This American Life

← This American Life22 Jun · 1 h 06 min

889: There’s Something About Hail Mary

889: There’s Something About Hail Mary22 Jun1 h 06 min

We spend an hour in the last two minutes of the fourth quarter, behind and desperate, with people trying any damn thing they can think of.

(00:00:00) Prologue: Five years after Ora first started experiencing mysterious and debilitating health problems, she decides to try a treatment that she knows very well might kill her. Host Ira Glass talks to her about the experience. (9 minutes)

(00:10:50) Act One: Two lawyers have just three months to stop their client's execution. In Texas, where this story takes place, these kinds of appeals to get people off death row fail 94% of the time. (38 minutes)

(00:48:09) Act Two: At the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego, migrants figured out an ingenious way to communicate with the activists gathered outside of the detention center’s walls. (13 minutes)