Kary Antholis

I would like to call your attention to some of the stories that are in our Crime Story LA section. These stories exemplify the tone and approach of our reporting here at Crime Story. We want our pieces to be both accessible and illuminating; thoughtful and emotional; unexpected and satisfying. Sean Smith’s Slouching towards Babel introduces to the world of the Criminal Courts Building in downtown Los Angeles, and his Two Hearings piece juxtaposes the massive defense posse representing multi-millionaire Robert Durst in a pretrial hearing with the valiant efforts of an Alternate Public Defender representing a young indigent man in his sentencing hearing. Chris Tarricone has published...

Jim Moss’s job is to save lives. A 29-year veteran of the LA County Sheriff’s Department, Moss has spent 14 of those years serving as a rescue paramedic for the Special Weapons (SWAT) Team. His primary duty, he says, “is to provide advanced life support on SWAT operations.” But on May 23, 2019, Moss has a different job. His duty today is to testify for the People of the State of California in their prosecution of David Martinez for the murder of SWAT officer Shaun Diamond. Moss takes the stand wearing the LASD uniform of a tan shirt and green pants. His greying hair...

Yesterday morning at a little after 11 AM, a Los Angeles jury returned verdict of guilty on two counts of homicide with special circumstances and one count of attempted homicide against Michael Gargiulo.  The trial which, has lasted several months, now moves to “the sanity phase“ during which Gargiulo‘s lawyers will argue that he suffers from dissociative personality disorder, and presumably that he should be sent to a psychiatric facility rather than to state prison. Crime Story reporter Chris Tarricone has been observing the trial, and has written these two pieces here and here about the experiences of witnesses during the trial. Chris has a couple...

Today’s podcast is a conversation with longtime members of the team at This American Life and co-creators of the podcast series Serial - Sarah Koenig and Julie Snyder. The conversation was recorded as part of a series of classes that I taught at The University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. Each week I would host an artist for a discussion that would help us better understand their values and aims as storytellers in the world of crime and justice. In addition to discussing the works and artists who shaped their creative thinking, we zeroed in on one particular...

I am at the Criminal Court Building to watch arraignments and pretrial hearings. As Sean Smith wrote in Slouching to Babel, these hearings can offer a good deal of drama and detail about the dynamics of the LA justice system in a relatively short period of time. But on this day, the pace in arraignments is slow, so I wander up to the legendary ninth floor. This area requires additional security clearance to enter, as it is home to the most serious and high profile criminal trials. OJ Simpson was tried on this same floor. So was Richard Ramirez. So...

I would like to call your attention to some of the stories that are in our Crime Story LA section. These stories exemplify the tone and approach of our reporting here at Crime Story. We want our pieces to be both accessible and illuminating; thoughtful and emotional; unexpected and satisfying. Sean Smith's Slouching towards Babel introduces the world of the Criminal Courts Building in downtown Los Angeles, and his Two Hearings piece juxtaposes the massive defense posse representing multi-millionaire Robert Durst in a pretrial hearing with the valiant efforts of an Alternate Public Defender representing a young indigent...