SERIAL PODCAST WORKSHEETS EPISODE 6 TRIAL
The rest of episode 10 focuses on Adnan's defense attorney, Cristina Gutierrez, and whether she bungled the trial in order to set herself up to make money on the appeal. And that's true even though his trial began before the September 11 terrorist attacks, which caused anti-Muslim bigotry and hate crimes to spike in the United States. Whether or not Adnan is guilty, it's difficult to come away from this deep dive into his case without concluding that he would've gotten a fairer trial in ways big and small if he had not been a Muslim. In previous episodes, we've also heard how stereotypes about Muslims tinged the prosecution's account of Adnan's motives. And was it really easier for police to take Adnan, an honor student and part-time EMT voted most popular at school dances, than Jay, a black drug dealer with piercings and tattoos? I can't perform a rigorous analysis of the competing kinds of racism at play, but it's at least unclear.Īmerica Needs a Rom-Com Bailout Kevin Townsend, Sophie Gilbert, David Sims, and Hannah GiorgisĪt the same time, Koenig presents evidence that anti-Muslim prejudice played a definite role at different points in Adnan's case, from jury selection, when one potential juror confessed that he couldn't be fair to a Muslim defendant because a Muslim friend of his mistreats his wife, to a bail hearing when a prosecutor keeps referring to Adnan as a Pakistani (instead of American) and fabricates a pattern of cases where Pakistanis kill women and flee back to their home country. When the ex has no alibi, of course that makes it even worse. When another person, with no apparent motive to lie, flat-out accuses the ex-boyfriend of the murder, of course he is a suspect. When a teenage woman dies, of course the ex-boyfriend is at least a person of interest. Sarah Koenig is skeptical of anti-Muslim bigotry as The One Cause, presumably because there were definitely other factors that played a significant role. "It was easier to take him than other people."
"Because it was a Muslim child, that's why they took him," she said. She believes her son is innocent, that anti-Muslim prejudice is the reason he was arrested, and that everyone in the local Muslim community feels the same way. Did it play a role in putting Adnan in prison? Adnan's mother declares that when she explains to herself what happened, discrimination against Muslims is the only rationale she can come up with.
SERIAL PODCAST WORKSHEETS EPISODE 6 SERIAL
Conor Friedersdorf, Lenika Cruz, Tanya Basu, and Katie Kilkenny discuss the latest episode of WBEZ Chicago's popular non-fiction podcast Serial.įriedersdorf: Episode 10 of Serial begins by addressing the question of anti-Muslim prejudice.
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