Sep 3, 2026 · 24 min · 12 segments
On this episode of Pursuing Justice, we're joined by Professor Henry, who will talk about the many cases of wrongful conviction where innocent people were convicted of crimes that simply never…
You know, I wanted to talk about misdemeanors because nobody talks about misdemeanors and nobody talks about misdemeanors is because we don't think of them as particularly consequential and we don't know a lot about.
Remember, the standard for arrest is probable cause, more probable than not that a crime occurred and that the person committed it, not a particularly high standard.
And once a person is brought into the system, they start accruing consequences, right? They aren't home to take care of their kids.
So they run the risk of losing their children, even from a three-day stint in jail.
And so what happens is they get brought in for these low-level misdemeanors.
But the truth is misdemeanor convictions have tremendous collateral consequences.
It can mess you up when you're applying for a job or applying for certain kinds of housing, depending on the conviction that you have.
And there are not that many known exonerations from misdemeanors, although there are a few.
And he was walking home one evening and the police kind of rolled up on him and threw him to the ground and kind of roughed him up and then accused him of assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest.
He pled guilty that night and he went home and that we never would have heard about this case ever.
But there was happened to be just happenstance, an anthropologist who was in this small town visiting, doing her research.
You know, I wanted to talk about misdemeanors because nobody talks about misdemeanors and nobody talks about misdemeanors is because we don't think of them as particularly consequential and we don't know a lot about.
Remember, the standard for arrest is probable cause, more probable than not that a crime occurred and that the person committed it, not a particularly high standard.
And once a person is brought into the system, they start accruing consequences, right? They aren't home to take care of their kids.
So they run the risk of losing their children, even from a three-day stint in jail.
And so what happens is they get brought in for these low-level misdemeanors.
But the truth is misdemeanor convictions have tremendous collateral consequences.
It can mess you up when you're applying for a job or applying for certain kinds of housing, depending on the conviction that you have.
And there are not that many known exonerations from misdemeanors, although there are a few.
And he was walking home one evening and the police kind of rolled up on him and threw him to the ground and kind of roughed him up and then accused him of assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest.
He pled guilty that night and he went home and that we never would have heard about this case ever.
But there was happened to be just happenstance, an anthropologist who was in this small town visiting, doing her research.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
