The Limitations of the Law

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If two people are in a special relationship, then one of them has to protect the other. The courts have said that if there is the right kind of special relationship between the person who's at risk and the person who could rescue them, there might be a legal duty to protect or rescue. John says you'll also see this special relationship status in transit industries, airlines, taxicabs,. Or you'll see it in these relationships between like a guardian and another person, between prison and prisoner, parents and minor children.

Since the massacre that took the lives of 19 schoolchildren in Uvalde, Texas, people across the world began to ask versions of one question: why did police wait outside the door instead of protecting the kids?

It's not the first time this question has come up. Two years ago, as she watched police respond to the protests that followed the death of George Floyd, Producer B.A. Parker wondered: what are police for? With the help of our Producer Sarah Qari, she found that the United States’ Supreme Court had given this a most consequential and bewildering answer.

We decided to re-air this episode to shed light on how a case from 2005 upended our assumptions about the role police are meant to play in our lives.

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