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‘Courtroom encounters present you with only a fragment of a person’s story, from which you may or may not be inclined to infer the rest,’ James Lasdun wrote recently in the LRB. Last October, he set out on a road trip across America, with the aim of attending as many different kinds of criminal and civil trials as possible in one month. His journey took him from immigration hearings in Chicago to jury trials in Deadwood to felony proceedings in Louisiana.

On this episode of the LRB podcast, James joins Thomas Jones to discuss the ‘swerving tales’ he witnessed on his trip, and whether the ‘brazenly bad-faith goings-on at the Justice Department’ are showing up in local courts.

From the LRB

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James Lasdun's road trip to America's courts