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More Perfect

More Perfect presents: Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl

More Perfect

WNYC Studios

Wnyc, Scotus, Perfect, History, Court, More, Documentary, Courses, Supreme, Education, Society & Culture

4.814.7K Ratings

🗓️ 17 June 2016

⏱️ 42 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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.

Transcript

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0:00.0

More perfect.

0:30.0

Hey, I'm Chad Ebbomrod. This is more perfect. Right now, Bosse here is working

0:52.2

madly on a story about a Supreme Court case that will be decided any minute. It's

0:57.2

one of the most important Supreme Court cases this term, maybe of my lifetime. But in the meantime,

1:02.7

I wanted to share something with you guys. As you may know, this new podcast you're listening

1:08.9

to more perfect is Radio Labs first ever spin off. The episode for me, the Radio Lab episode for

1:16.0

me that inspired me to try out this whole series, it actually goes back to 2012. It was our first

1:22.4

time ever reporting about the Supreme Court. I asked the entire team at Radio Lab to look at the

1:27.4

docket for that year. Pick a case, make a few calls, it was sort of an experiment. Reporter Tim

1:32.0

Howard came back with the following story. It's about a little girl who becomes the center of a

1:39.2

very big fight. This is the story that got us hooked on thinking about the Supreme Court. And in

1:45.9

many ways, it inspired us to make more perfect. Here's Tim. So I first heard about this story.

1:55.6

I saw it listed on the Supreme Court docket for cases that they were going to be hearing this spring.

2:01.2

Well, the name of the case is Baby Girl versus Adoptive Couple. Actually, in strict legal parlance,

2:06.1

it's called Adoptive Couple, V Baby Girl. It's not a particularly catchy name. I gotta say,

2:10.6

it's a weird name though. It's hard to picture. Yeah. So this is Marsha Zuck.

2:14.8

An associate professor of law at the University of South Carolina. And she wrote about this case

2:18.8

in slate. And it stood out to me because, you know, it just seemed odd at first that this would

2:23.4

even be a Supreme Court case. It seemed more like a straightforward custody case. Right. But

2:30.4

when you dig in, there's a lot going on here. Who says text messages? Stayed lost. Errors.

2:36.1

Children of Supreme Court. Christopher Columbus. Christopher Columbus. And it is not straightforward

2:41.8

at all. Apparently not. So let me walk you through it the way that I learned about it.

...

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