Phoebe Judge

 ( American Women Journalists ) 

After returning from India, Judge landed a job with The Story with Dick Gordon. While planning to do an interview on wrongful imprisonment with her colleagues at North Carolina Public Radio, Judge said, "Very quickly, once we started reading about the number of exonerees, about the number of potentially innocent people in jail ... it was clear that this was going to be more than one show, that this deserved to become a series.” Their investigation became “After Innocence: Exoneration in America,” a series that aired June 10–13, 2013 on the program The Story for American Public Media.

When The Story ended in 2013, Judge and two colleagues, Lauren Spohrer and Eric Mennel, decided to create their own program. Spohrer came up with the idea for the show while they were brainstorming on Judge's back porch. They released the first episode of Criminal in January 2014. She continued to conduct interviews for and anchor WUNC's program of Here & Now until 2015, when she transitioned into filling in for vacant shifts. The change came with Criminal's increased production schedule to one episode every two weeks.

Judge has been invited for guest interviews on other podcasts including The Murder Squad. She also continued to guest host The State of Things.

During the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, Judge started a limited series podcast called Phoebe Reads a Mystery, in which she reads a chapter of a novel each day. The first was Agatha Christie's first novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles.