Radio Atlantic

In 1987, Jeffrey Young was robbed and killed, and his body was left on a street in the poor neighborhood of West Dallas. Benjamine Spencer was tried and convicted for the attack.Spencer was black, 22 years old, and recently married. Young was 33 and white, and his father was a senior executive for Ross Perot, one of the most prominent businessmen in Dallas. No physical evidence connected Spencer to the murder. Instead, he was convicted based on the testimony of three eyewitnesses and a jailhouse informant who claimed Spencer confessed to the crime. Spencer has now been in prison for most of his life.From behind bars, Spencer amassed evidence to support his claim of innocence, and secured the assistance of Centurion Ministries, a group that re-examines cases of prisoners like him. Together, they were able to convince a Texas judge of Spencer’s innocence. In investigating this story, not only did we confirm Centurion’s findings, but we’ve gathered new, exculpatory evidence, some of which appears first in this special, three-episode series of Radio Atlantic. ---Key individuals mentioned in this story (listed in order of appearance):Benjamine Spencer, the prisoner, convicted in October 1987, retried and convicted in March 1988, given life in prisonJeffrey Young, the victim, murdered in Dallas in March 1987Jay Young, Jeffrey’s son, the elder of twoCheryl Wattley, Spencer’s current attorneyTroy Johnson, a friend of Jeffrey Young’s, who tried calling him the night of his murderHarry Young, Jeffrey’s father, a senior executive in Ross Perot’s companyJesus “Jessie” Briseno, a detective for the Dallas Police Department, the lead investigator on the murder of Jeffrey YoungGladys Oliver, the prosecution’s star eyewitness in the trials of Benjamine SpencerRobert Mitchell, another man convicted a week after Spencer in a separate trial for the same crime, now deceasedFaith Johnson, the current district attorney in DallasFrank Jackson, Spencer’s defense attorney in the original trialAndy Beach, the prosecutor in the trial that sent Spencer to prisonAlan Ledbetter, the foreman of the jury that convicted SpencerDanny Edwards, the jailhouse informant who testified in Spencer’s original trials that Spencer had confessed to himDebra Spencer, Benjamine Spencer’s wife at the time of his convictionChristi Williams, the alibi witness who testified in Spencer’s defense at his trialsJim McCloskey, the founder of Centurion Ministries, the group that has aided Spencer's quest for exonerationDaryl Parker, a private investigator who has helped re-examine Spencer’s case and Young’s murderJimmie Cotton, one of three eyewitnesses for the prosecution in Spencer’s original trialsCharles Stewart, another of three eyewitnesses for the prosecution in Spencer’s trials, now deceasedSandra Brackens, a potential witness in Spencer’s defense who was not called to testify at his trialsSubscribe to Radio Atlantic to hear part two in the “No Way Out” series when it's released. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conor Friedersdorf recently argued in The Atlantic that in this moment, when the truth is bitterly contested, fiction presents us an opportunity. It allows us to step into another person’s perspective and talk about gray areas without the problems of detailing an actual person’s private moments. But does blurring the lines between truth and fiction undermine the messy complexities of the real world? David Sims and Megan Garber join to discuss the spate of recent pop culture that aims to recast reality.Links- “‘The Arrangements’: A Work of Fiction” (Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie, The New York Times Magazine, June 28, 2016)- “Remote Control” (Sarah Marshall, The Believer, January 2014 Issue)- "Re-Examining Monica, Marcia, Tonya and Anita, the 'Scandalous' Women of the '90s" (Sarah Marshall, Splinter, April 19, 2016)- “The Crown: Netflix's Best Superhero Show” (Sophie Gilbert, December 9, 2017)- “How #MeToo Can Probe Gray Areas With Less Backlash” (Conor Friedersdorf, January 18, 2018)- “'Cat Person' and the Impulse to Undermine Women's