S12, Ep2: The Trial Begins

Drilled

Critical Frequency

True Crime, Earth Sciences, Social Sciences, Science

4.8 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 10 June 2025

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Alleen arrives in North Dakota for jury selection and is shocked watching it play out. The judge won't allow recording in the court, jurors who flat-out say they are biased against activists or are directly involved in the fossil fuel industry are put on the jury. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	It is frickin' early.
0:08.0	It's 6.38.
0:10.8	I wanted to leave it 6.30, but that's fine.
0:15.0	And I am headed to the Morton County Courthouse.
0:19.7	It's day one of the energy transfer versus Greenpeace trial in Mandan, North Dakota.
0:24.9	The courthouse won't open until 7.30, but I heard there was very limited seating in the courtroom,
0:29.6	and I want to be sure to get in, even if it means waiting outside the door until it opens.
0:33.9	Last week, it was 30 below.
0:37.8	Luckily, right now, it's about 36 degrees,
0:40.8	so if I'm standing around outside, I will survive.
0:45.8	It's important that I'm there to listen,
0:48.1	because no one's going to get to record anything inside the trial.
0:52.2	You know, we had some pretty unfavorable rulings from the judge about press access.
0:58.5	I'm pretty irritated that I'm not going to be able to bring anything except a pen and paper in
1:05.9	there.
1:06.7	The judge is worried about witness contamination and jury contamination.
1:13.7	So he ruled that we can't even record on our cell phones for note-taking purposes.
1:28.2	Drilled in several other media organizations filed a request for a live stream of the trial.
1:33.7	When the judge said no, we asked to just be able to record so we could get the quotes right.
1:38.5	That was a no, too.
1:40.3	Now, we're waiting on the North Dakota Supreme Court to respond to our appeal.
1:46.0	But I'm not feeling optimistic. I pull up to the courthouse. The parking spots in front of the brick building are empty.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 5 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Critical Frequency, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Critical Frequency and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.