American Criminal Justice

From CSI to Forensic Files to the celebrated reputation of the FBI crime lab, forensic scientists have long been mythologized in American popular culture as infallible crime solvers. Juries put their faith in “expert witnesses” and innocent people have been executed as a result. Innocent people are still on death row today, condemned by junk science.

‘A bracing account of abuses of power and corruption in the criminal justice system.’ The Guardian From the fearless defense attorney and civil rights lawyer who rose to fame with Netflix’s The Staircase comes an essential examination of America’s corrupt and abusive criminal justice...

For the last four decades, John Henry Browne has defended the indefensible. From Facebook folk hero the "Barefoot Bandit" Colton Moore, to Benjamin Ng of the Wah Mee massacre and Kandahar massacre culprit Sergeant Robert Bales, Browne's unceasing advocacy and the daring to take on some of the most unwinnable cases - and nearly win them all - has led 48 Hours' Peter Van Sant to call him "the most famous lawyer in America."

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST, NPR, AND KIRKUS REVIEWS A scathing portrait of an urgent new American crisis Over the last two decades, America has been falling deeper and deeper into a statistical mystery: Poverty goes up...

Courtroom 302 is the fascinating story of one year in Chicago's Cook County Criminal Courthouse, the busiest felony courthouse in the country. Here we see the system through the eyes of the men and women who experience it, not only in the courtroom but in the lockup, the jury room, the judge's chambers, the spectators' gallery. From the daily grind of the court to the highest-profile case of the year, Steve Bogira's masterful investigation raises fundamental issues of race, civil rights, and justice in America.

*A New York Times Bestseller* An important overview of the way our justice system works, and why the rule of law is essential to our survival as a society—from the one-time federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, and host of the Doing Justice podcast. Preet Bharara has spent...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, USA TODAY, AND CHICAGO TRIBUNE A masterly work of literary journalism about a senseless murder, a relentless detective, and the great plague of homicide in America NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS...

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The renowned author of Between the World and Me journeys to three resonant sites of conflict to explore how the stories we tell—and the ones we don’t—shape our realities. “Ta-Nehisi Coates always writes with a purpose. . . . These...

The true story of super-criminal Jon Roberts, star of the documentary Cocaine Cowboys. American Desperado is Roberts’ no-holds-barred account of being born into Mafia royalty, witnessing his first murder at the age of seven, becoming a hunter-assassin in Vietnam, returning to New York to...

An enraging, necessary look at the private prison system, and a convincing clarion call for prison reform.” —NPR.org New York Times Book Review 10 Best Books of 2018 * One of President Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2018 * Winner of the 2019 J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize * Winner of the...

The sad truth is that the US criminal justice system doesn’t work for many different reasons - from our overflowing prisons, to the destructive war on drugs and disproportionate effect on minority communities, to conflicts between police and citizens and problems with prosecutors and the courts. In Fixing the US Criminal Justice System, author Paul Brakke provides an in-depth look from a conservative perspective at the many flaws in the system and how to fix them.

“A moving and beautifully crafted memoir.”—SCOTT TUROW “A daring act of justified defiance.”—SHAKA SENGHOR “Nothing less than heroic.”—JOHN GRISHAM He was seventeen when an all-white jury sentenced him to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Now a pioneering lawyer, he...

A history of African Americans in New York City from the 1910s to 1960, told through the life of Samuel Battle, the New York Police Department’s first black officer. When Samuel Battle broke the color line as New York City’s first African American cop in the second decade of the twentieth...

Interweaving an insider s account of the true crime saga driving Netflix sensation Making a Murderer with other controversial cases from his career, this powerful memoir from Steven Avery s defense attorney reveals the flaws in America's criminal justice system and puts forth a provocative...

A riveting account of the infamous unsolved murder of two remarkable women in Shenandoah National Park, by a journalist with unprecedented access to all key elements of the case. This story reveals the challenges of wilderness forensics, the failures of our justice system, and offers an...

The Price of Justice in America features a series of blogs I have written about problems in the criminal justice system and how they might be fixed. I have been writing these blogs for my website (www.americanjusticethebook.com) as a follow-up to my book American Justice?

New York Times bestselling author reveals the FBI’s most closely guarded secrets, with an insider look at the bureau’s inner workings and intelligence investigations. Based on inside access and hundreds of interviews with federal agents, the book presents an unprecedented, authoritative...

The true story behind the film AMERICAN HUSTLE The Sting Man is the amazing inside story of Mel Weinberg, one of the most fascinating fast-buck operators to ever live, and the incredible scandals he masterminded. Hustling his way from the streets of the Bronx to hawking bogus businesses around...

“A time capsule of adventuresome sleuthing [that] traces the contours of U. S. political history.” —The Washington Post The Los Angeles Times once called Terry Lenzner “one of the most powerful and dreaded private investigators in the world.” Since graduating from Harvard Law School...

One of NPR's Best Books of the Year A finalist of the for the 2022 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime The inside story of how a courageous FBI informant helped to bring down the KKK organization responsible for a brutal civil rights–era killing. By early 1966, the work of Vernon Dahmer was well...