Serial

This week, in our final episode of season three, the state of Ohio decides where Joshua belongs. Listen to Episode 09.

For our final episode animation, we decided to go back to court. Here is the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court building in Cleveland, where Joshua’s hearings took place. Moth Studio came up with this unique movement for the animation, which goes from the ground level up to the roof of the model.

This week, we tell you about Joshua, a teenager who decides to cooperate with the police and give them the information they want. He enters the juvenile system, a place where both youth and staff trade in favors and power. Listen to Episode 08.

If you listen closely to the trash-talking, you start to get the message. This week, we follow Jesse Nickerson through the fallout of his encounters with the police. You'll also find out what ended up happening with Erimius Spencer, the guy from Episode 03 who got arrested in the hallway of his own apartment building. Listen to Episode 07 now.

An update on last week's episode: Yesterday, the Ohio Supreme Court announced that it will not consider reinstating the $22 million verdict a jury awarded to Arnold Black.

The art for this week features East Cleveland City Hall, where the bulk of East Cleveland’s municipal government is run. It contains the police department, the municipal court, the mayor’s office, and more. Martinez E-B, the artist who created the mural for episode six, also did the mural for this episode, continuing the focus on Jesse and his encounters with the East Cleveland Police Department. Martinez returned to the idea of the jester, except in this piece he imagined Jesse trying to fight back. Moth Studio created this animation, which takes us from the roof to the front door, and superimposed Martinez’s mural on the face of the building.

With this week’s episode, we’re taking a turn in our series to follow people out of the Justice Center and into their normal lives. First, we follow one man’s relationship with the police after he helped put an officer in jail. Listen to Episode 06 now.

The art this week shows the area of Forest Hill Park where Jesse, the main character in the episode, had a run-in with East Cleveland police officers. The animators at Moth Studio opted for this unique movement that takes us from the tree line to the sky.

Don’t tell the judges, but it’s the prosecutors who have the most power in the building. This week, we follow up on why the case against Da’Von Holmes was dropped. Was is it a technicality, or did they get the wrong guy? Then we follow a prosecutor to find out how he makes decisions, and why prosecutors are so intent on driving defendants to take a plea. Listen to Episode 05 now.

What happens when the right evidence points to the wrong man? This week, we follow the story of a murder that everyone wants to solve and see how “no snitching”—a code that might be as old as crime itself—is in many ways baked into our criminal justice system. Listen to Episode 04 now.

There’s an open question that haunts the courthouse in Cleveland: If you’re harmed by police, what does it take to find justice that *feels* like justice? Listen to Episode 03. 

In Episode 01, we followed a small case: a bar fight. We wanted to see what the baseline for functional justice looks like in Cleveland. In this episode, a young woman at a bar gets slapped on the butt. So why’s *she* the one in jail? Listen here. 

This season, we’re holding open the courthouse door, inviting you inside. There are shocking, fascinating things happening in plain sight. 

Hear the trailer for our new season!

If you’ve listened to Serial before, you probably know that our first season was about a murder case in Baltimore. Since then, people have asked: What does that case tell us about the criminal justice system? 

The case of Adnan Syed wasn’t typical in any way—a defendant with no criminal record, a private defense attorney, a six-week trial. The vast majority of cases don’t even go to trial. You can’t really understand how the criminal justice system works by interrogating one extraordinary case. *Ordinary* cases are where you need to look. 

This season of Serial, we do just that. We take a look at the entire criminal justice system. We spent a year inside the criminal courts in Cleveland. They gave us extraordinary access, letting us record everywhere—courtrooms, back hallways, judges’ chambers, the prosecutors’ office. As our host Sarah Koenig says, “Every case we looked into, there came a time when I said, ‘Wait, this can’t be happening.’ And then it did.” 

This season, you’ll see what we saw, from the inside. Subscribe today and get the first episode the moment it drops on September 20.

We made a listening guide for the maps, videos, graphics, and documents that accompany each episode, if you’re just starting this season or listening again.

Site editor Whitney Dangerfield wrote up our process for working with artist Carl Burton on the animations for this season, including some early drafts and the reason why we refined the below sailboat gif.

When artist Carl Burton and I started working on the art for this season, we came up with one overall rule: no people. “I personally like that,” Carl said, “because then it’s about creating a space where you’re not stepping on the imagination of the listener.”