Episodes

  • Coming Soon: More Perfect
    May 24 2016

    How does an elite group of nine people shape everything from marriage and money, to safety and sex for an entire nation? From the producers of Radiolab, More Perfect dives into the rarefied world of the Supreme Court to explain how cases deliberated inside hallowed halls affect lives far away from the bench. 

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    1 min
  • Cruel and Unusual
    Jun 2 2016

    On the inaugural episode of More Perfect, we explore three little words embedded in the 8th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: “cruel and unusual.” The Supreme Court has continually grappled with what these words mean, especially as they pertain to one of our most hot button issues as a country: the death penalty.

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    40 mins
  • The Political Thicket
    Jun 10 2016

    The question of how much power the Supreme Court should possess has divided justices over time. But the issue was perhaps never more hotly debated than in Baker v. Carr. On this episode of More Perfect, we talk about the case that pushed one Supreme Court justice to a nervous breakdown, brought a boiling feud to a head, put one justice in the hospital, and changed the course of the Supreme Court – and the nation – forever.

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    43 mins
  • More Perfect presents: Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl
    Jun 17 2016

    On this episode, a three-year-old girl and the highest court in the land. From the Radiolab archives, Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl is the story that inspired More Perfect's creation.

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    43 mins
  • The Imperfect Plaintiffs
    Jun 28 2016

    On this episode, we visit Edward Blum, a 64-year-old “legal entrepreneur” and former stockbroker who has become something of a Supreme Court matchmaker. He’s had remarkable success, with 6 cases heard before the Supreme Court, including that of Abigail Fisher. We also head to Houston, Texas, where in 1998, an unusual 911 call led to one of the most important LGBTQ rights decisions in the Supreme Court’s history.

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    1 hr and 4 mins
  • Kittens Kick The Giggly Blue Robot All Summer
    Jul 1 2016

    With the recent passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, there's been a lot of debate about how much power the Supreme Court should really have.

    We think of the Supreme Court justices as all-powerful beings, issuing momentous rulings from on high. But they haven’t always been so, you know, supreme. On this episode, we go all the way back to the case that, in a lot of ways, started it all. 

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    37 mins
  • Object Anyway
    Jul 16 2016

    At the trial of James Batson in 1983, the prosecution eliminated all the black jurors from the jury pool. Batson objected, setting off a complicated discussion about jury selection that would make its way all the way up to the Supreme Court. On this episode of More Perfect, the Supreme Court ruling that was supposed to prevent race-based jury selection, but may have only made the problem worse.

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    49 mins
  • We're Back
    Sep 28 2017

    More Perfect, the show that takes you inside the United States Supreme Court, is back on October 2, 2017. 

    Sex, race, guns, executive orders: Season two has it all.

    We'll see you in court. 

     

     

     

     

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    1 min