Adnan and the "Snapped Fallacy"

When something like Hae’s murder happens – something unimaginable— people tend to abandon what is likely in service of what is possible.

Lots of people have given their thoughts recently about Adnan’s release, and now you can add me to that list. Cases like Adnan’s don’t usually occupy this much of my mental real estate. That’s because of his innocence, not despite it. The conversation around the criminal legal system’s cruelties tends to focus on innocence as a metric of worthiness, which, though understandable, makes me uneasy. So, given that there are finite hours in the day, I tend to spend my mental energy elsewhere.  

But man, Adnan’s been on my mind a lot. The video of him leaving the prison has a particular hold on my psyche. I’ve watched it a few times now, and each time it gives me that familiar sensation, like if you put elation and despair in a blender. (Why isn’t there a name for that feeling? Elatair would be a good word, pronounced e-lay-SHER. Sounds French.)

The reason for the elation is obvious — Adnan is home, a simple goal that was, up until the very end, extremely unlikely. And yet, the despair persists. Overturned convictions are always almost unbearably sad to me, because the time lost is so tangible. ( Radley Balko wrote something relevant last week.) Adnan’s face is different now. He looks young, but less young. Worn. It was a reminder of how much time was lost — decades gone for absolutely no reason. Nothing good came of this. And now he must rebuild a life in a new world – hostage to an unwilling unfamiliarity, a blind explorer of his own home.

I have many thoughts on Season 1 of Serial, many of which I included in an essay I wrote called “What Serial Gets Wrong” in 2014. There are things I would change about that piece now – I wasn’t assertive enough in my belief that Adnan was actually innocent, which I have always believed. I also used some language I now avoid, like “serious violent criminals.”

But my thesis holds up. Serial begins with Sarah Koenig saying, “For the last year, I've spent every working day trying to figure out where a high school kid was… for 21 minutes after school one day in 1999.” In short, to determine whether Adnan was guilty, she looked exclusively at Adnan. At first glance, that might seem smart! Like good journalism, even! But that approach was guaranteed to fall short.

In that 2014 piece I talked about how Sarah should have asked questions about the prosecutor’s office at that time – the incentives, the politics, the resource constraints. I stand by that. I knew then what I know now – hers was never the only question to ask here, not really.

But now that I’ve gone back through the transcripts, I realize that there’s something else missing from Season 1: