The First 48 follows the nation’s top police departments during the critical first 48 hours of murder investigations.

BEYOND SCARED STRAIGHT - produced by Arnold Shapiro, profiles the new approach to keeping today teens from becoming tomorrow prisoners.

A gritty and unflinching descent into the shadowy world of black-market organ trafficking: the street-level brokers, the rogue surgeons, the impoverished men and women in who are willing to sacrifice a slice of their own bodies for a quick payday, and the desperate patients who face the agonizing choice of obeying the law or saving their lives. Every year, tens of thousands of human organ transplants are performed around the globe. Most transplanted...

Canceled following a violent incident with his ex-wife, 42 Grams chef Jake Bickelhaupt moved to Denver for a fresh start. His past continues to haunt him as the cloud of cancel culture renders him paralyzed in his search for redemption.

Jack Kevorkian helped hundreds end their pain and suffering. Legally tried, having escaped conviction time after time, a final trial proved his undoing. Explore Dr. Kevorkian’s work on behalf of an individual’s right to euthanasia, why he believed he was taking a stand for liberty, and why he was eventually convicted of second-degree homicide.

There was no toleration of religious dissent in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1600s. And there certainly was no room for religious argument for a woman! When Anne Hutchinson shared with others her religious ideas and gathered a following, the governor put her on trial for heresy. Explore the trials, defense, and punishment of the woman sometimes called "America’s first feminist."

In 1942, two months after Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt signed an executive order requiring that all Japanese Americans move to "relocation camps" as a matter of national security. Fred Korematsu refused, was arrested for violating an "exclusion order," and convicted. Learn how Korematsu carried his fight against what he thought was an "un-American" law all the way to the Supreme Court.

Desperate for an abortion, Norma McCorvey agreed (under the name "Jane Roe") to take the case to court, and ultimately the Supreme Court. As you learn about the famous decision that resulted, you’ll also gain a better understanding of the many other ways in which American courts have intervened in personal decisions related to sterilization and birth control, as well as abortion.

The citizens of the newly formed United States could not agree on the overall moral issue of slavery, but they were willing to take up its more narrow legal issues. Gain a greater understanding of the many ways in which the legal system supported the institution of slavery by examining the trials of two slaves: Anthony Burns and Celia (no last name).

Freedom of speech was not a recognized liberty in the early years of American colonies. Speech critical of the powers that be could land one in legal trouble, even if everyone involved agreed the statements were true. Explore the colonial history of the press freedom, voter suppression, and attempts to influence juries as they all came together to affect the libel trial of John Peter Zenger.