Kary Antholis

Andrew Weissmann served as a lead prosecutor in Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel’s Office. His new book Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation gives the only such inside account and explores the prosecutors' key decisions and hurdles, their successes and their failures. According to press notes for the book, "No other account has done that or is in the works." Through a mutual friend, I was able to arrange an interview with Andrew to speak about the book. In an effort to give the conversation maximum exposure, I reached out to Josh Marshall, and he agreed to host the interview...

October 6, 2020 marked the 20th anniversary of the debut of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. This series and its spinoffs CSI: Miami, CSI: NY and CSI CYBER were enormously successful. But beyond their commercial success, these series have had an impact on the American criminal legal process. Within a few years of the series premiere, a phenomenon emerged among criminal trial juries that came to be known as “the CSI effect.” The journalist and blogger Michael Roberts has defined this as a “belief that forensic science television dramas influence American jurors to want more forensic evidence to convict defendants of...

On today’s podcast, we present part 2 of my two-part interview with Carol Mendelsohn, the founding showrunner of the juggernaut CBS crime procedural, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. (You can find part 1 of the interview here.) In this part of the conversation, we discuss the show’s characters, we take a deep dive into one of the iconic episodes of CSI which was directed by Quentin Tarantino, we look at the impact of the show on America’s criminal justice system and Carol reflects on the enormous success of the show and it’s spinoffs.  One last podcast note, last Tuesday, October 6...

On today’s podcast, we present part 1 of my two-part interview with Carol Mendelsohn, the founding showrunner of the juggernaut CBS crime procedural, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. In this part of the conversation, Carol and I discuss the forces that shaped her values and influenced her as a storyteller, her entree into the world of television, the evolution of her career, the beginnings of CSI and how the core creative team discovered the show’s identity. One last podcast note, last Tuesday, October 6 marked the 20th Anniversary of the series' debut on CBS. Kary Antholis: Carol Mendelsohn, thank you so much for...

Welcome to your weekly opportunity to catch up the week's activity at CrimeStory.com. Last Saturday was the 25th anniversary of the stunning verdict in the Trial of O. J. Simpson. Back in January, around the anniversary of the beginning of that trial, Crime Story published a series of interviews with individuals, each of whom has a unique perspective on the narrative of how that case played out. On Monday, we marked the anniversary by reprising those pieces. We offered our interviews with the creators of the two seminal popular culture narratives about the trial: Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander, creators, executive producers and writers of the Emmy and...

Kary Antholis: On today’s podcast my guest is, once again, Georgetown Law Professor, MSNBC Legal Analyst and Crime Story Consulting Editor, Paul Butler. In our conversation, Paul and I discuss the recent decision by a Kentucky grand jury to charge Louisville detective Brett Hankison with three felony counts of wanton endangerment and their decision not to charge him or the other officers involved with any accounts related to the death of Breonna Taylor. We also discuss the opening statement that Paul Butler would give if he was prosecuting the case against all three officers (which you can find here).  Kary Antholis: Paul...