Books published by Michael Winstead

A young woman is murdered while cycling in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Henry Lawter, a meth addict, confesses. He is tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. On appeal, the conviction is reversed because Lawter could not hear the Miranda warning-he was temporarily deaf, having pierced his own eardrums with an ice pick. He must be released.Judge Raleigh Westlake, who presided over the trial and sentenced Lawter, cannot tolerate this injustice. He forms a vigilante tribunal with four others. Robert Crenshaw, Westlake's protégée and an Assistant US Attorney, serves as the tribunal's prosecutor. David Johnstone, defense lawyer, acts as attorney for the accused, though the verdicts and sentences are pre-ordained. Marcus Cunningham and Ignacio Perez, two US Marshals and ex-Marines who protect the Judge and his federal courtroom, apprehend the criminals and carry out the sentences. The cabal captures Lawter on a Florida beach. This time there is no reprieve. Lawter is put on trial in a secret courtroom inside a semi-trailer and found guilty again. He is executed by a heroin overdose masked as suicide.Crossing the line is not easy. Westlake has been a federal judge for a dozen years. As he levies secret justice on each criminal, Westlake grapples with his Cherokee heritage, his Catholic faith, and his waning trust in the judicial system. He is not sure which one will win out.A woman who made and distributed pornographic videos of her children is the next target. She escaped prosecution by turning government informant. Judge Westlake puts her on trial in the trailer and finds her guilty of heinous victimization of her kids. When promised a gruesome execution, she commits suicide.The third target is an alcoholic baseball star who ran over five people in a cross-walk. A Savannah judge metes out a sentence of 30 days in an addiction clinic, a miscarriage of justice Judge Westlake cannot abide. The baseball player must answer for his crimes. Convicted of manslaughter and squandering second chances, the young prodigy is plied with the alcohol he so craves, put behind the wheel of his SUV, and pushed off a bridge into the Savannah River.The tribunal's clandestine efforts produce only a small ripple in the cesspool of criminals. The Judge is unsated. He wants to send a message.The fourth target is a US Congressman who has perpetrated a massive Ponzi scheme, bilking thousands out of their savings. He avoids prosecution through a network of shell companies, lawyers, and political connections. When the Department of Justice declines to prosecute Representative Lyle Walker for securities fraud, the voices of thousands of victims are ignored. The cabal captures the Texas Congressman and tries him in the trailer. He admits his crimes, as they all do. Congressman Walker is convicted of excessive greed and sentenced to death by rattlesnake. The group sends a public message to other criminals: someone is watching.After the Congressman's assassination, the FBI launches a nationwide manhunt for the vigilantes. The FBI plants a false lead and Crenshaw, believing their capture is imminent, confesses the secret tribunal to his boss, United States Attorney Caroline Bannister. Caroline was on the trial team that convicted Henry Lawter, only to see him set free. She too has lost faith in the system. Her sister was murdered in a drug slaying 25 years earlier. The killer has not been caught.Feigning an investigation into Westlake's criminal enterprise, and promising Crenshaw full immunity, Caroline invents a rendezvous with the FBI to capture Westlake and his cohorts. In a surprise finale, Crenshaw is dead. The FBI has not been informed of the secret tribunal. Caroline must confront the cabal alone.

In this second installment in the Ultimate series, Judge Raleigh Westlake and the secret tribunal continue to prosecute criminals who have escaped justice. In their mobile courtroom, the cabal targets a judge who has taken bribes in exchange for lenient sentences and a politician linked to the murder of a young woman a quarter century in the past. In his real courtroom, Judge Westlake oversees the trial of an 18 year old accused of rampaging through a Christmas party, killing dozens. But the defendant has been framed.As the story unfolds, long-buried secrets are revealed. The Judge himself is linked to the death of a client and her children while he was still in law school. Caroline Bannister, the zealous federal prosecutor who saved them all from certain capture in Ultimate Verdict, seeks to avenge her sister's death at all costs. In her quest for justice, she becomes blinded by revenge.Judge Westlake and Caroline Bannister become entangled romantically, though neither fully trusts the other. As the trial of accused terrorist Abdul Alnoor commences, they become ensnared in a web of deceit perpetrated by the real terrorist-Viktor Volkov. Volkov, a Russian spy embedded in America as a plastic surgeon, has planted damning evidence to frame Alnoor. Though Alnoor professes his innocence, his prosecution steams forward unabated.When the cabal sets free that judge who took bribes, Caroline secretly returns and kills him, making it look like suicide. And the cabal has made a critical mistake-they have trusted Caroline. In pursuing the Mayor of Charlotte for the death of her sister, Caroline is blinded to the truth. She alters evidence to serve her own agenda, convincing the others that the politician is guilty. At the end of the politician's trial in the secret courtroom, before sentence can be imposed, Caroline brutally executes the Mayor.A missing cell phone holds evidence that has never been unearthed. When the cell phone surfaces at the end of the novel, it contains a video that exculpates the politician, a revelation that sends them all into a tailspin. They have murdered an innocent man. In their misguided pursuit of the politician, they have veered straight into the path of the real terrorist. And they become his target.As the trial of accused terrorist Abdul Alnoor gets underway, the real terrorist blackmails Judge Westlake and Caroline Bannister. In the critical climax, the secret tribunal must make their most difficult decision: Do they save themselves, or an innocent man?