The Chinatown Sting

The Good Cop | From Examined: The Backfire Effect

September 14, 2026·33 min
Episode Description from the Publisher

Lidia Jean's been working on a new project — Examined: The Backfire Effect. It asks what happens when a system decides it already has an answer, when admitting a mistake feels harder than living with one, and when closing a case starts to matter more than getting it right. Examined: The Backfire Effect tells the story of Scott Macklem’s death, a murder that happened nearly 40 years ago in the parking lot of a community college in Michigan. The police quickly found their suspect. There was just one problem: The man they claimed did it was nowhere near the scene of the crime, and he had the alibi to back it up. Host Josie Duffy Rice — a journalist, former lawyer, and expert in the criminal legal system — tells a story of how justice and prosecutorial misconduct works in America, and why sometimes a case is about much more than innocence versus guilt.  Find more episodes of Examined: The Backfire Effect wherever you get podcasts. Binge the full series now with a Pushkin+ subscription — sign up on the Examined Apple show page or at pushkin.fm/plus.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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