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Radiolab Presents: More Perfect - Object Anyway

At the trial of James Batson in 1982, the prosecution eliminated all the black jurors from the jury pool. Batson objected, setting off a complicated discussion about jury selection that would make its way all the way up to the Supreme Court. On this episode of More Perfect, the Supreme Court ruling that was supposed to prevent race-based jury selection, but may have only made the problem worse. Support Radiolab by becoming a member today at Radiolab.org/donate.        
Duration
52m
Broadcast on
22 Nov 2016
Audio Format
other

At the trial of James Batson in 1982, the prosecution eliminated all the black jurors from the jury pool. Batson objected, setting off a complicated discussion about jury selection that would make its way all the way up to the Supreme Court. On this episode of More Perfect, the Supreme Court ruling that was supposed to prevent race-based jury selection, but may have only made the problem worse.

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You're listening to RadioLab from WNYC. Hi, I'm Robert Krollich. This is RadioLab, and this week we're going to do something a little unusual. I don't know how many of you know that earlier this year we launched a spectacularly successful I should say, spin-off from RadioLab. Sean Rames' farm was a correspondent on the show. I was, yeah. And tell us what it was called. It was called "More Perfect," it was a podcast about the Supreme Court of the United States. And what about the Supreme Court of the United States? You know, all of it, race, class, gender, sex, money, power, religion, how the institution deals with these issues that sometimes divide this nation. It's also filled with people's stories and judges, it was one where a judge nearly went out of his mind. That's a good way. It's a good one. Yeah, it was a good one. And by the way, since so many people have been writing all the time about what's going to happen to the more perfect we want, more and more perfect, is there going to be anymore? I can, in fact, confirm there will be more and more perfect. You can't. Expect details, please. More and more perfect. We're working on a bunch of episodes right now. They should be coming out in the spring of 2017, probably May. Okay. And until then, we would recommend, if you haven't heard all of the ones we did this here, go to RadioLab.org and they're waiting for you. I know we've put a few of these more perfects on our podcast feed before. This is the first time for this one on RadioLab. That's one of my favorites. So here it is from our podcast, More Perfect, Object Anyway, Which You Won't More Perfect. The honor of all the chief justice and the associate justices of the Supreme Court of United States, all the residents having business before the honor of the Supreme Court of the United States, were admonished to draw near and give their intent to the court, is now sitting, God's faith is in its stakes in the songable part. All right, let's do it. Yup. Hey, I'm Chad Habumrah. This is More Perfect, mini series about the Supreme Court. And today's story from a reporter, Sean, I always f up your last name. Can you just say it? It's a famous firm. A famous firm. I always put the accent in the wrong place. Anyhow, let me set the table for you. We live in a representative democracy. And what does that actually mean, practically speaking, like when do we come in contact with that democracy? Two places seems to me mainly, one, when we vote, right?

Transcription truncated.

At the trial of James Batson in 1982, the prosecution eliminated all the black jurors from the jury pool. Batson objected, setting off a complicated discussion about jury selection that would make its way all the way up to the Supreme Court. On this episode of More Perfect, the Supreme Court ruling that was supposed to prevent race-based jury selection, but may have only made the problem worse. Support Radiolab by becoming a member today at Radiolab.org/donate.