The landscape of abortion rights in America is unrecognizable in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Join us for our fourth episode this season as we navigate this tumultuous terrain, dissecting the seismic shifts and looming legal — and political — battles that promise to keep this issue at the…

Editor’s note: This episode is not family friendly due to some colorful language. A long-running feud between eviction lawyers Dennis Block and Danny Bramzon cumulated into a Twitter parody account and a libel lawsuit that made it all the way to a jury trial. In the third episode this season, we take the temperature of defamation law in the 21st ce…

Surprise, listeners! We’re coming to you, almost live, with a special breaking news mini episode on the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision to keep former President Donald Trump on Colorado’s ballot. Our very own Amanda Pampuro and Kelsey Reichmann meticulously dissect the twists and turns of the legal journey that led to this point, from the initia…

Look around, dear listener. Everything is heart-shaped and pink. People are getting ready for a special night with their special someone. In our second episode this season, we take you through the dark alleyways of online dating, where $1.3 billion vanished into the pockets of scammers in just one year, and peel back the layers of marketing sleight…

Welcome to season four of Sidebar! We're kicking off our first episode of 2024 by traversing the digital terrain of internet sleuths, those armchair detectives whose keyboards are the new magnifying glasses. Everyone has a hobby. Something to keep them busy, pass the time or unwind after work. Maybe listening to your favorite podcast is that thing.…

Season four of Sidebar, a podcast from Courthouse News, kicks off just around the corner. Join our hosts and reporters as they take you around the nation to break down lawsuits, the law and how they impact you and the life you live. Follow us on Twitter @SidebarCNS and www.courthousenews.com for more. This episode was produced by Kirk McDaniel. Int…

Welcome to our end-of-the-year gala episode of Sidebar. It's hard to divvy out awards for the most important or interesting cases of 2023 when former President Donald Trump has dominated so many of them. This was the year Trump took over Courthouse News, appearing in court as a defendant many times. From charges in New York that Trump schemed to ma…

No institution in American life has a far-reaching and outsized role in communities quite like the public school system. Take a seat, Sidebar listeners, as we dive into the heart of public education and its role in our democracy for our penultimate episode this season. We take you beyond the classroom, looking at landmark rulings like Brown v. Boar…

Happy Halloween, all you goblins and ghouls. Prepare yourselves for a real spooky season treat as we traverse the gloomy annals of witch trials. Join us for our 12th episode this season as we dispel myths and shine a light on how and why these judicial proceedings played out across Europe and the United States. We're talking grand juries, indictmen…

Another year, another five-alarm fire burning before the U.S. Supreme Court. Kelsey Reichmann, Courthouse News’ Supreme Court reporter and the newest addition to the Sidebar team, joined just in time for this year's preview of the court's upcoming term. The top court in all the land is back at it again following landmark decisions that it has deliv…

The love story between Hollywood megastars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie was destined for public fascination from the start as they merged family, philanthropy and a rather unexpected shared passion — wine. So, when they split in 2016, no one saw it coming. What followed was one of the most bitterly contested celebrity divorces in recent history. Bu…

Welcome back, listeners, from what we hope was a calm, relaxing break. If it was anything like ours, just when you cozied up with a summer read, you were likely jarred back to reality by a pesky robocall asking about your auto warranty. Receiving unwanted robocalls remains a universal experience 32 years after Congress passed the Telephone Consumer…

Ed Sheeran and reggaeton might have more in common than you know: the artist and the genre have been the subject of battles over whether you can copyright a groove or a rhythm. In our last episode before summer break, we unravel the recent Ed Sheeran copyright trial with our New York City reporter, Josh Russell, including Sheeran's snarky cross-exa…

Should state borders change to create political havens? Come along as we take a road trip through the world of secession as we look at the urban-rural divide and how it shapes these movements. Our first stop in our seventh episode this season? The Greater Idaho movement, a grassroots organization that aims to shift the Idaho state border to encompa…

Imagine stashing your hard-earned savings in a safety deposit box, only to find out the FBI has raided the place and your money is gone thanks to the controversial practice of civil forfeiture, which allows law enforcement to seize people's assets with little explanation. That's what happened to a number of Californians who stored their cash at U.S…

A note: this episode contains language that might make you or your nana blush. Pull up a chair as we bring you into the comedy club and beyond. Laughter may be the best medicine, but how does it hold up in court? Over the decades, courts carved out clear First Amendment protections for comics facing criminal obscenity and parodists taken a little t…

