Truth or Doubt?: Conscious versus Subconscious
Sarah Koenig’s riveting 2014 podcast series Serial investigates the muddled case of Adnan Syed, a teenager who was accused and convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend, Han Min Lee, fifteen years ago. In order to do so she must speak to those whom were close to Adnan and involved in his day to day life. However, this yields a problem because whoever was close to him wanted to believe he was innocent but their intimacy may have tainted their statements about his character. When Koenig interviews Saad and Rabia, Adnan’s best friend and his older sister, they obviously take the viewpoint that he is innocent; however, through their curious phrasings and tendency to oversell his eminence, their doubt
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The fact that Rabia starts all of the descriptions of Adnan with the phrase “he was,” presents each description as fact. Her repetition of this phrase causes the listener to believe it to be true. She represents his characteristics in a catalogue: “He was an honor roll student, volunteer EMT. He was on the football team. He was a star runner on the track team. He was the homecoming king. He led prayers at the mosque”. This listing off resembles an advertisement, her primary intention being persuasion. Rabia lists her examples in a repetitive manner in order to reinforce her beliefs onto the listeners and essentially drill her ‘proof’ into their heads. Within a mere six lines of dialogue, she mentions the way the community viewed him, twice. Her use of the community specifically viewing Adnan as a “golden child”, indicates to the audience that many people around Syed viewed him in this way and that it would not be outrageous for the subject listening, as well as Koenig, to join the masses in this …show more content…
When Rabia begins speaking of Adnan the sentence she leads with is that “He was like the community’s golden child”. By using this phrase, Rabia is connoting that he was considered perfect, which is a very bold statement to claim. After she elaborates upon her description Koenig later fact checks her “accolades” as any reporter would. She finds that Rabia “was mostly right, though she sometimes gets a little loosey-goosey with the details”. Rabia would have successfully convinced Koenig, as well as the listeners at hand, of Adnan’s reputation by simply describing him as a ‘boy with potential’ or as one ‘generally known to be respectable’ but by choosing to pronounce him a “golden child” specifically, she identifies him as impeccable, and thus incapable of committing a crime. Rabia personally knows that her descriptions are not entirely true, being that she was close with him, however, she still chooses to make use of them despite their inconsistencies. Not only does she go forth with them, but she chooses to falsely summarize him as a “golden child”, despite knowing that he was not in fact perfect. Rabia could have chosen to just state the facts as they really were, in the less
“She still today never told me she loved me…never… never in her life … it’s too hard to explain,” says Anthony Sowell as he mentions his mother while he is being interrogated by Cleveland Homicide Detective (Sberna). The classic neighbor that every family wishes to have, friendly, helpful and caring was holding back numerous secrets. In Anthony Sowell’s actions of the rape, beatings and murder of 11 innocent women, he demonstrates the qualities of a human monster while showing how nurture creates a personality as well as proving that humans are capable of creation more fear than those who are written about in fiction.
``In criminal law, confession evidence is a prosecutor’s most potent weapon’’ (Kassin, 1997)—“the ‘queen of proofs’ in the law” (Brooks, 2000). Regardless of when in the legal process they occur, statements of confession often provide the most incriminating form of evidence and have been shown to significantly increase the rate of conviction. Legal scholars even argue that a defendant’s confession may be the sole piece of evidence considered during a trial and often guides jurors’ perception of the case (McCormick, 1972). The admission of a false confession can be the deciding point between a suspect’s freedom and their death sentence. To this end, research and analysis of the false confessions-filled Norfolk Four case reveals the drastic and controversial measures that the prosecuting team will take to provoke a confession, be it true or false.
Jacoby can be easily perceived as an upset and alarmed individual who blames the rise of criminal activity in the United States on the failure of the criminal justice system. He cares about people and believes that the safety of individuals is decreasing because criminals are not punished effectively by imprisonment and that some even receive a “sign of manhood” from going to prison (197). Additionally, he is upset that the ineffective system is so expensive. His concern for his audience’s safety and his carefully argued grounds, which he uses to support his claim, create a persona of an intelligent person of
In Harry Mulisch’s novel The Assault, the author not only informs society of the variance in perception of good and evil, but also provides evidence on how important it is for an innocent person experiencing guilt to come to terms with their personal past. First, Mulisch uses the characters Takes, Coster, and Ploeg to express the differences in perspective on the night of the assault. Then he uses Anton to express how one cannot hide from the past because of their guilt. Both of these lessons are important to Mulisch and worth sharing with his readers.
