Best Wrongful Conviction Podcasts

In the Dark, hosted by Madeleine Baran, is an award-winning investigative-journalism podcast that started in 2016. Its first season looked at the mysterious abduction of Jacob Wetterling in rural Minnesota and the lack of accountability that sheriffs face when they fail to solve cases. Season 2 examined the case of Curtis Flowers, who was tried six times for the same crime. In 2020, In the Dark released a special report on the coronavirus pandemic in the Mississippi Delta. In 2023, In the Dark joined The New Yorker and Condé Nast. “The Runaway Princesses,” a four-part series that asks why the women in Dubai’s royal family keep trying to run away, came out in January. In the Dark is a two-time Peabody Award winner and, in 2019, became the first podcast to win a George Polk Award, one of the top honors in journalism. The program has also received an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award.

Over three decades ago, 7-year-old Jaclyn Dowaliby vanished from her bedroom in the middle of the night while everybody else in the suburb slept soundly. It's frightening for a parent to think that someone could sneak into their child's bedroom completely undetected. It's terrifying for a parent to think that they could be suspected. This investigative true crime series dissects a case that has polarized and puzzled the minds of those who know it. Compiled using thousands of pages of files, trial transcripts and archives as well as interviews with those involved and source audio, this is The Shattered Window.

Each year, millions of Americans travel abroad and more than 3,000 are imprisoned every year. Many of them are wrongfully convicted, and many of them are told they will never go home again. From Focus Features and L.A. Times Studios comes the brand-new podcast series, CONVICTED: ACROSS BORDERS. Hosted by famed lawyer and bestselling author, Marcia Clark, we’ll hear straight from the mouths of the men and women who lived through these trials. Through these stories we’ll explore how seemingly benign actions can lead to incarceration in foreign lands, how to navigate different legal systems when you don’t even speak the language, and who one turns to when the closest help is thousands of miles away.Five unimaginably harrowing stories. Five traumatic fights for freedom. And five incredible true cases with emotional homecomings that have to be heard to be believed.Convicted: Across Borders is produced by L.A. Times Studios and Treefort Media. This podcast series is funded by Focus Features and produced by L.A. Times Studios. The Los Angeles Times newsroom was not involved in the creation of this series.