"What started out as a joke landed seventeen-year-old Dillon Yates in a lockdown juvenile facility in Boston Harbor. When he set up a prank Twitter account for his vice principal, he never dreamed he could be brought up on criminal charges, but that's exactly what happened. This is Blackburn, Massachusetts, where zero tolerance for minors is a way of life. Leading the movement is tough-as-nails Judge Joe Scali, who gives speeches about getting tough...

"The American criminal justice system is supposed to be a contest between two equal adversaries, the prosecution and the defense, with judges ensuring a fair fight. But in fact, it is prosecutors who have the upper hand, in a contest that is far from equal. More than anyone else, prosecutors decide who goes free and who goes to prison, and even who lives and who dies. The system wasn't designed for this kind of unchecked power, and in Charged, Emily...

What would you do if you discovered that 13 people slated for execution had been found innocent? That was exactly the dilemma that Illinois Governor George Ryan faced in his final days in office. He, alone, was left to decide whether the remaining 167 death row inmates should live or die. This details the gripping drama of the clemency hearings during the countdown to Ryan's decision. Documented as the events unfolded, this is a compelling look inside...

"In 2010, President Barack Obama signed a law repealing one of the most controversial policies in American criminal justice history: the one hundred to one sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and powder whereby someone convicted of "simply" possessing five grams of crack--the equivalent of a few sugar packets--had been required by law to serve no less than five years in prison. In this highly original work, Dimitri A. Bogazianos draws on various...

An unforgettable account of an idealistic, gifted young lawyer's coming of age, a moving window into the lives of those he has defended, and an inspiring argument for compassion in the pursuit of true justice.