The law protects creators' original work against copycats, but it also leaves the door open for some kinds of copying. When a photographer sues the Andy Warhol Foundation for using her work without permission, the justices struggle not to play art critics as they decide the case. More Perfect explores how this star-studded case offers a look at how this Court actually makes decisions. Voices in the episode include: • David Hobbs — known as Mr. Mixx, co-founder of the hip-hop group 2 Live Crew • ...
Aug 03, 2023•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast In 1902, a Swedish-American pastor named Henning Jacobson refused to get the smallpox vaccine. This launched a chain of events leading to two landmark Supreme Court cases, in which the Court considered the balancing act between individual liberty over our bodies and the collective good. A version of this story originally ran on The Experiment on March 21, 2021. Voices in the episode include: • Rev. Robin Lutjohann — pastor of Faith Lutheran Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts • Michael Willrich —...
Jul 27, 2023•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast Dred Scott v. Sandford is one of the most infamous cases in Supreme Court history: in 1857, an enslaved person named Dred Scott filed a suit for his freedom and lost. In his decision, Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney wrote that Black men “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” One Civil War and more than a century later, the Taneys and the Scotts reunite at a Hilton in Missouri to figure out what reconciliation looks like in the 21st century. Voices in the episode include: • Ly...
Jul 20, 2023•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast David Souter is one of the most private, low-profile justices ever to have served on the Supreme Court. He rarely gives interviews or speeches. Yet his tenure was anything but low profile. Deemed a “home run” nominee by Republicans, Souter defied partisan expectations on the bench and ultimately ceded his seat to a Democratic president. In this episode, the story of how “No More Souters” became a rallying cry for Republicans and inspired a backlash that would change the Court forever. Voices in ...
Jul 13, 2023•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast Recently, On the Media’s Micah Loewinger was called to testify in court. He had reported on militia groups who’d helped lead the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Now the government was using his work as evidence in a case against them. Micah wanted nothing to do with it — he worried that participating in the trial would signal to sources that he couldn’t be trusted, which would compromise his work. As he considered his options, he uncovered a 1972 case called Branzburg v. Hayes . It involved New...
Jun 29, 2023•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast Last week, the Supreme Court upheld the Indian Child Welfare Act in a case called Haaland v. Brackeen . The decision comes almost exactly 10 years after the Supreme Court ruled in Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl , which planted the seed for last week’s big ruling. To mark the new landmark decision, More Perfect re-airs the Radiolab episode that tells the story of two families, a painful history, and a young girl caught in the middle. Voices in the episode include: • Allison Herrera — KOSU Indigenou...
Jun 22, 2023•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast Now that the “viability line” in pregnancy — as defined by Roe v. Wade — is no longer federal law, lawmakers and lawyers are coming up with new frameworks for abortion access at a dizzying rate. In this second part of our series, More Perfect asks: what if abortion law wasn’t shaped by men at the Supreme Court, but instead by people who know what it’s like to be pregnant, to have abortions, and to lose pregnancies? We hear from women on the front lines of the next legal battle over abortion in A...
Jun 15, 2023•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast When the justices heard oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization , the landmark abortion case, one word came up more than any other: viability. The viability line was at the core of Roe v. Wade , and it’s been entrenched in the abortion rights movement ever since. But no one seems to remember how this idea made its way into the abortion debate in the first place. This week on More Perfect, we trace it back to the source and discover how a clerk and a couple of judges turned...
Jun 08, 2023•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, we revisit one of the most important Supreme Court cases you’ve probably never heard of: Baker v. Carr, a redistricting case from the 1960s, which challenged the justices to consider what might happen if they stepped into the world of electoral politics. It’s a case so stressful that it pushed one justice to a nervous breakdown, put another justice in the hospital, brought a boiling feud to a head, and changed the course of the Supreme Court — and the nation — forever. Voices in the e...
Jun 01, 2023•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast Unlike other branches of government, the Supreme Court operates with almost no oversight. No cameras are allowed in the courtroom, no binding code of ethics, and records of their activities are incredibly hard to get. So how do reporters uncover the activities of the nine most powerful judges in the country? Live from the Logan Symposium on Investigative Reporting at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, host Julia Longoria talks to journalists behind bombshell investigations of the Court...
