It’s our second annual call-out show, and it’s a double-sized episode meant to last two weeks. We’re joined by listeners and previous guests who share with us the bits of culture — books, movies, and television — that have affected them and their experience of law and policy. Many things come up, but here’s the rundown:

  • Listener Cameron, 0:00, Les Misérables
  • Listener Michael, 26:11, JFK, the film
  • Listener Bunny, 44:28, Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Measure of a Man
  • Listener and co-host Sonja West, 1:11:26, The Feminine Mystique
  • Listener and co-host Dave Fagundes, 1:41:25, A Wilderness of Error
  • Mom, 2:10:14, Honor Council, The Insider, Serial

This show’s links:

  • Oral Argument 44: Serial (A Double-Sized Episode with Many Special Guests)
  • About Les Misérables (and a list of its various incarnations on film and stage)
  • About the “Ban the Box” movement
  • Hicks v. District of Columbia (in which Justice Douglas cites Les Mis in dissent); Harmelin v. Michigan (approving Michigan’s “three strikes” law); and the dissent from the denial of cert in Riggs v. California (in which the defendant’s third strike under California’s law was for stealing a bottle of vitamins); People v. Taylor (a state court appellate case in which the dissent begins: “In a scenario somewhat reminiscent of a late 20th Century, real life Les Miserables, a hungry, homeless man is sent away for 25 years to life for trying to break into a church so he could eat some food he thought the church would be glad for him to have.”)
  • JFK, the 1991 film
  • About the assassination of JFK
  • Philosophy Bites: Quasi Cassam on Conspiracy Theories
  • Hold Up!
  • About the legislative impact of JFK
  • About Making a Murderer
  • Oral Argument 37: Hammer Blow (guest Michael Dorf)
  • The Measure of a Man, an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation; Picard’s argument for Data’s sentience (youtube)
  • About positronic brains
  • Richard Fisher, Is It OK to Torture or Murder a Robot
  • Oral Argument 41: Sense-Think-Act (guest Ryan Calo)
  • About the technological singularity
  • Her
  • Ray Kurzweil, The Age of Spiritual Machines
  • Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique
  • Rostker v. Goldberg (upholding the male-only military draft)
  • Jerome Wakefield, The Concept of Mental Disorder
  • The oral argument in Lawrence v. Texas
  • Amy Argetsinger, Robert Spitzer, Psychiatrist of Transformative Influence, Dies at 83
  • Oral Argument 55: Cronut Lines (guest Dave Fagundes), discussing Waiting in Line: Norms, Markets, and the Law
  • Lauren Davidson, Google’s New “Popular Times” Feature Could Kill the Queue
  • Errol Morris, A Wilderness of Error (and more about Errol Morris)
  • About Jeffrey MacDonald
  • About the controversies over Fatal Vision
  • The Thin Blue Line
  • Serial, season one
  • Janet Malcolm, The Journalist and the Murderer
  • Daniel Medwed, The Innocent Prisoner’s Dilemma: Consequences of Failing to Admit Guilt at Parole Hearings (see also Rob Harris, The “Innocent Prisoner’s Dilemma”, an excellent NY Times video)
  • Oral Argument 48: Legal Truth (guest Lisa Kern Griffin)
  • The Insider

Special Guests: Dave Fagundes and Sonja West.

See All 218 Episodes of "Oral Argument"