Adnan Syed Case Study Example

Adnan Syed’s case is one of the stranger cases that has been seen in quite some time. Making it difficult to choose a side on the case, because there are so many pros and cons to each side that either way you go, you end up having one big con that you must mention to your reader, and of course defend why this con does not prove him guilty/innocent. There can also be a lot of psychology behind why someone chooses the perspective they do on this case(innocent/guilty), and I find this very interesting, that not only can someone consciously decide which side they want to, but more so the fact that one will subconsciously choose their perspective based on their personal experiences, and that most times they don’t even know that they’ve had an opinion all along but it has just been sitting in the back of their mind waiting for the right moment to strike. There’s quite a bit of evidence on this case, but for the sake of keeping this short, I’m going to use the key evidence from each side and elaborate as to why the evidence may be valid/important in the case.

I’m going to label the sides of this case one being “the left side," this side argues that Adnan Syed innocence. And of course “the right side” arguing that he is guilty. The key evidence that tends to be used on “the left side,” the inconsistencies in Jay’s side of the story, and just Jay’s overall  reputation in the town.  This tends to be one of the two pieces of key evidence that comes from “the left side." The reason that this is a key piece of evidence, because Jay’s storychanges every time he talks to the cops, now not that this is out of the ordinary stories might differ from time to time as you tell them but in some of the reitterations of the story by Jay there are some really key things that are being changed. Such as in one of his statements, Jay helped Adnan Syed bury the body, and in another he wasn’t part of it at all. Another piece of evidence for those of “ the left side," the first timeline that Jay gives the cops, this timeline doesn’t even remotely add up to the cell phone records, and this timeline changes every time Jay tells the story magically seeming to start to add up with the cell phone records. Also, none of the DNA records link Adnan Syed to the crime.These are some key things that aid the readers of “the left side’s” report, but I’m not here to just tell you about “the left side’s” report. 

On “the right side," also substantial evidence, there’s the fact that Adnan Syed asked Hae for a ride the day that she went missing, a vital piece of evidence because it shows that Adnan Syed was trying to find a way to essentially be alone with Hae, though this may not have been his intention, still a vital piece of evidence. The cell phone records that add up with some of Jay’s versions of stories. Adnan Syed’s statement was also not the greatest from the beginning. What I mean by this, well Adnan Syed was one of the people who was questioned first and he couldn’t remember exactly what happened on that day, so when Jay came around and had this complete story that could potentially add up based on the cell phone records, whereas when you look at Adnan Syed’s side of the story, he doesn’t really have anything to defend Jay’s statement, which in the detective, and other people’s eyes as makes him guilty. This is some fairly substantial evidence but still people think he may be innocent, why? I can tell you exactly why.

Now believe it or not there is a lot of psychology behind which side a person chooses in this case. Now this all being said of course there will always be some people who choose a side just because their friends are doing that side, and there will always be people who come up with their own theories of what happened. For the sake of simplicity, we are just going to consider the two sides that I have talked about, guilty, and innocent. 

So the psychology behind the sides. Well believe it or not the psychology actually roots back to the childhood of the person choosing the side. For “the right side," it depends on whether or not you were held to things as a child. For example, when you got in trouble as a child, did your parents hold you accountable or did they just say something like “ohh well it’s our fault for not watching them correctly," and when I’m saying this, I don’t mean when you were in say elementary school, I mean when you were really little, maybe in the age range of 2-5 years old. Which many people don’t know affects our lives later on in how we as humans view things. So if your parents held you accountable as a child such as let's say you walk near the stairs and at that age you know very well that you aren’t supposed to be near the stairs, if your parents came up to you and told you “no! You know that you aren’t supposed to be near the stairs, go to your room” or “well now no more tv for the rest of the day because you know you aren’t supposed to be near the stairs." We as humans believe that this has little to no impact on our future self, when in reality this can change our entire view on things. This being that if your parents did this you’re more likely to believe that Adnan Syed is guilty because you subconsciously believe that he should be held accountable for his actions. 

Whereas on “the left side” these children may not have been held as accountable for their actions as those of “the right side," not saying that they weren’t held accountable. They just weren’t held as accountable. So, let’s say that those on “the left side” went near the stairs as children they would probably get something like “Why are you near the stairs again," “come on let’s move away from the stairs, would you like to watch some tv instead." Now this may not sound like a big change but believe it or not it makes a huge difference on how that human being will think later on in life. Not saying that they won’t hold people accountable for their actions, they just won’t hold them as accountable as those on “the right side." Now again, not saying that these people don’t hold people accountable, they are just less likely to, and strongly believe in second chances, and are more likely to believe that everyone has good in them, or good intentions. We as a society tend to call these people “gullible” but what we as a society don’t really notice, that those who we are calling “gullible” are generally not these people. The reason for this, that these people tend to hide the fact that they try to see the good in everyone, and don’t particularly like to show that they do, so that when they do get hurt because they tried to see the good in someone, no one will really notice and call them gullible. Some of them don’t even know that they do this. Now again not saying that the people on “the right side” can’t see the good in everyone, it’s more so that these people tend to be more honest, which makes it harder for them to see the good in people, and again, not saying that the people on “the left side” aren’t honest they just don’t tend to care more about the feelings of a person over honesty.

So, in this report the evidence of the case is clearly displayed both positive and negative, and the psychology behind why one might choose a side has been discussed, as well as some characteristics of the people. The reason behind this topic choice, I find psychology fascinating and saw that it could apply in lots of areas of this case and on those who are viewing this case and their perspective on it. Now this could be completely inaccurate for the class because some people may have simply chosen a side because their friend did and they didn’t want to start an argument of sorts.