What if twenty-one minutes could change your life forever? For Adnan Syed, this hypothetical question is reality. The podcast Serial, narrated by Sarah Koenig, reveals how that insignificant amount of time sentenced Adnan Syed to prison for the rest of his life. In episode one of Serial, Koenig explores the way in which Adnan’s inability to remember twenty-one minutes of one afternoon resulted in a prison sentence for murder.
A month after she disappeared on January 13th, 1999, Hae Min Lee was found strangled in a park in Baltimore. Adnan was arrested for Hae’s murder because of the testimony of his friend, Jay. In his interview, Jay told the police that Adnan killed Hae, bragged about it, returned to track practice to make sure he had an
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Koenig demonstrates to the audience that it is reasonable to think that the people in this podcast may not clearly remember what happened on the day in question.
Near the end of the episode, a girl is introduced who claims to clearly remember the day that Hae disappeared. Asia McClain believes that she saw and talked to Adnan in the library the day Hae went missing. She wrote two letters to Adnan and then an affidavit, but she was never contacted by a lawyer. When the case was petitioned, the judge ruled that Asia’s story is legally worthless as an alibi for Adnan because it contradicts his testimony.
By the end of the first episode, the audience knows that Adnan, Jay, and Asia all have different memories of what happened during the same twenty-one minutes of one day in January. Having a poor memory would be perfectly normal if January 13th, 1999 had been an ordinary day; however, Adnan Syed is still in prison due to his inability to remember a small portion of his afternoon. At the conclusion of episode one, the audience is left wondering: are Adnan, Jay, and Asia’s memories incorrect, or are they
Jonathan Kozol revealed the early period’s situation of education in American schools in his article Savage Inequalities. It seems like during that period, the inequality existed everywhere and no one had the ability to change it; however, Kozol tried his best to turn around this situation and keep track of all he saw. In the article, he used rhetorical strategies effectively to describe what he saw in that situation, such as pathos, logos and ethos.
When Hae Min Lee disappeared on January 13, 1999, all of her friends (including the subsequently charged killer, Adnan Syed) thought that she moved to California. Hae’s body turned up a few weeks later on February 9, and the police later charged Adnan Syed, her ex-boyfriend with her murder. Jay Wilds, an alleged accomplice to the crime, confessed to the police that he knew that Adnan killed Hae and Adnan tasked him with burying her. The state later used Jay’s testimony as the foundation for their case, even though it contradicted some of the state’s own physical evidence. While Jay’s eyewitness testimony does identify Adnan Syed as Hae Lee’s murderer, it is self-serving and inconsistent, with no physical evidence to corroborate it. Therefore,
Based on information provided by Sarah Koenig’s podcast, Serial, Hae Min Lee is killed by Adnan Syed, he yet says he didn’t murder her. Adnan is convicted of committing homicide, which he didn’t do, should not be in jail. This is for 3 main accounts; if something important happens a person remembers that day, Jay knew where Hae’s car was, and by how Sarah and her friend go by the day Jay described.
Adnan's innocence away from him? Jay's story was documented, but his first story kept changing, which seemed off, if he was there shouldn't there be one story and only one story? But his final story, the story that never changes is the one after the mysterious session. Although even that story has flaws. Many to be exact. He says Adan called him after he killed Hae, but we know that they were never friends, only mere acquaintances. Theoretically, would you call an acquaintance after you you killed
She’d been strangled. Her 17-year-old ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed, was arrested for the crime, and within a year, he was convicted and sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison. The case against him was largely based on the story of one witness, Adnan’s friend Jay, who testified that he helped Adnan bury Hae’s body. But Adnan has always maintained he had nothing to do with Hae’s death. Some people believe he’s telling the truth.
This reason makes sense because Asia and even a friend of hers claim that they saw and even spoke to Adnan that day and at that time Hae was murdered. This part of the story is when Asia found out Adna was arrested so she wrote him a letter explaining what she remembered about seeing him that day and time. This is from the letter “Im not sure if you remember talking to me in the library january 13’th,but I remember”. This means Adnan is innocent because he was not murdering Hae at the time he was at the library. Therefore Adnan is innocent because Asia’s letters prove that he was at the library at the time Hae was
On January 13th, 1999, a high school girl from Baltimore, Maryland, Hae Min Lee, disappeared after school. Hae was found just a few miles away in Leakin Park, a few weeks later, where it was determined that the cause of death was manual strangulation. Not long after, Hae’s ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed, was arrested and tried for her murder and is now spending his life in prison. After hearing Sarah Koneig’s Podcast, Serial where she went back to re-investigate the trial, it became clear that the jury does not have enough evidence to convict Adnan Syed for the murder of Hae Min Lee for many reasons including, the lack of evidence, lack of motive, and the reliance of memory is not enough to convict Adnan Syed. Evidence is key to solving a murder and in the case of Hae Min Lee’s murder, there was not enough evidence to prove that Adnan Syed killed her.
In the book Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer wrote about Christopher McCandless, a nature lover in search for independence, in a mysterious and hopeful experience. Even though Krakauer tells us McCandless was going to die from the beginning, he still gave him a chance for survival. As a reader I wanted McCandless to survive. In Into the Wild, Krakauer gave McCandless a unique perspective. He was a smart and unique person that wanted to be completely free from society. Krakauer included comments from people that said McCandless was crazy, and his death was his own mistake. However, Krakauer is able to make him seem like a brave person. The connections between other hikers and himself helped in the explanation of McCandless’s rational actions. Krakauer is able to make McCandless look like a normal person, but unique from this generation. In order for Krakauer to make Christopher McCandless not look like a crazy person, but a special person, I will analyze the persuading style that Krakauer used in Into the Wild that made us believe McCandless was a regular young adult.
He told the court Jay had his phone during that time, but Jay and Nisha did not know each other, so why would they talk to each other for two minutes and 22 seconds (Koenig, “The Case Against Adnan Syed”)? In conclusion, there is enough evidence in the Serial Podcast and other information available to say the Adnan Syed was the killer of Hae Min Lee in 1999. Adnan had more reasoning than anyone else to commit this murder. Adnan's family conflicts built up anger inside him, causing his emotions to erupt and murder Hae. Lastly, the phone log and where each call pinged the towers, giving an idea where Adnan was located.
This then led to Adnan’s parents coming to the school and embarrassing him in front of everybody by yelling at him and dragging him out (Koenig, “The Breakup”). I’m not sure if Adnan was embarrassed, but I know I sure would’ve been. One other example, for this reason, is that Adnan was mad because he thought Hae moved on from him too quickly, like she didn’t even give him another chance for anything. Which is true, at least from what I think. Right after Hae had broken up with Adnan, she started to see this other guy from work, Don (Koenig, “The Breakup”).
Pollan’s article provides a solid base to the conversation, defining what to do in order to eat healthy. Holding this concept of eating healthy, Joe Pinsker in “Why So Many Rich Kids Come to Enjoy the Taste of Healthier Foods” enters into the conversation and questions the connection of difference in families’ income and how healthy children eat (129-132). He argues that how much families earn largely affect how healthy children eat — income is one of the most important factors preventing people from eating healthy (129-132). In his article, Pinsker utilizes a study done by Caitlin Daniel to illustrate that level of income does affect children’s diet (130). In Daniel’s research, among 75 Boston-area parents, those rich families value children’s healthy diet more than food wasted when children refused to accept those healthier but
Jay describes his active-involvement with Adnan in the crime. If Jay tells us the truth, he brings Adnan to school, holds onto Adnan’s cellphone and car so he could pick Adnan up when Adnan calls; picks Adnan up after he committed the murder, cruises around with Adnan, and brings Adnan to track practice. Additionally, Jay cruises around with Adnan in the afternoon, accompanies Adnan to LeakIn park and aids Adnan in digging the hole to bury Hae. Which criminal incriminates oneself? When Jay speaks about picking up Adnan he says: “I noticed that Hae wasn't with him. I parked next to him. He asked me to get out the car. I get out the car. He asks me, am I ready for this? And I say, ready for what? And he takes the keys. He opens the trunk. And all I can see is Hae's lips are all blue, and she's pretzeled up in the back of the trunk. And she's dead.” Jay goes to pick up Adnan from the actual murder and describes the episode in detail. Jay uses short sentences for dramatic effect, and speaks confidently, which is unusual when incriminating
According to Sternberg (1999), memory is the extraction of past experiences for information to be used in the present. The retrieval of memory is essential in every aspect of daily life, whether it is for academics, work or social purposes. However, many often take memory for granted and assume that it can be relied on because of how realistic it appears in the mind. This form of memory is also known as flashbulb memory. (Brown and Kulik, 1977). The question of whether our memory is reliably accurate has been shown to have implications in providing precise details of past events. (The British Psychological Association, 2011). In this essay, I would put forth arguments that human memory, in fact, is not completely reliable in providing accurate depictions of our past experiences. Evidence can be seen in the following two studies that support these arguments by examining episodic memory in humans. The first study is by Loftus and Pickrell (1995) who found that memory can be modified by suggestions. The second study is by Naveh-Benjamin and Craik (1995) who found that there is a predisposition for memory to decline with increasing age.
The article How to Tell If a Particular Memory Is True or False by Daniel M. Bernstein and Elizabeth F. Loftus, addresses the various techniques used by cognitive scientists and other researchers in hopes of distinguishing true from false memories. For this article Loftus and Bernstein, memory researchers, chose to discuss the different methods currently used, rather than trying to find new ways to tell if a particular memory is true or false. Their findings in these three different approaches are very interesting, and leads us to think critically of the veracity of true and false memories.
Memory is the tool we use to learn and think. We all use memory in our everyday lives. Memory is the mental faculty of retaining and recalling past experiences. We all reassure ourselves that our memories are accurate and precise. Many people believe that they would be able to remember anything from the event and the different features of the situation. Yet, people don’t realize the fact that the more you think about a situation the more likely the story will change. Our memories are not a camcorder or a camera. Our memory tends to be very selective and reconstructive.