Lastly Khaled Hosseini looks at a Afghan family and how its each family members commitment and strong bond is what is essential in ones future/identity. In the novel it was evident that Pari’s relationship with her family, mainly her brother, Abdullah was Pari’s source of unconditional love and it was that very thing that kept Pari connected to her roots which is the very thing that shaped her future/identity. Pari’s uncle was the very reason why Pari was sold in the novel and the cause of Abdullah being stripped from his only family. In the novel the separation of Pari and Abdullah caused sever pain as Abdullah was not just a brother rather he played the mother and father figure for Pari. In the novel the author, Khaled Hosseini uses many
In this documentary, we never go into the minds of any of the people, but only get to interpret what we see and hear. This documentary was filmed in Jacksonville, Florida where Brenton Butler, a 15 year old African American boy was accused of the murder of Mary Ann Stephens. The main people in this documentary are Ann Fennell, Patrick McGuiness, Brenton Butler, and detectives Williams, Glover, and Darnell. Ann Fennell and Patrick McGuisness are the two defense attorney’s on Brenton’s behalf. Brenton Butler is the boy being accused of murder. Detectives Williams, Glover, and Darnell are the detectives in department 3 the violated many laws and policies while holing Brenton in
"Soghomon Tehlirian | Murderpedia, the Encyclopedia of Murderers."Soghomon Tehlirian | Murderpedia, the Encyclopedia of Murderers. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 May 2014.
Walsh, James, and Dan Browning. "Presumed Guilty Until Proved Innocent." Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN). 23 Jul 2000: A1+. SIRS Issues Researcher.
Scott Peterson was an educated man from California Polytechnic State University where he graduated with a B.A. in Agricultural Business. He was married to his wife Laci Peterson who was also pregnant with their unborn son. In December of 2002 Laci Peterson went missing in the Modesto, California area where she shared a home with Scott. Once the investigation of Scott’s missing wife started authorities began to suspect Scott as a suspect in her disappearance. In April of 2003 a fetus and a female torso that was missing hands, feet, and a head were found on the shoreline of San Francisco Bay. The San Francisco Bay area was where Scott was boating the day of Laci’s disappearance. The body was later identified as Laci Peterson and the fetus as Laci and Scott’s unborn son. Scott was also arrested in the month of April shortly after the discovery of Laci and their son’s body and was later sentenced to the death penalty. Over the course of this paper I will cover the whole event of the disappearance of Laci Peterson, relating it to a sociological theory, the impact the event had on our society and how the media had influence over this national event.
Garrett, Brandon. Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2011. 86. Print.
Due to a strong cultural bias, society often disinvolves or denies the very existence of a female serial killer. Whereas the male serial killer has been regularly lionized by his outrageous exploits, the female serial killer is typically ignored, viewed as an anomaly (Kelleher p.xi)
The Web. 28 Feb 2014 Christopher, Liam. “Mother ‘vindicated’ after girl’s murder suspect held.” Daily Post. 18 Aug. 2006: 19:. Proquest Newsstand.
Tyler, Tom R. “Viewing CSI and the Threshold of Guilt: Managing truth and Justice in Reality
On August 20th, 1989 Lyle and Erik Menendez killed their parents inside their Beverly Hills home with fifteen shot gun blasts after years of alleged “sexual, psychological, and corporal abuse” (Berns 25). According to the author of “Murder as Therapy”, “The defense has done a marvelous job of assisting the brothers in playing up their victim roles” (Goldman 1). Because there was so much evidence piled up against the brothers, the defense team was forced to play to the jurors’ emotions if they wanted a chance at an acquittal. Prosecutor Pamela Bozanich was forced to concede that “Jose and Kitty obviously had terrific flaws-most people do in the course of reminding jurors that the case was about murder, not child abuse” (Adler 103). Bozanich “cast the details of abuse as cool, calculated lies” (Smolowe 48)...
About two years ago I read Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s memoir “Infidel” and was immensely moved by her story, especially the atrocities she went through in her childhood in Africa and the way she struggled to flee from an oppressive life. At that time, I could not imagine that anyone (except fanatic Muslims), let alone victims of the same oppression that she was, would not share her feelings and views. However, the reading of Ian Buruma’s Murder in Amsterdam sheds light on bigger and obscure components of this story, which clearly influenced some people to disapprove her behavior – even Islamic women. Like in Hirsi Ali’s story, Ian Buruma also identifies nuances in the main episode of the book – an episode that at face value could be described as a murder of a fierce critic of Islam, Theo van Gogh (Hirsi Ali’s friend), by a Muslim extremist, Mohammed Bouyeri. According to Buruma, although the common theme is immigration – involving two guests, Hirsi Ali and Bouyeri, and one host, Van Gogh – there is no single explanation for what happened. Instead, each of these three characters, he explains, was influenced by a blend of personal experiences and external forces. It was thus the clash between their diverse cultural values and personal identities that ended up leading to the tragic morning of November 2nd, 2004, the day of Van Gogh’s murder.