This title was first published in 2003. In this study, the author examines the behavior of one group of court-appointed defence attorneys and reaches the conclusion that although, in contrast to popular opinion, these attorneys maintain an adversarial stance against the prosecutors and behave in a legally ethical (or "procedurally just") manner, case outcomes are unduly shaped by social class and are therefore substantively unjust. This occurs because poor defendants typically lack cultural rhetoric that favourably influences those who construct and operate the criminal court system. Ironically, this indicates that, in many cases, the process of plea bargaining may be more substantively just than trials. A major contribution of the study is the detailed analysis of the manner by which oppression and substantive injustice occur in the adjudication of many cases and how the cultural practices of the powerful can frequently misconstrue, exclude and mute the voices of the poor.

"Project of the American Bar Association, Criminal Justice Standards Committee, Criminal Justice Section"--T.p. verso.

A recent study estimates that thousands of innocent people are wrongfully imprisoned each year in the United States. Some are exonerated through DNA evidence, but many more languish in prison because their convictions were based on faulty eyewitness accounts and no DNA is available. Prominent criminal lawyer and law professor Abbe Smith weaves together real life cases to show what it is like to champion the rights of the accused. Smith describes the moral and ethical dilemmas of representing the guilty and the weighty burden of fighting for the innocent, including the victorious story of how she helped free a woman wrongly imprisoned for nearly three decades. For fans of Law and Order and investigative news programs like 20/20, Case of a Lifetime is a chilling look at what really determines a person's innocence.