‘Serial’ unanswered: Lingering questions from the podcast

Dear faithful readers: I’m out of the country for an extravagant Bollywood style wedding. (Tough life, I know.) But in order to quench your thirst for Generation J.D. blogs, my friend and fellow attorney, Kumudha Kumarachandran, who practices criminal law, wants to share her observations on the sensational and steamy Serial.

Since about November, I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to figure out the answer to one question: Did Adnan kill Hae? I started listening to the podcast around the time the ninth episode came out. In a matter of two days, I had listened to all nine episodes and anxiously awaited the next one. After the series ended, I have spent even more of my time looking at Reddit, blogs, and news articles about the series.

So what exactly is it about this podcast that has made it the most listened to podcast in the world?

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For me, I was originally drawn in by the parallels of the story with my own life. As a South Asian American having grown up not too far from Woodlawn, I instantly related to the so-called “double life” that Rabia and Saad discussed in the first episode. But what kept me listening was the way it made me question our justice system.

Now, I’m not saying I’m definitively Team Adnan or Team Jay, but I will say I am still hung up on a few issues that the podcast highlighted about Adnan’s case.

For instance, why didn’t it matter that the prosecutor provided Jay with an attorney? You hear the tape of Christina Gutierrez practically screaming at trial about this and yet the judge deemed that it would have no effect on the case. It just seems glaringly unethical for the prosecutor to have provided the state’s star witness with an attorney for the witness’s own accessory case, for which he did no time.

How could Adnan have been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt? The entire podcast is about the reasonable doubt as to whether or not Adnan killed Hae. It’s that back and forth in this case that gets you hooked and keeps you hooked through blogs and the news of recent developments in Adnan’s case. Sarah Koening even decides to end the show not by saying Adnan did or did not do it but rather that if she were a juror she certainly would have acquitted him.

If you’ve never listened to the podcast before, I apologize because I’m quite sure you have no idea what I’m talking about it. But for those of us are addicted to “Serial,” I leave you with two questions:

Why does Asia McClain keep giving and taking back her alibi? And to echo the famous words of Laura — Well if Adnan didn’t do it, then who did?