The Night Of: A Prosecutor Points Out 6 Times Naz Royally Screws Up

Updated on Aug 6, 2016 at 6:05 AM

It's almost impossible to watch the first episode of HBO's The Night Of without screaming "NOOO" at the TV at least once. It's an incredible and infuriating story, and according to at least one prosecutor, it's totally realistic.

In the premiere, we're introduced to Nasir "Naz" Khan (Riz Ahmed) as he meets a lovely young lady while driving his father's cab for the night. They share a night of drugs, weird knife games, and passion, and when he wakes up, she's been brutally slaughtered upstairs. Did he do it? Probably not, but he does just about everything wrong in the aftermath. We spoke to a real prosecutor (who wished to remain anonymous) about the show, and they pointed out six huge mistakes Naz makes in the episodes so far.

Not calling the police. "He should have called the police right away," they said. "When you're looking at a case from a law enforcement angle or prosecutorial point of view, a huge component of things is flight. Flight is demonstrative of consciousness of guilt, and that's oftentimes used when you're arguing to a jury why they should believe someone is guilty, why the case has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. One element is, 'Look, this person left. They fled, they tried to escape; that shows their consciousness of guilt.'"
Not immediately calling a lawyer. While calling the police is absolutely vital, the prosecutor said that the second thing he should have done — even from the scene of the crime — is call a lawyer. "The way things appeared, and that's why he got spooked . . . he knew to get out of there, but I would say to appear as innocent as possible, call the police." And when those police get there, ask for a lawyer.
Taking the knife. While they were quick to say that Naz having the knife on him wouldn't guarantee him a guilty sentence, "being found with that weapon on him is certainly not helpful to his case. It definitely makes it a severe uphill battle for him."
Trying to escape custody at any point. Back when Naz is first identified as the possible killer at the police station, he tries to run. According to the prosecutor, this is a huge mistake. "When he's trying to flee the murder scene or police custody, especially when you look at those incidents collectively, that certainly doesn't help his appearance of innocence."

Talking to the police. "It's so cliché, they say it on Law & Order: 'Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law' — it is absolutely true. People always think they can explain what happened and it can help them or they can explain why this is taking place. Nothing will be used that will help you. Whether it's that your speech is slurred or what you say now is going to be slightly different than what you say 20 minutes later or two days later, that's going to be viewed as an inconsistent statement, then you're going to be portrayed as a liar." The issue isn't limited to detectives, either. "Prosecutors also have a tendency of using the evidence they have, or lack of, to build their case and slant it in whichever direction is more beneficial to their theory of the crime."
Don't even talk to the nice detectives. One of the most realistic parts of the premiere is the way Detective Box (Bill Camp) talks to Naz. According to the prosecutor, those scenes are very indicative of how a detective would behave. "That's Detective Work 101," they said. "You see it in the show, how they do Good Cop/Bad Cop. He's sitting there while the other officers are strip-searching him and being rough and gruff and unpleasant, then they leave and he comes in . . . he gives the clothes back and says, 'Sorry about that' and now suddenly he's building trust with Naz like, 'Hey, I'm gonna help you.' He's not trying to help Naz, he's trying to build his case. That can often be confused, especially if someone is new to the system and if they're naïve as to how it all works."

Of course, we don't really know yet whether Naz is guilty — as the prosecutor pointed out, we're not sure if the knife he takes is the one used to commit the crime. Furthermore, he should have been covered in blood if he really butchered her the way it was depicted. We'll just have to watch and see . . .