This book is the story of one year in one courtroom in Chicago's Cook County Criminal Courthouse, the busiest felony courthouse in the country. 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. We witness from behind the scenes the highest-profile case of the year, and we follow the cases that are the daily grind of the court. Bogira shows us how the war on drugs is choking the system, and how in most instances justice is dispensed rapidly and mindlessly. The stories that unfold are often tragic, but they no longer seem so to the people who work there. This illumination of our criminal court system raises fundamental issues of race, civil rights, and justice.--From publisher description.

Prologue: Welcome to County3 -- 1 White Sales 23 -- 2 A Growth Industry 49 -- 3 Baggage 58 -- 4 Good Facts, Bad Facts 72 -- 5 Luck 88 -- 6 Busted Again 107 -- 7 A Real Lawyer 124 -- 8 Charlie Chan 141 -- 9 Perseveration 151 -- 10 Freely and Voluntarily 171 -- 11 Father and Son 185 -- 12 Defective Products 193 -- 13 Fixes 210 -- 14 A Sensitive Area 231 -- 15 What Really Happened 236 -- 16 Prejudice 260 -- 17 Blame the Po-lice 285 -- 18 Compassion 288 -- 19 Politics 311 -- Epilogue: A Promising Future 337.