May 25, 2023•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast To many Americans, Clarence Thomas makes no sense. For more than 30 years on the Court, he seems to have been on a mission — to take away rights that benefit Black people. As a young man, though, Thomas listened to records of Malcolm X speeches on a loop and strongly identified with the tenets of Black Nationalism. This week on More Perfect, we dig into his writings and lectures, talk to scholars and confidants, and explore his past, all in an attempt to answer: what does Clarence Thomas think C...
May 18, 2023•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast More than 30 years ago, a Native American man named Al Smith was fired for ingesting peyote at a religious ceremony. When his battle made it to the Supreme Court, the decision set off a thorny debate over when religious people get to sidestep the law — a debate we’re still having today. Voices in the episode include: • Garrett Epps — University of Oregon Law School professor • Ka’ila Farrell-Smith — Al Smith’s daughter, visual artist • Jane Farrell — Al Smith's widow, retired early childhood spe...
May 11, 2023•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast To kick off the new season, host Julia Longoria returns to high school, where she first fell in love with the Supreme Court. She was a star on her high school’s nationally-ranked “Constitution team” (read: nerd Super Bowl). For Julia, the Court represented a place where two sides of an issue could be discussed and debated. A lot has changed since then — and public perception around the Court is polarized, to say the least. Which is why we’re taking a cue from high schoolers: this season on More ...
May 04, 2023•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast More Perfect has been dark for four years now. But next year, hosted by Julia Longoria, we're coming back! The past few weeks have been historic, to say the least, in Supreme Court history. So in the meantime, we want to hear from you. What do you want to know right now about the Supreme Court? What are your questions, your worries, your fears? Record a voice memo or write us a note and send it to moreperfect@wnyc.org.
Jul 14, 2022•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast In More Perfect's final episode of the season, listen to liner notes for two amendments that contemplate the still-unfinished status of our Constitution. "27" is an album that marks a particular point in our history: this moment when we have 27 Amendments to our Constitution. What will be the 28th? Maybe it will address our nation's capital. The capital has been a bit of a Constitutional anomaly for much of our nation's history — it's at the heart of the democracy, but because it's not a state, ...
Dec 04, 2018•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, More Perfect takes a look at three amendments on the more obscure end of the spectrum. The 12th, 17th, and 20th Amendments made fine-tune adjustments to the way we pick our leaders. More Perfect is here to prove these three are more interesting than you think they are. For starters, the 12th Amendment is the secret star of the hit musical "Hamilton ." The Election of 1800 and the kerfuffle between Aaron Burr and Thomas Jefferson was one of the reasons we passed the 12th Amendment, whi...
Nov 30, 2018•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast The 25th and 26th Amendments — ratified in 1967 and 1971, respectively — are some of the newest additions to our founding document. However, they tackle some pretty basic questions: who gets to rule, and who gets to vote? If a president dies or is incapacitated, who takes over? And how old do you have to be in order to participate in American democracy? In recent months, the 25th Amendment has swirled in and out of news cycles as Americans debate what it takes to declare a president unfit for of...
Nov 20, 2018•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast On first read the 16th and 22nd Amendments are at best sleepers and at worst, stinkers. In a list of Constitutional hits like the right to free speech, the right to bear arms, and birthright citizenship, the amendments covering taxes and term limits tend to fall by the wayside. But in this episode of More Perfect we take these forgotten gems and make them shine. The 16th Amendment sets up the income tax, sinking dread into the hearts of millions of Americans every April. But if the income tax is...
Nov 14, 2018•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast Amendments 13, 14, and 15 are collectively known as the Reconstruction Amendments: they were passed as instructions to rebuild the country after the Civil War. They addressed slavery, citizenship, equality, and voting rights for Black people. This week, the More Perfect team explores the legacy of the amendments beyond the Civil War — the ways the promises of these amendments changed the country and the ways they've fallen short. First, More Perfect Executive Producer Suzie Lechtenberg and Legal...
Oct 24, 2018•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast Episode Four begins as all episodes should: with Dolly Parton. Parton wrote a song for us (!) about the 19th Amendment and women (finally) getting the right to vote.Also in this episode: Our siblings at Radiolab share a story with us that they did about how the 19th Amendment almost died on a hot summer night in Tennessee. The 19th Amendment was obviously a huge milestone for women in the United States. But it was pretty well-understood that this wasn’t a victory for all women; it was a victory ...
Oct 12, 2018•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast The first eight amendments to the U.S. Constitution are literal, straightforward, and direct. But when we get to Amendments Nine, 10, and 11, things get hazy. These are some of the least literal amendments in the Constitution: they mean more than they say, and what they say is often extremely confusing. So in the third episode of the new More Perfect season, we take these three blurry amendments and bring them into focus, embarking on a metaphorical, metaphysical, and somewhat astronomical journ...
Oct 02, 2018•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Amendments enshrine some of our most important civil liberties. They tell us about the rights we have when the government knocks on our door, including protections from "unreasonable searches and seizures," self-incrimination, "cruel and unusual punishments," and the right to "a speedy and public trial" — among others. Episode Two looks at these amendments through the story of one man, Christopher Scott, who finds himself face-to-face with Dallas poli...
Sep 25, 2018•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Last year in the wake of the attack in Las Vegas, reporter Sean Rameswaram took a deep dive into America's twisty, thorny, seemingly irreconcilable relationship with guns. It's a story about the Second Amendment, the Black Panthers, the NRA, and a guy named Dick Heller, who in 2008 brought the Second Amendment to the Supreme Court for the very first time.
Sep 19, 2018•1 hr 10 min•Transcript available on Metacast Let's get started. If we're talking about the Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, it only feels right to start at the beginning. The First and Second Amendments are arguably the most ferociously contentious amendments of them all, and the Third Amendment is the underdog that everyone underestimates but (maybe) shouldn’t. With that in mind, we dive into the poetic dream behind the First Amendment. This is the amendment that reflects the kind of country the Founding Fathers hoped we would be. Nex...
Sep 18, 2018•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast This fall, More Perfect is doing something brand new: We’re making an album! It’s called 27: The Most Perfect Album. We’ve partnered with some of the best musicians in the world— artists like Dolly Parton, Kevin Morby, Devendra Banhart, Aisha Burns, and more — to create songs inspired by the 27 amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Alongside the album, we’ll be launching SEASON THREE of our podcast, deep-diving into the history and resonance of the constitutional amendments with off-beat stories ...
Sep 11, 2018•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast What happens when the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, seems to get it wrong? Korematsu v. United States upheld President Franklin Roosevelt’s internment of American citizens during World War II based solely on their Japanese heritage, for the sake of national security. In this episode, we follow Fred Korematsu’s path to the Supreme Court, and we ask the question: if you can’t get justice in the Supreme Court, can you find it someplace else?
Jun 26, 2018•47 min•Transcript available on Metacast An unassuming string of 16 words tucked into the Constitution grants Congress extensive power to make laws that impact the entire nation. The Commerce Clause has allowed Congress to intervene in all kinds of situations — from penalizing one man for growing too much wheat on his farm, to enforcing the end of racial segregation nationwide. That is, if the federal government can make an economic case for it. This seemingly all-powerful tool has the potential to unite the 50 states into one nation a...
Jan 30, 2018•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast The rules of oral argument at the Supreme Court are strict: when a justice speaks, the advocate has to shut up. But a law student noticed that the rules were getting broken again and again — by men. He and his professor set out to chart an epidemic of interruptions. If women can’t catch a break in the boardroom or the legislature (or at the MTV VMA’s), what’s it going to take to let them speak from the bench of the highest court in the land?
Dec 19, 2017•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode, we revisit Edward Blum, a self-described “legal entrepreneur” and former stockbroker who has become something of a Supreme Court matchmaker: he takes an issue, finds the perfect plaintiff, matches them with lawyers, and helps the case work its way to the highest court in the land. His target: laws that differentiate between people based on race — including ones that empower minorities. More Perfect profiled Edward Blum in season one of the show. We catch up with him to hear abou...
Dec 07, 2017•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast On a fall afternoon in 1984, Dethorne Graham ran into a convenience store for a bottle of orange juice. Minutes later he was unconscious, injured, and in police handcuffs. In this episode, we explore a case that sent two Charlotte lawyers on a quest for true objectivity, and changed the face of policing in the US.
Nov 30, 2017•1 hr 8 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
