Fair Trial: Rights of the Accused in American History (Bicentennial Essays on the Bill of Rights)

The idea of due process - the following of fair and regular procedures in actions against an individual - is central to the Anglo-American concept of liberty and justice. The Bill of Rights devotes more attention to the rights attendant upon a fair criminal process than it does to any other group of rights. This volume examines the theory and practice of the protection of defendants' rights in the USA from the colonial era to the present, emphasizing the transition from the State to the Federal government of the role of principal guarantor of constitutional protections for criminal defendants.