The renowned civil rights lawyer who rose to fame with Netflix’s documentary The Staircase examines America’s corrupt and abusive criminal justice system that has led to the incarceration of thousands of wrongfully convicted prisoners. 60,000 first printing. - (Baker & Taylor)

"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 system"-- - (Baker & Taylor)

From the fearless defense attorney and civil rights lawyer who rose to fame with Netflix’s The Staircase comes a “bracing account of abuses of power and corruption in the criminal justice system.” (The Guardian)

“A fine companion to Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy and Emily Bazelon’s Charged. A stellar—and often shocking—report on a broken criminal justice system.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

In the past thirty years alone, more than 2,800 innocent American prisoners—their combined sentences surpassing 25,000 years—have been exonerated and freed after being condemned for crimes they did not commit. Terrifyingly, this number represents only a fraction of the actual number of persons wrongfully accused and convicted over the same period. 

Renowned criminal defense and civil rights attorney David Rudolf has spent decades defending the wrongfully accused. In American Injustice, he draws from his years of experience in the American criminal legal system to shed light on the misconduct that exists at all levels of law enforcement and the tragic consequences that follow in its wake. Tracing these themes through the lens of some of his most important cases—including new details from the Michael Peterson trial made famous in The Staircase—Rudolf takes the reader inside crime scenes to examine forensic evidence left by perpetrators; revisits unsolved murders to detail how and why the true culprits were never prosecuted; reveals how confirmation bias leads police and prosecutors to employ tactics that make wrongful arrests and prosecutions more likely; and exposes how poverty and racism fundamentally distort the system.

In American Injustice, Rudolf gives a voice to those who have been the victim of wrongful accusations and shows in the starkest terms the human impact of legal wrongdoing. Effortlessly blending gripping true-crime reporting and searing observations on civil rights in America, American Injustice takes readers behind the scenes of a justice system in desperate need of reform.

Booklist Reviews

The American criminal justice system is designed to protect the innocent and prosecute the guilty. Sadly, that isn't always the case. When it comes to investigating and adjudicating crimes, the government, in the form of district attorneys, judges, and law enforcement, holds all the cards. In their zeal to identify someone accountable for a violent crime, individuals in the system often fall prey to personal bias, corrupting influences, incompetence, and negligence that result in outrageous abuses of power. When that happens, blameless men and women are incarcerated for crimes they did not commit, spending their lives in prison while the real criminals remain free and unfit criminal justice employees continue to perpetuate their subversive and profoundly destructive behavior. Rudolf, a veteran defense attorney, has dedicated his career to protecting the accused against government overreach. By sharing first-hand accounts of people falsely accused and unjustifiably prosecuted, Rudolf vibrantly demonstrates just how quickly and how permanently an innocent person's life can be destroyed. This is a sobering, infuriating, and essential examination of the flaws and failures of the country's legal system. Copyright 2021 Booklist Reviews.