Black's account of these cases brings alive the life and death struggles in our judicial system. In Alvarez, Black must convince a jury to put aside poisonous pretrial publicity, the threat of riot, and almost universal pressure for a conviction in order to keep a young police officer out of jail. In Knight, Black confronts issues of class and race as he works in federal appeals courts to save an insane killer sentenced to death because of the incompetence of his first lawyers. In Hicks, Black must convince a jury that the police conducted a sloppy investigation in order to prove the innocence of a client who's his own worst enemy. And in De La Mata, Black must overcome the immense powers of the federal government in defending a former bank president caught in the crosshairs of a prosecutor waging his own relentless war on drugs.