Hairdresser Nadine Hightower wants to retrieve the risqué photos she once posed for, but when she visits the photographer at his office, he's murdered by an intruder. Nadine talks her estranged husband, Vernon, into going along when she returns to the office, where they stumble across plans for a less than legal construction project. But when Vernon tries to turn the documents into a cash windfall, he and Nadine are pursued by goons with guns.

A grieving family whose daughter was killed in a car crash with a drunken driver is outraged and frustrated as they encounter the inevitable bureaucratic delays in bringing the case to trial. Once in the courtroom, they are horror-stricken as the young, hard-pressed district attorney seems unable to overcome the technicalities and maneuverings that the driver's attorney uses to keep his client out of jail and still on the streets as a legal driver. When the judge is forced to rule time and again in favor of the defense, it appears that the driver might escape punishment altogether.

A high school football hero Bo Reinecker tries to piece together the events leading up to murder of his girl friend Lisa Nolen. Claiming to have experienced a total blackout, Bo is ultimately found not guilty of the murder by reason of insanity and placed in an institution for four years. Meanwhile, the dead girl's father, Tom Nolen, and her sister Wynn, bitterly prepare a campaign to put Nolen away in prison for life. Things come to a boil when Bo is released--and Tom and Wynn take "due process" into their own hands.