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Radiolab

WNYC Studios

History, Science, Documentary, Natural Sciences, Society & Culture

4.6 • 44.5K Ratings

🗓️ 16 December 2022

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This episode, first aired in 2017, has Reporter Tracie Hunte and Editor Soren Wheeler exploring a hidden power in the U.S. Court System that is either the cornerstone of our democracy or a trapdoor to anarchy. Should a juror be able to ignore the law? From a Quaker prayer meeting in the streets of London to riots in the streets of Los Angeles, we trace the history of a quiet act of rebellion and struggle with how much power “We the People” should really have.Special thanks to Darryl K. Brown, professor of law at the University of Virginia, Andrew Leipold, professor of law at the University of Illinois, at Urbana-Champaign, Nancy King, professor of law at Vanderbilt University, Buzz Scherr law professor at University of New Hampshire, Eric Verlo and attorneys David Lane, Mark Sisto, David Kallman and Paul Grant. Episode Credits:Reported by Tracie HunteProduced by Matt Kielty Citations:Media: You can hear the whole On the Media series, The Divided Dial, and many of their other great work by following this link(https://zpr.io/hbkfxQDKdHz8). Our newsletter comes out every Wednesday. It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)! Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, I'm Laptop Nasser.
0:01.2	I'm Lulu Miller. This is Radio Lab.
0:03.0	And today in service of this Radio Lab rewind, we're about to play for you this episode from the
0:08.4	archives. I want to ask you, Lulu. Have you ever done jury duty?
0:14.2	I have not. And I really want to, I mean, maybe I shouldn't say that on the air because like the
0:18.9	envelope will come and it'll be the good of the, but I would love to. And I have never even been
0:23.6	called. I think I've moved so many times. I don't know where I am.
0:26.4	I just became a citizen relatively recently as you know. So I haven't, I also haven't been called,
0:33.2	but I, I want to do it.
0:36.4	Yeah. What is it for you? Why do you want to do it?
0:38.8	I mean, there's part of it that feels like a, you're, I don't know, just a weird thing to say.
0:43.5	Like maybe like a little power trip to be like, oh, wow, like I get to, it's also, and again,
0:48.3	another thing that maybe I shouldn't say a lot, but like, there's something like kind of
0:51.7	voyeuristic about it. Yeah. It's like an out of body moment. It's out of your life. You get to kind
0:56.8	of like exit your life and sort of get plunged into probably the most dramatic moment of somebody
1:03.8	else's life kind of in a, in a ethical moral puzzle of what to do next. And there, there's something
1:11.2	kind of, I think very humbling and powerful about that moment.
1:16.7	And today we have a story that is about that power, but it's, it's about not just a power that
1:24.7	you walk in the door of jury duty with. It's about this kind of trap door on any jury, which I had
1:29.7	no idea about was waiting there that you can kind of fall through and access a whole new realm
1:36.4	of powers that isn't just about guilt or innocence. That isn't just about truth, but it's,
1:41.2	it like gives you and your whole jury, I don't know, change democracy.
	...

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