The text contains case excerpts, tables, graphs, and other materials to present a balanced approach to both formal and practical law. Chapters 1 and 2 provide an overview of the criminal process, the structure of American criminal justice, and constitutional principles governing the law and practice of U.S. criminal procedure. Particular attention is paid to detection, investigation, prosecution, adjudicating, sentencing, due process, and the right to counsel. Chapter 3 surveys a wide range of process and substantive remedies available when government exceeds its power. The focus is on the exclusionary rule, dismissal, entrapment, reversible error, expungement of arrest records, civil actions, and injunction. A series of decision points is presented in Chapters 4 through 12. These decision points encompass initial police-citizen contacts (stop and frisk), arrest, search and seizure, interrogations and confessions, identification procedures, the decision to charge and the first appearance, pretrial proceedings, conviction by trial and guilty plea, and what happens after conviction. Notes and figures