Andrea Dunlop

So it just completely negates everything that goes into

actually having any kind of action from the court on a child abuse case, which is not just based on a doctor's diagnosis and also like something not going through charges is not evidence that that doctor got it wrong.

Can you just kind of talk us through this willful misunderstanding of the process that's being put forth in these media?

I don't really buy Serial's explanation that this series is meant to be only about Dr. Jensen and not all caps, mainly because Neri broadens the scope to include all caps as she lands her closing argument in the third episode.

But even if we take them at their word that this is just about Dr. Jensen, I wanted to ask Randy if they made a case for that.

Is there anything in particular that Deborah Jensen does that is outside of the standard of care for child abuse pediatricians, that's where she goes way outside her lane?

I mean, do you, is there anything that you've seen that would substantiate that as someone who's known and worked with her?

Why indeed?

An excellent question in the year of RFK Jr.

Now, according to Serial's communications with me, Neary only formed her opinions about Dr. Jensen's work after speaking with other CAPs, and the evidence she uses to counteract Jensen's opinion in the one case she goes into detail about is that she showed anonymized records to several other CAPs who didn't share the opinion that the injuries were abusive.

I asked Randy for his take on this.

The media coverage about CAPS often make it sound as though they are the single deciding factor in everything from CPS to court decisions to police investigations.

And Amanda Surinofsky's lawsuit attempts to lay legal responsibility for everything that happened to her and her children at Dr. Jensen's feet.

The introduction to the lawsuit reads, quote, And it goes on to say that Dr. Jensen had been intentionally making false allegations of child abuse against innocent parents like Amanda for decades.

Under the claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress, the lawsuit posits that, rather than the prosecutors, CYS, and the courts acting independently, Jensen was intentionally aggressive with these entities in order to knowingly cause Amanda and her children distress.

And though much of the story Amanda tells on the show has to do with custody decisions and dealing with CPS, Serial also points it all back to being an issue with CAPS.

Neary stops short of saying Dr. Jensen is purposefully falsely accusing parents, as the lawsuit alleges, and instead says that Capps might be, quote, mistaken.

But it's hard not to see a through line, especially as Serial appears to rely on much of the same evidence that the lawsuit presents as being indicative of Dr. Jensen's wrongdoing, such as context-free excerpts from family court judge decisions about other families, and of course, the complaints of parents whose children were diagnosed by Dr. Jensen.

And according to Randy, this is a misrepresentation.

But to say that Diane Neary is misunderstanding the issue at hand is, of course, charitable.