When a judge commits suicide, and his secretary is found murdered people are looking very quickly for someone to blame.
A homeless deaf-mute man, Carl Anderson (Liam Neeson) seems the perfect scapegoat and is arrested for the woman's murder.
Public defender Kathleen Riley (Cher) is assigned by the court as his defending lawyer. She soon sets out to find the real killer, and gets help from the congressional advisor, Eddie Sanger (Dennis Quaid) who is called to be on the jury panel.
Together they discover a dangerous circle of corruption in high places.