Serial

So I hit upon a podcast done as a spin-off of This American Life, an NPR show, called Serial. It's at http://serialpodcast.org. ; The podcast is about one reporter (the host) investigating a real-life case of a boy caught in a murder case and sentenced to life imprisonment... and how the case came to be.  The podcast is definitely a good long-term journalistic effort.  It's gotten a heavy following and even a Reddit discussion group at http://reddit.com/r/serialpodcast

The case that it highlights is interesting to me, though, because there are (IMHO) glaring faults:

• The prosecution was faulty:
  
  
  • The case hinged on one person... who was inconsistent, and can be easily disproved with some legwork.
  
  
  • The forensics were never completed.
  
  
  • The investigation was short circuited, having been lead to the boy.
  
  


• The first lawyer was ineffective:
  
  
  • Leads were never followed up on.
  
  
  • Discrediting the witnesses was a bad gamble.
  
  
  • Lawyer later was disbarred over several botched cases due to medical reasons, one year after sentencing; died in 2004.
  
  


• The second lawyer was also ineffective due to being from the Public Defenders Office, thus unfamiliar with the case and having insufficient resources.


• The appeal judge was not familiar with the area and was not told of the area, and thus has a fatal flaw in judgement (the library is right next to the high school).

This would be a nice comedy of errors where it not for the fact that this kid, who is now an adult, is in jail for the rest of his life.  The good thing, though, is the Univ of Virginia's Innocence Project is taking up the case.