Fiction” (Megan Garber, December 11, 2017)- “Aziz Ansari and the Paradox of ‘No’” (Megan Garber, January 16, 2018)- “Dinner Discussion” (Saturday Night Live, January 27, 2018)- “Grease Dilemma” (CollegeHumor, 2011)- Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine (Joe Hagan, 2017)- “One Day at a Time Is a Sitcom That Doubles as a Civics Lesson” (Megan Garber, January 17, 2017)- An epic 200-plus tweet thread on Janet Jackson (October 23, 2017) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Conventional wisdom suggests that the temptations of Washington, D.C., corrupt all the idealists, naïfs, and ingenues who settle there," Franklin Foer writes in his cover story for the March issue of The Atlantic. "But what if that formulation gets the causation backwards? What if it took an outsider to debase the capital and create the so-called swamp?”Before Paul Manafort led the campaign to position Donald Trump as the ultimate Washington outsider, Manafort had built a career on being the consummate D.C. insider. Foer tells the story of Manafort's rise and fall, his stint as a consigliere to oligarchs, and the lines he was willing to cross in lobbying and political consulting. Foer joins Jeff and Matt to describe how Manafort's career is a window into the rise of corruption in America.Links- “The Plot Against America” (Franklin Foer, March 2018 Issue)- “How the Swamp Drained Trump” (McKay Coppins, January 30, 2018)- “Dictatorships & Double Standards” (Jeane Kirkpatrick, Commentary, November 1, 1979)- The Soul of a New Machine (Tracy Kidder, 1981)- “Mackenzie Davis Answers the Tough Questions” (E. Alex Jung, Vulture, August 14, 2017)- Shop Class as Soulcraft (Matthew B. Crawford, 2010) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Once again, immigration is at the top of America's legislative agenda, as it has been, seemingly every generation, for much of the nation's history. But while many recent discussions of immigration have focused on unauthorized immigrants, some of the most contentious aspects of the current debate concern legal immigration: Who should the U.S. allow to be an American? Priscilla Alvarez, an editor on The Atlantic's politics and policy team, joins hosts Matt and Alex to discuss the debate within Congress, and to review the lessons America's history offers.Links- “America’s Forgotten History of Illegal Deportations” (Alex Wagner, March 6, 2017)- “The Diversity Visa Program Was Created to Help Irish Immigrants” (Priscilla Alvarez, November 1, 2017)- “'An Assault on the Body of the Church’” (Emma Green, January 22, 2018)- “The Ordeal of Immigration in Wausau” (Roy Beck, April 1994 Issue)- “To Be Both Midwestern and Hmong” (Doualy Xaykaothao, June 3, 2016)- "How Wausau's Immigration Fears Failed to Come True" (Robert Mentzer, Wausau Daily Herald, December 2014)- “Black Like Them” (Malcolm Gladwell, New Yorker, April 29, 1996 Issue)- Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s (Francisco E. Balderrama)- “Asians in the 2016 Race” (Alex Wagner, September 12, 2016) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The 'retail apocalypse' is upon us, they say. In the United States, 2017 saw emptied malls, shuttered department stores, and once-iconic brands falling into bankruptcy. Yet retail spending continues to grow, in strange new directions that could have significant effects. What will shopping look like in the future? How will these changes reverberate throughout the country? Atlantic editor Gillian White joins our hosts to discuss.If you listen to Radio Atlantic, we value your feedback. Please help us out by answering a quick survey. It should only take a few minutes. Just to go theatlantic.com/podcastsurvey.Links- “The 4 Reasons Why 2017 Is a Tipping Point for Retail” (Derek Thompson, November 16, 2017)- “All the Ways Retail’s Decline Could Hurt America’s Towns” (Alana Semuels, May 2017)- “The Future of Retail Is Stores That Aren’t Stores” (Joe Pinsker, September 14, 2017)- “How to Rebuild After the Retail Apocalypse” (Richard Florida, December 23, 2017)- “How Dollar General Became Rural America’s Store of