In 1906, Ed Johnson was the innocnet black man found guilty of the brutal rape of Nevada Taylor, a white woman,
and sentenced to die in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Two black lawyers, not even part of the original defense, appealed
to the Supreme Court for a stay of execution, and the stay, incredibly, was granted. Frenzied with rage at the
deision, locals responded by lynching Johnson, and what ensued was a breathtaking whirlwind of groundbreaking legal
action whose import, Thurgood Marshall would claim, "has never been fully explained." Provocative, thorough,
and gripping, Contempt of Court is a long-overdue look at events that clearly depict the peculiar and tenuous relationship
between justice and the law.