It’s not unusual at all to leave prison anywhere across the country owing fees, fines, or other costs to the local court. The city of Philadelphia alone is trying to collect some $1.5 billion in judicial debt owed back to days of the Nixon Administration. But should courts try to collect from a population, ex-inmates, who have 70 percent unemployment rate?

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When a serious drought hit just months after an Oregon court awarded senior water rights to the Klamath Tribes, the tribe made a ‘call’ for water. The call meant enough water in its rivers and streams to keep the Upper Klamath Lake full, protecting two species of fish that are important to the tribe. But it left area ranchers with no water at all.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this edition of Freestyle, Al Letson devotes the entire hour-long program to Life of the Law, presenting three podcasts: Shannon Heffernan of WBEZ reporting on "Jury Nullification", Michael May's PRX funded report on "Forensics in Flames" and Sean Cole on investigating attorneys who advertise on "Call Now!"

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s hard to imagine Supreme Court Justices working outside of Washington, D.C. But for the first half of our country’s history, they spent much of their time traveling as circuit court judges. And it may have made them better Supreme Court justices.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to execute people with mental disabilities. But the Court left it up to individual states to define mentally disabled. After the Texas legislature failed to agree on a definition, a decision from the Court of Criminal Appeals became the de facto definition, a definition based in part on John Steinbeck’s novella Of Mice and Men.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Over the past 20 years, there’s been a revolution in the science of arson investigations. Many of the clues that had been used for decades to determine that a fire was not accidental, especially the analysis of burn patterns on walls and floors, have been proven to be false. Texas is one state that is re-examining arson convictions that may have been based on junk science.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Most of us have an idea of what the crime of rape is. But the legal meaning of the word rape varies widely, depending on which state you’re in. And in 25 states, what we may think of as rape…isn’t called that at all.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When things go bad, all you need to do is pick up the phone and CALL. Or so the late-night ads on basic cable tell us. Since the US Supreme Court allowed lawyers to advertise in the 1970s, the practice has skyrocketed, with often shoddily-produced results. Are tacky lawyer ads bringing down the profession or simply making it more accessible to those who might not otherwise know an attorney?

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Diana Adams believes the family law system is at least 20 years behind cultural changes. She helps non-traditional families—such as three people in love—find a simulacrum of the protection offered by legal marriage. But her real goal is to change our idea of what “marriage” can be.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In its code of ethics, the American Institute of Architects requires members to “uphold human rights.” But what does that mean when it comes to prisons—specificially, those that confine inmates largely to their cells with little to do? Raphael Sperry is an architect in San Francisco and president of Architects, Designers, and Planners for Social Responsibility. He wants his profession to refuse to design facilities for solitary confinement or execution.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices