The only comprehensive survey of rights of the accused in American history, this new text guides the reader through the development of these rights and their central relationship to liberty, justice, and social order. Integrating legal, social, and political history, Fair Trial focuses on the defendant's rights in theory and practice and traces developments in local and state courts as well as in the U.S. Supreme Court, recognizing that, throughout history, the expression and protection of rights has most often been a matter of local concern. The second volume in the Bicentennial Essays on the Bill of Rights series, co-sponsored by the Organization of American Historians and Oxford University Press, this is an essential introduction to criminal due process and its importance to American liberty.