Blue laws. They are quirky and annoying outdated restrictions on activities to ensure Sunday is a day of rest and worship. Some go beyond dictating when you can or cannot get a drink, and sometimes they leave you scratching your head wondering, why in the world are they still on the books? In this season's fourth episode, we dive into the history a…

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, around 60 million American households have pets. That is a ton of good boys and girls out there. But have you ever stopped and wondered about the laws that define pet ownership? Are there specific pets that you can't own where you live? How regulated is the pet trade? And what about exotic animals, where the sal…

Heads up for listeners: this episode contains explicit language. When legal battles come down to damages, most consider the final judgment to show who won the game and by how much. But in a highly specialized area of law, that judgment is just the beginning when the losing team refuses to pay. In our second episode this season, we introduce you to …

Welcome to season three of Sidebar! You'll want to strap in while we bring you closer to the stars as new technology and more investors bring us deeper into space. Science fiction is rapidly becoming science fact. One thing rarely discussed in your favorite sci-fi movies is the laws that govern outer space. If billions of dollars, dozens of politic…

Season three of Sidebar, a podcast from Courthouse News, kicks off just around the corner. Join our hosts and reporters as they take you around the nation to break down lawsuits, the law and how they impact you and the life you live. Follow us on Twitter @SidebarCNS and www.courthousenews.com for more. This episode was produced by Kirk McDaniel. In…

While some aspects of 2022 felt like a return to easier, simpler days, the news coming out of courthouses across the country did not stop. In this episode, we look at the year's most memorable trials: the ones that made us laugh, the ones that made us cry and the ones that made us stop and question how we got here. We take you back to the Alex Jone…

Bounty hunters. Figures from folk tales, fantasy and reality TV; free agents that work as an extension of the law. Whatever comes to mind, this latest chapter in vigilante justice is shaking things up even more at a polarized time in the country. The enaction of Texas's Senate Bill 8 allows private citizens to file civil lawsuits against anyone who…

Pour yourself a hot drink, settle in beside the fire and get ready for a hauntingly good time as we bring you four chilling tales just in time for Halloween. In our first chapter: McKamey Manor, arguably the scariest haunted house in operation, with an even scarier 40-page liability waiver. Among the things that you agree to possibly experience? Me…

While this U.S. Supreme Court term shouldn't result in as many sweeping decisions as the last, which upended nationwide abortion rights and gun control precedents, it'll be far from a lightweight season. The court's cases are varied: from redistricting to artist integrity to the legality of the Indian Child Welfare Act, which gives tribal governmen…

It's a First Amendment fight for the modern ages: the right to free speech versus the pursuit of justice, and the stakes are often someone's freedom. In courtrooms across the country, prosecutors are going after rappers using the artists' lyrics against them. While not a recent development in the law, the issue has entered the spotlight with the ar…

Jury duty. A cornerstone of the American justice system brings together complete strangers with almost no context to dispense justice. Being called to your civic duty as a juror can be confusing, like taking a class you never meant to sign up for. In this episode, we take you behind the scenes in courthouses across the country to reveal the inner w…

From August 1942 to October 1945, the Amache incarceration camp on the dusty, desolate eastern plain of Colorado detained 10,000 Japanese Americans and other immigrants. Those imprisoned at Amache built their own town with a fire department, a beauty salon and schools. Detainees raised crops, grew gardens and held festivals to honor the changing se…

Priceless artwork and tribal artifacts have made their way across the globe through several means, some legitimate and others … not so much. While we rely on these objects to tell us about history, tradition and culture, the way they end up in our communities sometimes raises questions about what should happen to them, where they rightfully belong …

It feels like hardly a day goes by when you don't hear about the passage of a new, sweeping abortion law, an abortion-rights group challenging the law or another state weighing in on the treatment of transgender children, medically or within the school system. At the core of all this is bodily autonomy. How much say does an individual have over the…

A quick note before we jump in: this episode contains discussions about abuse. It's not often that a case goes to trial that touches on many elements that intrigue the public. Celebrity, the #MeToo movement, public opinion and the media's coverage all swirl together as cameras are ready to capture the defamation trial between Hollywood stars Johnny…

Need a primer for this year's midterm elections? We've got you covered. We talk to reporters and experts about how former President Donald Trump is still shaping American politics after losing reelection almost two years ago. The glue that binds Republicans together isn’t just "Stop the Steal" and other theories circulating about voter integrity: i…

