The And the Radio was home to several crusading attorneys fighting for truth and justice.

There was Martha Ellis Bryant, the titular defense attorney, and on the other side of the aisle there was the upstanding but nameless Mr. District attorney.

In between the two sides was Jonathan Keg, neither prosecutor nor defense lawyer, but instead

Amicus Curia, a friend of the court. It was a unique position that enabled Keg to step into a

murder trial and question witnesses on both sides to uncover the truth.

Keg's cases were chronicled in a life in your hands, a series created by Earl Stanley Gardner,

the Dean of Courtroom Crime Writers. Gardner's most famous character, of course, was Perry Mason,

but he'd also created Christopher London,

a radio private detective played by Glenn Ford in early 1950. a last resort, a sort of predecessor to the present-day innocence project.

Gardner and other lawyers work to overturn convictions stemming from poor representation, police

corruption, and prosecutorial misconduct.

Though he didn't contribute any scripts for a life in your hands,

the series central premise that of an impartial observer stepping in to ensure justice is done must have

appealed to Gardner's own beliefs.

A life in your hands aired from 1949 until 1952 in a series of summer runs.

On NBC in 1949, 1950, and 1952, and on ABC in 1951.

In its first run in the summer of 1949,

Jonathan Kagg was played by Ned LeFever.

In 1950 and 1952, Carlton Kiddell played Keg. And for the

1951 ABC Summer Series, Lee Bowman, a future television Elery Queen, took on the lead role.

More than the other legal mysteries we've heard on the podcast, the action in a life in your hands is confined largely to the courtroom.

The audience hears a prologue that introduces the crime, the victim, and the accused before we head off to court.

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