Hailed as a "smoking gun" of civil rights research, Presumed Guilty presents a groundbreaking, decades-long history of judicial failure in America, revealing how the Supreme Court has sanctioned racist police practices, including profiling and intimidation, and legitimated gross law enforcement excesses that disproportionately affect people of color. Indeed, as this "essential accounting" (Laurence H. Tribe) shows, the fact that police are nine times more likely to kill African American men than they are other Americans is no accident, but the result of an elaborate body of doctrines that allow the police and the courts to presume that suspects are guilty before being charged. Written with a lawyer's expert knowledge and experience, Presumed Guilty is a must-read for anyone striving to understand the systems that perpetuate police brutality. Book jacket.