Radiolab Presents: More Perfect - The Imperfect Plaintiffs
On this episode, we visit Edward Blum, a 64-year-old “legal entrepreneur” and former stockbroker who has become something of a Supreme Court matchmaker. He’s had remarkable success, with 6 cases heard before the Supreme Court, including that of Abigail Fisher. We also head to Houston, Texas, where in 1998, an unusual 911 call led to one of the most important LGBT rights decisions in the Supreme Court’s history.
- Duration
- 1h 8m
- Broadcast on
- 28 Jun 2016
- Audio Format
- other
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On this episode, we visit Edward Blum, a 64-year-old “legal entrepreneur” and former stockbroker who has become something of a Supreme Court matchmaker. He’s had remarkable success, with 6 cases heard before the Supreme Court, including that of Abigail Fisher. We also head to Houston, Texas, where in 1998, an unusual 911 call led to one of the most important LGBT rights decisions in the Supreme Court’s history.
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"Hey everybody, this is Jad." As you may or may not know, we just started our first ever radio lab spinoff called More Perfect, which the idea is to tell stories about the Supreme Court, or like cases that are in front of the Supreme Court and to hear those dramatic stories and then sort of think about them really hard. Kind of taking the radio lab vibe and putting it into this new space. It's done really well. We're so excited and we want the entire radio lab posse to know about it. So if you haven't subscribed yet, go to iTunes or wherever you get your podcast, check it out. We hope you'll subscribe. And I wanted to play actually one more episode for you guys. This one is an episode we've been working on in researching and reporting for months and months and months. Really hope you enjoy it. More perfect. Hey, I'm Jad Abenrod. This is More Perfect. Today, two stories from reporter Catherine Wells. The first has some adult content in it, so be warned if you're listening with kids, you might want to skip this one. Here's Catherine. So maybe we can just start with the night that it started. Yeah, so when-- We can start with the start. Yeah, so give me the who, what, when, where. The best way to describe being a patrol officer on the street is you have a front row seat to the greatest show on Earth. September 17th, 1998. On the outskirts of Houston, there's a deputy sheriff named Joseph Quinn. Had been on duty very long at all. He's driving around and he hears this call go out on the radio. A priority call. Somebody's called in and said, there's a man going crazy with a gun in an apartment. He happens to be driving right by the apartment complex. Pretty familiar with the complex. I knew where the building was. So he's like, hey, I've got this.
Transcription truncated.
On this episode, we visit Edward Blum, a 64-year-old “legal entrepreneur” and former stockbroker who has become something of a Supreme Court matchmaker. He’s had remarkable success, with 6 cases heard before the Supreme Court, including that of Abigail Fisher. We also head to Houston, Texas, where in 1998, an unusual 911 call led to one of the most important LGBT rights decisions in the Supreme Court’s history.