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Act One: Blood Brothers

When he was a kid, Josh Martin's mother Nancy told him that if anythingever happened to her, he needed to take care of his brother Ben. This confusedJosh, because Ben was his older brother, and he felt that if anything heshould be the one taken care of.

Act Four: A Night In Drug Court

Before this show ended we wanted to know—how typical are the horror stories? What happens in a typical drug case? To find out, reporter Nancy Updike spent nine hours in Night Narcotics Court in Chicago. What she discovers is that the system is working as fairly as one could hope or expect, with one caveat: Nearly all the defendants are African-American, even though the jurisdiction contains an equal number of white drug users.

Act One: Hasta La Vista, Maybe

In California, Maryland and Oklahoma, the governors can over-rule parole boards' decisions to free prisoners serving life sentences. In all three states this has evolved to the point where very few prisoners get released.

Act Four

Ira talks with Ed Ryder, who was wrongly imprisoned for twenty years and recently released. The whole time Ryder was in prison, he dreamt of starting up a band.

Act Two: Jury

Jonathan Goldstein talks to Sven Berger, a juror still hung up over an assignment he served ten years ago. Jonathan is the host of Heavyweight from Gimlet Media, which just began its third season.

Act Four: Open Your Big Mouth

What happens when you go into a place—in this case a prison—where there are all sorts of codes about what you're never supposed to say...and you say every one of them. Rick Reynolds tells a story from his one-man show (and CD) All Grown Up and No Place to Go, about performing stand-up comedy at a maximum security prison just before Christmas a few years ago.

Act Two: Jail Sell

Writer/performer Danny Hoch performs a monologue taken from his one man show, Jails, Hospitals and Hip-Hop. It's a story about a guy who's been locked up for doing the most American activity possible: Selling stuff on the street (in this case Bart Simpson/O.J. Simpson t-shirts).

Act One: D-u-why?!

Mike Birbiglia recalls being in a car accident with a hit and run drunk driver. In the weeks that follow, Mike's brush with death turns into a full blown nightmare when the police report is so poorly filled out that somehow Mike winds up owing the drunk driver 12 thousand dollars…not because it's fair, but because he can't get anyone to listen to him.

Act One: Weeds of Discontent

A recording of a very unusual conversation that came about in an unusual way. Filmmaker named Eugene Jarecki made a documentary about the drug war, prisons and the criminal justice system called The House I Live In.He’s been taking it around the country and showing it in prisons, and producer Brian Reed went to one of these screenings where an inmate and a corrections staff member ended up talking face-to-face.

Act One: There's No U.s. In Habeas.

Jack Hitt explains how President Bush's War on Terror changed the rules for prisoners of war and how it is that under those rules, it'd be possible that someone whose classified file declares that they pose no threat to the United States could still be locked up indefinitely—potentially forever!—at Guantanamo.

Act One: Chinese Checkmate

Some adventures you seek out on purpose, and others hunt you down. Producer Alex Blumberg tells this story, about the experience a guy had in China...which started out as first kind of adventure, then quickly turned into the second kind.

Prologue

Host Ira Glass recalls the case of the so-called Detroit Sleeper Cell—four men, arrested in the weeks after 9/11, accused of plotting terrorist attacks. Ira explains that the entire program will be devoted to the story of the man who prosecuted the case...an up-and-coming prosecutor in the Department of Justice, Richard G.

Act Three: Who's Your Daddy?

A reading of a pamphlet written by ex-con Stephen Donaldson for heterosexual men who are about to enter prison, about how to "hook up" with a stronger man —"daddy" or "jocker"—who'll provide protection in return for sex. He explains the rules and mores that govern this part of American prison culture.

Act One: There's No U.s. In Habeas.

Jack Hitt explains how President Bush's War on Terror changed the rules for prisoners of war and how it is that under those rules, it'd be possible that someone whose classified file declares that they pose no threat to the United States could still be locked up indefinitely—potentially forever!—at Guantanamo. (26 minutes).Clarification: When Seton Hall professor Baher Azmy discusses the classified file of his client, Murat Kurnaz, he is referring to information that had previously been made public and published in the Washington Post.

Prologue

Host Ira Glass with former Congressman Daniel Rostenkowski. When Rostenkowski began a term in federal prison, he met for the first time people who'd been locked up under harsh drug laws that he'd voted for himself. "The whole thing's a sham," he declares.

Act One

Hemant Lakhani, an Indian-born British citizen, had been a salesman all his life. Clothing, rice, oil...it didn't matter to him what, as long as he could spin a deal.