Justice is Arbitrary

This episode illustrates how a case built on quick and shoddy police work was taken up by an unethical prosecutor (Kevin Urick) and willed into a conviction. It weaves together the story lines of Adnan's present day post-conviction appeal hearing (PCR) with his original trial, hinging on several key examples of unethical behavior that helped convict Adnan and are now being questioned at his PCR. We'll also dive into the politicized culture in which the trial took place. On one hand, the Korean community united to demand a conviction from a city they felt had systematically overlooked murders of Koreans. On the other, a Pakistani-Muslim community united around Adnan with great faith in the American justice system, only to see that faith destroyed by prosecutors who used Adnan's religion and ethnicity to label him a radical and a danger to his community. In the end, as he is convicted in 1999, that conviction is overturned in the present day, and he cautiously prepares for a new day in court. The episode will also be bound by stories from characters about how their lives were changed by the Serial, for better and worse, and how they question their own memories of events.