Courtroom 302

From the publisher's web site: "Steve Bogira’s riveting book takes us into the heart of America’s criminal justice system. Courtroom 302 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. When the judge and his staff go to the scene of the crime during a burglary trial, we go with them on the sheriff’s bus. We witness from behind the scenes the highest-profile case of the year: three young white men, one of them the son of a reputed mobster, charged with the racially motivated beating of a thirteen-year-old black boy. And we follow the cases that are the daily grind of the court, like that of the middle-aged man whose crack addiction brings him repeatedly back before the judge."

Steve Bogira graduated from Northwestern University and has been a prize winning writer for the Chicago Reader since 1981. In 1993 he won an Alicia Patterson Fellowship, given to working journalists to pursue independent projects of significant interest, and established in memory of Alicia Patterson, editor and publisher of Newsday for nearly 23 years.

"A book you must read . . . It captures the reality of criminal justice better than anything I've read." --Charles Peters, Washington Monthly

“An immensely important book that exposes how America's criminal justice system really works.” Chicago Sun-Times

"An eye-opener. Bogira is a journalist who knows his trade as well as anyone I've encountered in recent years. A remarkable book." -Studs Terkel

"A gripping, insightful book . . . Might be required reading for anyone interested in the realities of the American justice system." -Peter Blauner, Newsday

"Courtroom 302 is a wonderfully vivid portrait of a criminal courtroom in the nation's busiest courthouse, and of the cops and robbers, lawyers, judges, and assorted creatures of the law who arrive there. It makes informative and often moving reading." -Scott Turow

"Excellent . . . By focusing on something small-the cases coming before one judge, in a single courtroom-Bogira gets a handle on something large and hard to make sense of: the American way of criminal justice." -Ted Conover, The New York Times Book Review

"Brilliant . . . A genuine eye-opener. Bogira supplements his acute observations with meticulous research . . . He has produced a compelling narrative that is often more entertaining than most of the cop shows which are so popular on American television." -The Economist

"Gripping . . . Bogira captures the unspoken realities of the criminal justice system . . . Triumphant in its detail." -David Feige, The Washington Post

"Stunning . . . What ails our system of criminal justice isn't news . . . What is news is the why of it all. And that's the book's central revelation, which Bogira articulates in prose that's first rate . . . The heart of the book is observation and world-class reportage . . Statistics are deconstructed back into human beings. We get the smells, sights, and sounds of the big city criminal courts in precise, unforgettable detail . . . Anyone considering working as a prosecutor or a defense attorney must read this book.... one's perceptions of our criminal justice system, and the larger system that created and continues to shape it, will be permanently altered." ---Theodore L. Blumberg, New York Law Journal

"Powerful and moving . . . Bogira is more than a gifted writer: He's also a disciplined and committed one . . . Bogira is an inspiring reminder of what investigative reporting can and should do to keep our national institutions cleaner and better than they are." -Jonathan Shapiro, Los Angeles Times

"A rare, richly detailed look at criminal justice . . . Well-written, meticulously researched . . . A vivid tapestry of the day-in and day-out workings of criminal justice, ranging from the mundane to the bizarre and from the humorous to the gut-wrenchingly sad." -Maurice Possley, Chicago Tribune

"So insider-ish, so candid, that it will shock, awe, and generally stick in the mind for a long time . . . So much in Courtroom 302 is revelatory that the revelations cannot even be summarized in a normal-length newspaper review . . . Important, compelling." -Steve Weinberg, Legal Times