the last episode and it's about rumored subject.

I am still fascinated by the number of serial-related podcasts where people just talk about serial. I think there are 10 of them.

another thread pls

loving the weirdo patriotix organ theme rmx

that came out of nowhere

I was just thinking that a year ago they were nearly done with their run

I listened to one episode of "Undisclosed", Rabia Chaudry tries to affect that flat nasally NPR voice, it was funny

lol

who does Adnan kill this time?

Yeah, looking forward to some more shitty, possibly irresponsible Nancy Drew detective work from Koenig and crew. Hate this thing.

Did we ever decide if Adnan was guilty?

He was. But Serial got him a new trial. Journalism!

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/serial-season-two-is-here

reading this and listening to the first ep, its not really intended to be another whodunit and instead just a super long TAL episode, which i'm fine with

regardless of his guilt, he definitely deserved a new trial given how shady his lawyer was.

Idk. Really I think sentences are too long and he should be out by now anyway. But seemed guilty to me.

After listening to some of undisclosed my theory is that the Adnan did it but the police totally botched the theory. Jays story got tucked up because he was trying to match is hazy memories to an incorrect theory ( and also wanted to do what the police wanted from him since he was implicated and scared), and Adnan maintained his innocence because he saw the police had the story all wrong and thought he could exploit it.

txt convo with my wife:

wife
I actually don't really think
this story they're doing for
serial is very interesting

jim
It's not a whodunit this time
around eh?

wife
No not at all it's more like
a why'd they do it

And the guy that did it is
telling them why he did
it :/

TBF that's what the first serial season should have been too.

I feel like the main draw of the first season was that it was an irl whodunit, that there was definite dubiety about adnan's conviction, yet not enough for it to be just a straight up, egregious, make-you-mad miscarriage of justice (e.g. the case against him seemed somewhat flimsy to me, though i think he's guilty). i found it somewhat compelling at the time, but also somewhat troubling - because of the voyeurism regarding a young girl's murder, and the slapdash, possibly irresponsible nature of them digging up clues and broadcasting them to a large audience, and because of the gross online stalking of the protagonists on reddit etc. - and in hindsight i feel like it was like a morally dubious "my stories" for the university educated.

and this season seems morally dubious because of the fact that the bergdahl case is still ongoing. and the justification they gave that "oh this won't influence the case because the facts are not in dispute" seems naïve or disingenuous

Yeah I mean I'm half joking, but I also rarely felt like it was really a whodunit because most of the season I felt pretty sure Adnan was the murderer. And I had a lot of the problems you had with it, only moreso, as I think I expressed a bunch of times ITT.

Guessing this story will uncover something larger about the military in Afghanistan than just the search for this guy. Not My Lai, but something.

maybe Bergdahl found the mountain Gog and Magog were shut in by Alexanfer the Great

Listening to s2e1. This is boring and bergdahl sounds like a dumbass.

5 years to work on his story, and Boal & Koenig willing listeners eager to be told a story. idk. Dubious... but somewhat interested to see where it goes.

seems like w/o being able to talk to Bergdahl, Koenig's role might be more limited. None of the Night Listener phone calls with Adnan, little chance of Nancy Drew stuff like ambushing Jay at his home. But then again they made sure to end with "Hello, the Taliban speaking" thing to make everyone excited.

I will give it a little more time -- I was too tired to finish the first episode but I also didn't find it particularly compelling so far, and I was kind of let down by "yeah so we spent all this time developing a show where we are basically piggy-backing off someone else's work."

S1 at least had the teaser of "maybe we'll find out Adnan didn't really do it/someone else did," which made for great listening, for a while, as much as I criticized the show. This one I'm just not sure I should care.

Finished e1 and e2 -- it's sort of interesting just as a story about the military and Afghanistan, but goddamn Berghdal sounds like such a stupid and self-absorbed jerk. I actually do understand why he was so hated now.

I do enjoy the humanizing portrait of afghanis and even of the local Taliban. The anecdote about them performing a dance to try to cheer him up was wonderful, just one of those absurd details that throws a wrench into any simplistic telling of the story.

Yeah my biggest problem with this so far is definitely I really do not care about Berghdal's motivations.

I mean if there were some possible intrigue angle or something maybe (what if he's actually CIA? what if he's actually a defector?), but it seems like most of those have already been discredited, and I also just kind of wouldn't believe it after hearing him talk. This is part of the problem with a story dealing with an already widely reported subject.

He seems very naive/deluded or...idk. Assuming what he says is true & not just a polished turd 5 years in the making

Not gonna lie, I was not surprised/shocked to hear fellow soldiers wishing pain and/or death upon him...they seem pretty otm

And hearing his explanations now must be enraging for anyone who was on that search

I'm glad the theme song got an upgrade, that plinky/tinny piano needed to go. Wasn't expecting a Morricone trumpet line though.

I realized about halfway through e2 of this season that I don't give a shit about this story at all.