In William J. Coughlin's The Court, the fourth Charley Sloan Courtroom Thriller, nine Supreme Court judges will soon decide four history-making cases. Eight of them will split along party lines four to four. The ninth judge, holding the swing vote, will tip the scales of justice. He's a good man, a fine man, and, unknown to nearly everyone, a dying man—barely kept alive by machines in a very private hospital.High-powered Washington attorney Jerry Green is one of the privileged few who discovers American justice rides on the rise and fall of a respirator. Now he's been called by the President himself to do something about it. It's a hunt for truth that will arouse his darkest suspicions...force him to make a shocking choice...and save the legitimacy of American justice. Or shatter it forever...

The death of innocenceIn a rural area outside of Detroit, bodies are being found in the snow. One after another. Neatly washed, wrapped in platic, methodically laid out like sleeping angels. And very, very young.The birth of evilForty miles away and at the other end of the world, an honest cop, the deputy chief chief of police, has been framed for a corruption charge. In a world of big-city politics, he wants ace lawyer Charley Sloan to get him off.The only hopePulled into the two very different cases, Charley faces the heat of a perplexnig serial murder investigation and the heavey hitters of the Motor City's inner circle. Interviewing witnesses, putting together clues, Charley Sloan, a man who has been at the bottom and at the top, is about to uncover the explosive difference between true innocence-and the most dangerous guilt of all...The Judgement

Detroit lawyer Charley Sloan has been around the block once or twice. Down for the count, drinking heavily, a three-time loser in the marriage wars, Charley repairs his tattered career and gets back in the game. Heading his rogues' gallery of clients is the infamous, twisted angel of mercy, Doctor Death, whose patients have a strange habit of dying under very peculiar circumstances.But now Charley steps into a case with the opportunity to do some good. The high stakes include a literal matter of life and death. And, as he quickly discovers, they also include the sinister stench of corruption that reaches to the highest levels of jurisprudence-including Charley Sloan's respected mentor. Suddenly, a rock and a hard place never looked so good.

Okay, so your client is a liar. Does that make him a murderer?In the dark hours of morning, Charley Sloan arrives at the palatial home of Miles Dane, celebrated novelist from the Detroit suburb of Pickeral Point, to find Dane's wife murdered in their bed.Dane tells Charley he was downstairs working. Heard nothing, saw nothing.The police arrive. Dane tells his story again. Only, this time there's a mysterious intruder fleeing down the hallway, with Dane in pursuit.Miles Dane became a famous writer because he had a wild and violent imagination. But now that imagination seems to be getting him in trouble. The more he talks to the police, the crazier his story sounds. Is he making things up because that's just what he does? Or is it because he has something to hide?Once the cops uncover physical evidence linking Dane to the crime, they're sure they know the answer. Dane is charged with murder.Charley Sloan has his work cut...