In 2009, Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was arrested in front of his home in Cambridge, Mass. on charges of disorderly conduct. The charges were dismissed four days later but one of the first people Gates called after his arrest was his colleague at Harvard, Charles Ogletree.

The Presumption Of Guilt is Ogletree's book about the arrest and its aftermath. In it he argues that the incident should serve as a lesson on the abuse of power by police, and law enforcement's systemic suspicions about black men.