The Murder Of Hae Min Lee

[gobrewers]

Cityofchill wrote:
I've noticed from the shout box that quite a few members of this site have been following Sarah Koenig's brilliant reportage on the killing of [18 year old] Hae Min Lee, [on or about January 13, 1999, near Baltimore], and Koenig's incredibly thorough investigation into the question of whether or not Anand Syed [Lee's ex-boyfriend] is actually guilty of the crime.

For those who have not been following the Serial podcast, I encourage you to check it out. It is totally free, takes only a moment to download, and is an incredibly interesting tale of murder, American culture, the lives of American teenagers, the American Justice system, and a compelling whodunit. For true crime buffs, Serial is like crack cocaine.

Anyhow, I have expressed my belief that Anand Syed is guilty of the murder of Hae Min Lee. I don't believe that Jay is a credible witness, but I also don't believe he had the motive to murder Hae. His inconsistencies are an attempt to minimize his own involvement in the murder and also a result of the police nudging him to change parts of his story in order to help the prosecution.

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Hey, Look who just became OP! 

Serial is a podcast (and soon to be reoccurring series) by a journalist and radio voice Sarah Koenig. Sarah describes Serial as "about the basics: love and death and justice and truth," and she is also the voice of This American Life.

Season 1 of Serial has been dedicated to the death of Hae Min Lee, and the trial and conviction of her (supposed) killer Adnan Syed.  For 12 weeks, we move from beginning to end, back and forth, and all over the place, as Sarah does an amazing job telling portions of the story as they should be presented, while keeping the listeners coming back week after week.  The Reddit board itself is really decent (especially for a reddit board) and there are millions of listeners/bloggers/everyday goons like me counting down the hours to the next podcast.


There are a ton of discrepencies from the trial, to the prosecutor, to Adnan and his accomplice Jay and many, many more that really show what an american homicide case can become.  I will leave my personal feelings to another part of this thread...as I am now suddenly the OP and introductory member to this amazing podcast...but i'll leave a link to her page, and hope some people here with interest in the judicial system as well as cases that really could be considered shifty prosecution and imminent guilt check it out.


serialpodcast.org/ 

[slumbergirl]

Once an arrest is made and the DA takes over, there is roughly a 90% chance of conviction, so the conclusion must be that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of men and women wrongly convicted of murder in America.


Stating that because there is a 90% chance of conviction in a murder case in America, then there must be hundreds or thousands of men and women wrongly convicted is faulty reasoning. There are other explanations. For example, the DA offices may filter out all cases that seem to have a poor chance of conviction. Therefore, the remaining cases have a very strong chance of conviction.



I think that the recent cases in Ferguson and New York show just how much power a DA has to determine if and how a case moves forward. Most DA's will go their entire careers without ever failing to secure an indictment from a grand jury. However, when the defendant is a cop, suddenly the grand jury fails to indict and the prosecutor can wash their hands and say, "the grand jury made the decision," when the obvious truth is that any prosecutor can gain an indictment from a grand jury if they want.


The whole point of the grand jury system is to determine probable cause as to whether or not the defendant committed an offense. The citizens on both grand juries made their decisions. The mainstream media and other assorted dolts did not get their way, so we now have to suffer through their extended temper tantrums. If everyone behaves as such, civility soon breaks down.

We need to remember, in the case of Garner in New York, that if we are not prepared to kill to enforce a law, then, perhaps we should be against that law. Garner is dead because the nanny-state politicians of the state of New York (Mayor DeBlasio, for example) sent the police to enforce tax collection on cigarettes (because cigarettes have been deemed "bad"). Garner resisted. From what I have heard, his "criminal record" consisted mostly of arrests for selling cigarettes without collecting taxes for the state of New York.

In the case of Brown, he had robbed a store, assaulted the owner of the store and assaulted a police officer. If you don't think that should be against the law, then take action to change the laws. Otherwise, keep in mind that every single law is backed up by the threat of deadly force.

[lepke]

Dec 8, 2014 17:15:11 GMT cityofchill said:

I've had to continue my thread started in a new post because ProBoards doesn't seem to like long posts.

ProBoards prefer people to keep their posts to less than the length of a dissertation. I'm sure there is a reason for that.

[lepke]

Dec 8, 2014 18:47:42 GMT slumbergirl said:

 Keep in mind that every single law is backed up by the threat of deadly force.

Even jaywalking?

[gobrewers]

Dec 8, 2014 22:41:11 GMT lepke said:

Dec 8, 2014 18:47:42 GMT slumbergirl said:

 Keep in mind that every single law is backed up by the threat of deadly force.

Even jaywalking?

Absolutely.  Don't worry about looking left and right before you run, watch your back.

[Deleted]

Okay, I can see that only one of five replies has anything to do with the actual case the thread is about, so I'm going to just extricate myself from this topic because I don't feel like arguing about the American grand jury system, etc. If anyone wants to talk about the case, be my guest. For Lepke's sake, keep your answers short.

[gobrewers]

lol chill buddy. You'll be back Thursday, and we will have more to discuss.

[slumbergirl]

Cityofchill - Don't be disingenuous. Your post was not just about the Hae Min Lee case.

[Drifter]

Is this what this ambiguous thread is about ...

www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_(podcast)

If yes, what does the real-life Ferguson situation have to do with this thread?