Choice” (Sarah Nassauer, Wall Street Journal, December 15, 2017)- Futureface (Alex Wagner, 2018)- “The Appropriate Weight of Grief” (Michael Zadoorian, ART + marketing, May 6, 2016)- “The Lesson of the Moth” (Don Marquis) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the anniversary of his inauguration nears, a new book filled with salacious claims about the Trump administration has become a bestseller. Faced with renewed questions about his mental and temperamental fitness for the office, President Trump has pushed back, declaring himself a “very stable genius” and attacking his critics. But no new claims or revelations, James Fallows wrote recently for The Atlantic, have been more telling than Trump's public behavior. If the stories presented in a book about the president constitute a scandal, Fallows asks, what does it mean that the scandal continues in public view? What dangers are courted by speculating about the president's mental acuity? What steps could be taken to make such speculation unnecessary? Fallows joins our hosts to discuss.If you listen to Radio Atlantic, we value your feedback. Please help us out by answering a quick survey. It should only take a few minutes. Just to go theatlantic.com/podcastsurvey.Links- “It's Been an Open Secret All Along” (James Fallows, January 4, 2018)- ”Is Something Neurologically Wrong With Donald Trump?” (James Hamblin, January 3, 2018)- “The Case for Hillary Clinton and Against Donald Trump” (The Editors, November 2016 Issue) - “A Time Capsule of the Unpresidential Things Trump Says” (James Fallows, May 23, 2016, to November 20, 2016)- Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President (Justin Frank, 2004)- “John Dean: Nixon ‘Might Have Survived If There’d Been a Fox News’” (Edward-Isaac Dovere, POLITICO Magazine, January 02, 2018) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As 2018 begins, tensions and tumult in America are high. But before the end of 1968, Conor Friedersdorf reminded us in The Atlantic, "Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy would be assassinated; U.S. troops would suffer their deadliest year yet in Vietnam—and massacre scores of civilians at My Lai; Richard Nixon would be elected president; the Khmer Rouge would form in Cambodia; humans would orbit the moon; Olympic medal winners in Mexico City would raise their fists in a black power salute; President Johnson would sign the Civil Rights Act of 1968; Yale University would announce that it intended to admit women; 2001: A Space Odyssey would premier; and Led Zeppelin would give their first live performance."What does that turbulent year have to tell us in this tumultuous moment? What forgotten history is worth revisiting? And in the past half-century, where has the nation made progress, and where has it struggled? Conor Friedersdorf joins us to discuss these questions with our hosts.If you listen to Radio Atlantic, we value your feedback. Please help us out by answering a quick survey. It should only take a few minutes. Just to go www.theatlantic.com/podcastsurvey.Links– ”1968 and the Making of Modern America” (Conor Friedersdorf, January 1, 2018)–  ”Put Your Husband in the Kitchen” (Helen Keller, 1932 Issue)– “Report: Washington” (Elizabeth Drew, April 1968 Issue)– “Americans' Respect for Police Surges” (Gallup, October 24, 2016) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Every year is impossible to synthesize. Yet 2017 was not just another year. To help us wrangle the chaotic, extraordinary events of the last 12 months into some sort of shape, we posed a question to journalists from across The Atlantic's staff, and to our listeners: What were the ideas of 2017?In this episode, Jeff and Matt discuss the many different responses to that question we collected, and share their own ideas of the year. Share yours: 202-266-7600. And here's to the year ahead.If you listen to Radio Atlantic, we value your feedback. Please help us out by answering a quick survey. It should only take a few minutes. Just to go theatlantic.com/podcastsurvey.Links–The End of History and the Last Man (Francis Fukuyama, 