Sidebar: The year in review

While some aspects of 2022 felt like a return to easier, simpler days, the news coming out of courthouses across the country did not stop.

In this episode, we look at the year's most memorable trials: the ones that made us laugh, the ones that made us cry and the ones that made us stop and question how we got here.

We take you back to the Alex Jones defamation trials in Texas and Connecticut, which garnered enormous damages for the family members of Sandy Hook victims and swamped our social media feeds. Jones wasn't the only right-winger to see his day in court: members of the Oath Keepers were held accountable for seditious conspiracy for their parts in the Jan. 6 insurrection, and in Michigan, a plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, went bust.

It was also a big year for celebrity trials. R&B singer R. Kelly's child abuse conviction in a Chicago courtroom, film producer Harvey Weinstein's second sexual assault trial, a jury deadlocking on rape charges against "That '70s Show" actor Danny Masterson, and a certain defamation trial involving movie stars Johnny Depp and Amber Heard. The headlines didn't stop as trial after trial captured the attention of readers and reporters.

Come on in, settle down and let us bring you back through the year as we take you through these cases and more until we are back in 2023.

Sidebar tackles the top stories you need to know from the legal world. Join reporters Hillel Aron, Kirk McDaniel, Amanda Pampuro and Nina Pullano as they take you in and out of courtrooms in the U.S. and beyond and break down developments to help you understand how they affect your day-to-day life.

Kirk McDaniel produced this episode. Intro music by The Dead Pens. A transcript of this episode is available.

Editorial staff is Bill Dotinga, Sean Duffy and Jamie Ross. Special thanks to Emily Zantow, Andy Monserud and Dave Byrnes.

For more from us on the top trials of the year:

• Stewart Rhodes, founder of Oath Keepers, convicted of seditious conspiracy
• Michigan trio convicted of aiding plot to kidnap governor
• R. Kelly found guilty on child porn charges in Chicago federal trial

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