Next time, please do not assume that a topic introduction is not necessary.  For this thread, a topic introduction should have been included.  To begin a thread with the statement "I think Adnan is guilty" is a terrible way to begin a discussion.  Who or what is "Adnan"?

Drifter

[Deleted]

Drifter, yes, it's about the Serial podcast. There was an introductory post that the poster deleted, which is why the thread now looks disjointed.

[Drifter]

Okay, what happened has been explained in some detail.

This thread is an example of what can happen when the original poster decides to delete his or her initial post after responses have been posted.

In the future if you start a thread and then decide to delete it, don't.  Send me a PM instead.

Also, discussion of the Ferguson issue is not appropriate in any thread because of its heavy political implications.

Subsequent posts here need to be confined to the Serial, sans Ferguson.

Drifter

[Deleted]

Dec 9, 2014 2:34:14 GMT slumbergirl said:

Cityofchill - Don't be disingenuous. Your post was not just about the Hae Min Lee case.

I believe you are the one who is being "disingenuous" by assuming that Serial is only about Hae Min Lee. It's about the way the American Justice system functions, the fairness of the system, poor police and prosecutorial practices, and all the people who may be behind bars because of them. So don't try and tell me that a thread about Serial should only be about Hae Min Lee. It's a much bigger story than that, and the single sentence in which I mentioned Ferguson was relevant, IMO, because it is related to the larger issue of prosecutorial misconduct and how the Justice system skews in favour of police and prosecutors. 

So I write a 1000-word thread-starter on the case covering many aspects of Sarah Koenig's reporting and you zero in on two sentences out of the whole thing that you disagree with and manage to change the focus to Ferguson and a defence of America's Justice system - because a >90% conviction rate must be evidence of police and prosecutors doing a really great job. 

Now, did you have something to say about the actual case or are you just here to express your annoyance with those two sentences? If I'm going to have to deal with a peanut gallery like this, I'd rather avoid the topic altogether. I apologize, Drifter, for erasing my original post but seeing that only one poster actually seemed to be interested in discussing the Syed case, I pulled my original post. If people want to squabble about the little things and ignore the big picture, I'd rather not be involved in this thread. 

[tmacchallenger]

Dec 9, 2014 12:33:22 GMT cityofchill said:

Dec 9, 2014 2:34:14 GMT slumbergirl said:

Cityofchill - Don't be disingenuous. Your post was not just about the Hae Min Lee case.

I believe you are the one who is being "disingenuous" by assuming that Serial is only about Hae Min Lee. It's about the way the American Justice system functions, the fairness of the system, poor police and prosecutorial practices, and all the people who may be behind bars because of them. So don't try and tell me that a thread about Serial should only be about Hae Min Lee. It's a much bigger story than that, and the single sentence in which I mentioned Ferguson was relevant, IMO, because it is related to the larger issue of prosecutorial misconduct and how the Justice system skews in favour of police and prosecutors. 

So I write a 1000-word thread-starter on the case covering many aspects of Sarah Koenig's reporting and you zero in on two sentences out of the whole thing that you disagree with and manage to change the focus to Ferguson and a defence of America's Justice system - because a >90% conviction rate must be evidence of police and prosecutors doing a really great job. 

Now, did you have something to say about the actual case or are you just here to express your annoyance with those two sentences? If I'm going to have to deal with a peanut gallery like this, I'd rather avoid the topic altogether. I apologize, Drifter, for erasing my original post but seeing that only one poster actually seemed to be interested in discussing the Syed case, I pulled my original post. If people want to squabble about the little things and ignore the big picture, I'd rather not be involved in this thread. 

You should have just deleted the one sentence regarding Ferguson, and left the rest of it up, instead of deleting your whole two posts. It sounded interesting. You can't just publish your opinion on something, and expect others not to respond.

[gobrewers]

Dec 9, 2014 10:47:17 GMT Drifter said:

Okay, what happened has been explained in some detail.

This thread is an example of what can happen when the original poster decides to delete his or her initial post after responses have been posted.

In the future if you start a thread and then decide to delete it, don't.  Send me a PM instead.

Also, discussion of the Ferguson issue is not appropriate in any thread because of its heavy political implications.

Subsequent posts here need to be confined to the Serial, sans Ferguson.

Drifter

Don't worry son, I edited and fixed to OP to make it more welcoming.  If you get some time to delete the argument here, we can just start the civil discussion over and not have the topic changed before we even get a chance to start.

[tmacchallenger]

Dec 9, 2014 18:55:18 GMT gobrewers said:

Dec 9, 2014 10:47:17 GMT Drifter said:

Okay, what happened has been explained in some detail.

This thread is an example of what can happen when the original poster decides to delete his or her initial post after responses have been posted.

In the future if you start a thread and then decide to delete it, don't.  Send me a PM instead.

Also, discussion of the Ferguson issue is not appropriate in any thread because of its heavy political implications.

Subsequent posts here need to be confined to the Serial, sans Ferguson.

Drifter

Don't worry son, I edited and fixed to OP to make it more welcoming.  If you get some time to delete the argument here, we can just start the civil discussion over and not have the topic changed before we even get a chance to start.

Good job, especially since you weren't the one that started the thread. Thanks for being considerate. I have not heard of this podcast before, and it definetly sounds worth checking out.