Today’s podcast is a conversation with Peter Jankowski, President and Chief Operating Officer of Dick Wolf Enterprises, and Executive Producer of all of the iterations of the Law and Order franchise as well as Chicago Fire, Chicago PD and Chicago Med. 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...

This week at Crime Story we presented two special reports from the City News Service on key reforms to the criminal legal process in Los Angeles and we continued our presentation of Katherine Mader's serializiation of her memoir. Welcome to our summary of the week's events at CrimeStory.com and The Crime Story Podcast. On Wednesday, we reported that the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors took the first steps today to move all jail inmates charged with misdemeanors but judged incompetent to stand trial out of jail and into...

This week at Crime Story we presented new developments in a high profile murder trial. We offered a report on the LA DA's first 100 days in office and we continued our presentation of Katherine Mader's serializiation of her memoir.Welcome to our summary of the week's events at CrimeStory.com and The Crime Story Podcast. On Thursday we presented my story Robert Durst Wants To Be Heard about the hearing in the murder trial of Durst in which he broke his year long silence and sought to personally raise legal issues with...

This week at Crime Story we commemorated the anniversary of a significant moment in the history of criminalizing war attrocities and we continued our presentation of Katherine Mader's serialized presentation of her memoir. Welcome to our summary of the week's events at CrimeStory.com and The Crime Story Podcast. Today, we commemorated the 75th anniversary of Hermann Goering taking the stand (on March 13, 1946) at Nuremberg’s International Military Tribunal. We marked the event by publishing a special episode of Sean Smith's series Nuremberg, the timely and timeless tale...

This week brought a big announcement of a new Crime Story scripted TV series. We presented a story marking the 30th Anniversary of the Rodney King beating. We continued our presentation of the series by Katherine Mader and offered another update from Mike Romano.Welcome to our summary of the week's events at CrimeStory.com and The Crime Story Podcast. Yesterday, Deadline broke the story that the Creator of The Wire, David Simon, and his fellow Executive Producer from that show, George Pelecanos are teaming up with Crime Story for a new HBO...

On today’s Crime Story Podcast, I interview journalist Justin Fenton, who covers the crime beat for the Baltimore Sun, about his new book, We Own This City. I first became aware of Justin’s work four years ago, as I read his reporting on a police scandal that dominated the news in Baltimore and that culminated in the shooting death of Homicide Detective Sean Suiter. I found Justin’s reporting to be clarifying and insightful amid the murkiness and confusion. In fact, his reporting reminded me of the work of another Baltimore based journalist who...

Team Crime Story: This week brought a special report about a misrepresentations made by an L.A. prosecutor about remarks made to Crime Story L.A. District Attorney Gascón. We continued our presentation of the series by Katherine Mader and another update from Mike Romano. Welcome to our summary of the week's events at CrimeStory.com and The Crime Story Podcast. On Wednesday and Thursday, we continued our Crime Story series excerpting Inside the Robe: A Judge's Candid Tale of Criminal Justice in America, by Judge Katherine Mader (Ret.) which best selling author...

It was recently reported that Deputy District Attorney Jon Hatami has formally accused newly elected District Attorney George Gascón of discrimination for, among other things, comments he made during an interview with Crime Story.  Having reviewed the filing documents, we would like to clarify for our readers the timeline of events and the erroneous representations in Hatami’s claim. The claim, filed February 8, 2021 states, “On October 27, 2020, in a televised and recorded interview, Gascón said on Crime Story, ‘Some people will be unhappy and like...

It was recently reported that Deputy District Attorney Jon Hatami has formally accused newly elected District Attorney George Gascón of discrimination for, among other things, comments he made during an interview with Crime Story.  Having reviewed the filing documents, we would like to clarify for our readers the timeline of events and the erroneous representations in Hatami’s claim. The claim, filed February 8, 2021 states, “On October 27, 2020, in a televised and recorded interview, Gascón said on Crime Story, ‘Some people will be unhappy and like...

This week at Crime Story we continued our presentation of series by Sean Smith and Katherine Mader. We featured a story about a disturbing development in the LAPD. And I represented Crime Story in two appearances as a commentator on Court TV. Welcome to our summary of the week's events at CrimeStory.com and The Crime Story Podcast. On Friday, we presented thethird installment of our Crime Story Series: Nuremberg by Sean Smith, the timely and timeless tale of the effort to use international law to criminalize and...

Team Crime Story:This week brought reports on a key decision in litigation over D.A. George Gascón's policy directives, the initiation of a new police reform program and we continued our presentation of the series by Katherine Mader. Welcome to our summary of the week's events at CrimeStory.com and The Crime Story Podcast. On Monday, we reported that an L.A. Superior Court Judge ruled mostly in favor of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys for Los Angeles County in a petition brought against District Attorney George Gascón, saying he cannot order...

Team Crime Story:This week brought further developments in the controversies over D.A. George Gascón's policy directives and we continued our presentation of the series by Katherine Mader. Welcome to our summary of the week's events at CrimeStory.com and The Crime Story Podcast. On Wednesday, we presented a City News Service Report on a Los Angeles Superior Court hearing focused on L.A. District Attorney Gorge Gascón's directives eliminating three-strikes allegations and some sentencing enhancements. During the hearing, the union representing L.A. prosecutors urged a judge to issue a preliminary injunction stopping the...

There were two recent announcements involving Crime Story projects that we are delighted to bring to our readers' attention. As Deadline reported yesterday, "the podcast-to-TV boom continues with HBO adapting the third season of Serial as a limited series. The network is developing the remake with rising writer/director Shola Amoo and exec produced by Lebron James and former HBO exec  Kary Antholis." "The third season of the award-winning podcast, which arguably set in motion the current boom for non-fiction audio series, was set in the Cleveland justice system. Unlike the first two seasons, which featured...

Team Crime Story:This week brought the announcements of two new TV Series from Crime Story Media. We continued our presentation of the series by Katherine Mader. And, we re-presented our latest piece about the Robert Durst Murder Trial. Welcome to our summary of the week's events at CrimeStory.com and The Crime Story Podcast. On Thursday we called attention to this week's announcements of Crime Story media projects at HBO (based Season three of the "Serial" Podcast with LeBron James and others producing) and Apple TV+ (based on the book "In with...

Team Crime Story:This week at Crime Story we continued our presentation of the series by Katherine Mader and we featured an interview about the the upcoming Impeachment trial with a scholar who happens to be my brother. Welcome to our summary of the week's events at CrimeStory.com and The Crime Story Podcast. Yesterday, we presented my interview with William Antholis entitled "High Crimes Story 2" — The Second Impeachment of Donald Trump. Bill serves as director and CEO of the Miller Center, a nonpartisan affiliate of the University...