Sidebar by Courthouse News

Grab your passport, doughty listener. We're headed across the Atlantic to see how justice works in England and France, and why it looks so different from the U.S.

While a judge in France takes an active role seeking the absolute truth, the U.S. system functions more like a high-stakes sporting event, where the judge serves as a referee between two competing sides.

In our fifth episode this season, we trace the evolution of trial...

What began as a brazen early morning shooting outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel quickly escalated into a nationwide manhunt and a complex legal and cultural phenomenon.

In our fourth episode this season, Josh Russell sits down with his New York courts colleague Erik Uebelacker to unpack the high-profile killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the looming dual trials for suspect Luigi Mangione.

Spanning state and federal co...

As immigration enforcement intensifies, so do questions about the limits of federal power. In our third episode this season, we unpack the legal maze surrounding federal law enforcement and the steep uphill battle for victims who want to hold agents accountable for constitutional violations.

We trace the roots of the civil rights law Section 1983 and Bivens, which once gave citizens a path to sue federal officers. But decades of cou...

In our second episode this season, we dive into the high-stakes world of online wagering. We trace the path of online sports betting from offshore sites like the World Sports Exchange to the landmark 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Murphy v. NCAA, which dismantled the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act ban on sports gambling and launched a billion-dollar industry.

What was once a legal grey area has moved into the main...

Welcome back! We're kicking off our sixth season of Sidebar by dissecting imaginary legal codes of fiction to uncover truths about our real-world search for fairness. From the ethical dilemmas of "How to Get Away with Murder" and "Better Call Saul" to the lawless world of Harry Potter, where a lack of attorneys often leaves characters in peril, we examine how pop culture shapes our understanding of justice....

The Sidebar crew is back for 2026 with a brand-new season of deep dives and analysis. From the world of online gambling and fictional laws of the land to a new round of life-altering decisions from the nation's highest court, join the Courthouse News team for another season of your favorite legal news podcast. 

This episode was produced by Kirk McDaniel. Intro music by The Dead Pens. 

Editorial staff is Ryan Abbott, Se...

It's that time of the year again, dear listener: our season five finale, where three cases, three courtrooms and one very strange year collide. 

We kick things off with the trial that dominated headlines with its circus-like atmosphere: The United States of America v. Sean "Diddy" Combs. The rapper and producer was acquitted in Manhattan of racketeering conspiracy and two counts of sex trafficking by a jury, but convi...

We're a year out from the midterm elections next November. Control of Congress hangs in the balance. Democrats are itching to rein in President Trump, while Republicans are pulling out every stop to keep power.

But behind the headlines, the real game is being played by billionaires. If the 2024 bromance between Trump and Elon Musk taught us anything, it’s that the richest Americans can pull the strings of democracy. 

In our penu...

Gather around the firepit, fair listener, as we bring you the tale of a prisoner whose criminal history was as illustrious as his love of birds.

Robert Stroud was convicted of manslaughter and murder, but may be better known for the birds he raised and sold while an inmate at Leavenworth penitentiary. Stroud wrote two books about birds during his incarceration and gained respect among bird-lovers. That incongruity — a violent prison...

From firing high profile government employees to making fundamental decisions on who can officially call themselves an American citizen, the U.S. Supreme Court and the Trump administration – its most frequent litigant lately – are turning to the court’s emergency docket to unkink the federal government’s policy hose. 

But unlike the court’s regular docket, the justices can use the emergency docket without having to explain themselve...

As Congress and the courts attempt to untangle the complex web of human trafficking investigations related to the late billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, members of the Trump administration, some of whom trumpeted the push for disclosure as pundits and podcasters before being appointed to the inside, are now pleading with the MAGA base to move on. 

But now that they’ve lived through more than a decade of intense speculation of who flew on...

Forrest Fenn hid a treasure chest full of gold and diamonds somewhere out in the Rocky Mountains because he wanted kids to go outside and smell the sunshine, inspiring hosts of naturalists to hide their own treasures and, more importantly, enjoy the treasures that are U.S. public lands. 

But these treasured lands and parks have suffered abuse, neglect and the constant threat of being sold off by zealous policymakers looking to open ...

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to legally recognize same-sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges hits its 10-year anniversary this year, and a radically different court is now tasked with parsing through a fresh slate of thorny questions affecting the LGBTQ community. 

The right to marry was a monumental acknowledgement, a significant step toward mainstream societal acceptance of the LGBTQ community, but the journey there was arduou...

Los Angeles is in crisis, facing a staggering $1 billion budget deficit thanks to dwindling tax revenues, rising workforce costs and legal settlements. Judgments against the city have skyrocketed, with payouts nearly quadrupling from $91 million to $320 million in just four years. 

While much of this financial burden stems from lawsuits involving the Los Angeles Police Department, housing discrimination and crumbling infrastructure,...

The future is here.

Sixty years ago, the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick wondered whether androids dream and what about. As artificial intelligence moves from the realm of sci-fi into daily reality, helping companies and governments analyze data and make decisions, the questions of what mechanisms motivate AI and whether these programs can overcome human limitations remain unanswered.

Many tech leaders seem to believe we are on...

In February, President Donald Trump started signing a series of executive orders and presidential memorandums against individual “Big Law” firms, accusing them of engaging in “conduct detrimental to critical American interests” and directing federal agency heads to review and scrutinize security clearances and any government contracts, as well as barring attorneys from government buildings.

These targeted executive orders — and the ...

Welcome to the age of the imperial presidency, dear listener.

After President Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office in January, he flexed a newfound authority unlike his predecessors as he spent the first few weeks legislating through executive orders.

Whether you think Trump is above the law in practice or theory, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last July in Trump v. United States feels particularly poignant as his administrati...

It took decades for death row inmate Richard Glossip to convince Oklahomans and, later, the U.S. Supreme Court that he deserved a new trial. Glossip is just one of many inmates who say they faced convictions for crimes they did not commit. Read about enough of these cases, and you’ll be asking, “Is innocence enough?”

For the wrongfully convicted, tearful reunions and proclamations of justice from the courthouse steps only come after...

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, otherwise known as RICO. It's famous as the law used to take down organized crime, with then-U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani bringing the Mafia Commission Trial in the 1980s after indicting nine high-level organized crime figures, including the heads of New York's "Five Families."

But that's not the only time it comes up in court. It's been used in cri...