The internet never forgets. It's an invaluable tool, but also one that provides little forgiveness for some individuals whose past run-ins with law enforcement, financial woes and photos of a night out on the town become publicized. We are coming to you in this episode with a primer on why the "right to be forgotten” became law in the European Unio…

In this episode of Sidebar, we examine the human, ecological and political toll of the current and former administration's approaches to the U.S.-Mexico border. While physical barriers and infrastructure have entered into our collective imagery of today's border, nothing has a more tangible impact than policy. The Trump administration implemented t…

Welcome to the second season of Sidebar. A quick warning before we jump in: this episode contains adult language and descriptions of violence. We speak to Maurice Caldwell and Zachary Vanderhorst – two men recently exonerated after spending decades in prison. These men now must grapple with their unjust incarcerations and the toll taken on their li…

Season two of Sidebar, a podcast from Courthouse News, kicks off just around the corner. Join our hosts and reporters as they take you around the nation to break down lawsuits, the law and how they impact you and the life you live. Follow us on Twitter @SidebarCNS and www.courthousenews.com for more. This episode was produced by Kirk McDaniel. Intr…

Just when we think we have wrapped for the season … we're back, baby! We bring you this mini-episode to analyze Friday's decision by the Supreme Court, which allows Texas abortion providers to sue some defendants over the near-total abortion ban and leaves the Texas law in place. Kelsey Reichmann, our Supreme Court reporter, joins Sidebar producer …

Welcome to the season finale! We culminate 11 episodes with a look into UFOs with the experts who study them and seek to know more about if there is really life out there. What does science say, and what can we expect our government to tell us about these unidentified objects? Then, we break down the oddest, wildest cases and news events that the p…

We kick off the penultimate episode of our first season of Sidebar in the American West, where a dispute has been brewing for decades between ranchers, the government and environmentalists over wolves. This long-standing debate over the extent to which these carnivorous mammals should be protected or hunted down and killed isn't going anywhere soon…

In our ninth episode of Sidebar, we chronicle the pivotal cases the Supreme Court will hear over the next few months on divisive issues like abortion, gun control and the separation of church and state. Will the court's conservative majority pen rulings that could change the country's landscape? Then, we dive into the conspiracy theory QAnon, the J…

We are coming at you in our eighth episode with three stories of power, corruption and accountability. To kick things off, we take a look with political science professor Cynthia McClintock at Peru's bid to extradite its former president, Alejandro Toledo Manrique, on charges of bribery and money laundering. Peru claims Toledo helped a Brazilian co…

In our seventh episode, we discuss how 9/11 changed the legal landscape — and our lives, as a result — the election to recall (or not) California Gov. Gavin Newsom and, just in time for college football, the long, long fight to compensate student-athletes. Firstly, we take an in-depth look at how the 9/11 terror attack has reshaped the laws of the …

We are taking a detailed look at the drought in the American West, spanning from water wars in Arizona, wildfires in California and why drought seems to be becoming the way of life across the West. First, we dive into Arizona's relationship with the Colorado River and hear about the shrinking lifeline that provides water to 40 million people in the…

In episode 5, we take a look at political and medical efforts by groups and people to go their own way, from anti-vaxxers in California and the politically defiant in Texas and D.C. We start the episode with a dive into the FBI’s ongoing efforts to track down people who took part in the Jan. 6 insurrection and talk to former prosecutor Glenn Kirsch…

We dig into efforts to decriminalize psychedelic drugs and take you behind the scenes of two trials dealing with sex crimes. To start, we break down efforts by California lawmakers to light a fire on legalizing a host of psychedelics. Then, we hear from investigative journalist Sarah Berman about NXIVM, a sex cult with some high-profile members tha…

In our third episode, we take a look into the digital fallout of two California cases. First, we dive into the sisterhood formed by young women coerced into filming pornography by GirlsDoPorn, a company that promised not to post the videos online. Then we take you to an Oakland courtroom, where Fortnite creator Epic Games is battling Apple over its…

We are breaking down this spring's dramatic Texas Legislative session, which saw the passage of bills barring transgender youth from participating in sports and banning abortion after six weeks, and how it ended in a Democratic walkout. We also take a look at a federal jury trial over a freezer tank failure that destroyed thousands of frozen eggs a…

In our inaugural episode, we’re taking a look back to one year ago, when a viral video showed George Floyd being held on the ground for nine minutes, with white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin's knee on his neck. Since then, worldwide protests calling for racial justice sparked criminal charges, a trial and a guilty verdict. We also have o…