1992)–“It's Still Not the End of History” (Timothy Stanley and Alexander Lee, September 1, 2014)–“This Article Won’t Change Your Mind” (Julie Beck, March 13, 2017)–“The Challenge of Fighting Mistrust in Science” (Julie Beck, June 24, 2017)–“Professor Smith Goes to Washington” (Ed Yong, January 25, 2017)–“The Climate Scientist Who Became a Politician” (Ed Yong, February 2, 2017)–“Do Scientists Lose Credibility When They Become Political?” (Ed Yong, February 28, 2017)–“The Movement of #MeToo” (Sophie Gilbert, October 16, 2017)–“How America Lost Faith in Expertise” (Tom Nichols, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2017 Issue)–“A Political Opening for Universal Health Care?” (Vann R. Newkirk II, February 14, 2017)–“The Fight for Health Care Has Always Been About Civil Rights” (Vann R. Newkirk II, June 27, 2017)–“The Republican Lawmaker Who Secretly Created Reddit’s Women-Hating ‘Red Pill’” (Bonnie Bacarisse, The Daily Beast, April 25, 2017 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Vladimir Putin just announced, to the surprise of no one, that he will run for reelection as President of Russia. In her January/February 2018 Atlantic cover story, Julia Ioffe writes that Americans misunderstand the man ruling the former Soviet empire: he’s not a master tactician playing three-dimensional chess, he’s a gambler who won big. "Over the past year, Russian hackers have become the stuff of legend in the United States," Julia writes. "But most Russians don’t recognize the Russia portrayed in this story." What do they see that we don't? How does America look right now from their vantage point? And what does Vladimir Putin ultimately want? Julia joins our hosts, along with Atlantic global editor Kathy Gilsinan, to discuss.If you listen to Radio Atlantic, we value your feedback. Please help us out by answering a quick survey. It should only take a few minutes. Just to go www.theatlantic.com/podcastsurvey.Links– “What Putin Really Wants” (Julia Ioffe, January/February 2018 Issue)– “Vladimir Putin, Action Man” (Alan Taylor, September 13, 2011)– “How the Kremlin Tried to Rig the Olympics, and Failed” (Julia Ioffe, December 6, 2017)– “It Took Two to Make Russian Meddling Effective” (Julia Ioffe, June 23, 2017)– “Putin’s Inauguration: Satire and Violence” (Julia Ioffe, The New Yorker, May 7, 2012)– "Why Do They Stay?" (Hilzoy, Obsidian Wings, April 10, 2009) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

That Pence is the vice president of the United States is "a loaves-and-fishes miracle," writes McKay Coppins in the latest issue of The Atlantic. It's remarkable enough that "an embattled small-state governor with underwater approval ratings, dismal reelection prospects, and a national reputation in tatters" would be chosen as a presidential running mate at all. But unlikelier still is the fact that Pence, known for his devotion to Christ, would become the most prominent character witness for President Donald Trump. How did Pence reconcile his deeply held Christian values with his defense of Donald Trump after the revelation of the Access Hollywood recording? Would he support Trump if the presidency were within his own reach? And what do his decisions illuminate about evangelical Christians' attachment to the president? In this conversation, McKay shares what he's learned about Pence from reporting on his stints as governor, radio host, and frat snitch.Links– “God’s Plan for Mike Pence” (McKay Coppins, January/February 2018 Issue)– “The Odds of Impeachment Are Dropping” (Peter Beinart, December 3, 2017)– “Jared Kushner Responds (Very Briefly) to Flynn's Plea Deal” (Uri Friedman, December 3, 2017)“Should Christian Bakers Be Allowed to Refuse Wedding Cakes to Gays?” (Conor Friedersdorf, February 25, 2014)– “If Indiana's Religious-Freedom Law Isn't Discriminatory, Why Change It?” (David A. Graham, March 31, 2015)– Adiós Utopia: Dreams and Deceptions in Cuban Art Since 1950– “Terry McAuliffe’s Dead-Serious Advice For Democrats: Have Some Fun!” (Ruby Cramer, BuzzFeed News, December 3, 2017) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices