Eyewitness Testimony Case Study

Introduction Eyewitness testimony has been discussed to be one of the most arguable sources to be used in the jury system, especially on its reliability. The podcast series “Serial” presented by Sarah Koenig, has illustrated a crime case back in 1999, which is still a mystery until now, contained many perceptions indicating the reliability of memory in eyewitness testimony. The suspect of the crime is Adnan Syed, a seventeen-year-old high school student who is also the victim’s ex-boyfriend. There were many secondary pieces of evidence such as the cell phone list, the story between Adnan and the victim, Hae, and so on that have proved him to be the true culprit. Additionally, the evidence that most of the jurors rely on, which is also the

Jay was not even described as a “friend” in Adnan’s perspective besides the fact that car borrowing and drugs are the topics that connect them together (Koenig, Episode one, 2014). Jay gave his interview claiming that Adnan is the real murderer who planned, killed and buried Hae Min Lee. Nevertheless, in Jay’s testimonies, there are many inconsistencies holding people back with skepticism. The problem of Jay’s testimonies against Adnan is that they were given several weeks after the incident happened. The time may play as a massive factor affecting the accuracy in Jay’s memory. This can be demonstrated by the three major inconsistencies in Jay’s testimonies that generate doubts among the police, the attorneys, and especially Koenig. In Jay’s first tape interview, he indicated that he refused to help Adnan bury Hae’s body while in his second tape’s interview, which is two weeks after the first one, he insisted they dogged the hole for Hae’s body together. Jay’s second inconsistency is his acknowledgment of Adnan’s murder plan. In the first interview, Jay reported he first knew the

The other two testimonies that needed to mention in Adnan’s case are the testimonies from Asia McClain, who is known to be Adnan’s alibi girl, and Jenn, who is Jay’s close friend. With Asia McClain, she indicated that she had a conversation with Adnan in the Woodlawn Public Library on the day and during the time the incident occurred, which also the evidence for Adnan’s innocence (Koenig, Episode 1, 2014). On Jenn’s side, she described in details many points that fit with Jay’s testimonies which are another piece of evidence to prove Adnan is the murderer. These two testimonies play an important part in the process of determining the conviction of Adnan. Still, they are secondary evidence; they are evidence that base on people’s memory; they are evidence that cannot fully verify the truth, as Loftus, the cognitive psychologist at the University of Washington, in her speech recorded by Sutton (2013) mentioned, “Memory is malleable” (p. 326). In Asia’s circumstance, she even discredited what she claimed on witnessing Adnan’s presence at the Woodlawn Public Library by saying she wrote her affidavit because of Adnan’s family pressure on her (Tam, 2015). This act has created skepticism among people in the jury on the reliability of her statement. Additionally, Jenn’s testimonies reveal many inconsistencies with Jay’s one, especially at the time indicated. It