Jady Crews is arrested on a minor charge when he tries to stop his black militant son's group from using a gun. Judd easily gets that charge dropped, but the arrest brings to light the fact that Crews escaped from prison years earlier in South Carolina, where he had been convicted of murder after a traffic accident. Though Judd is sure he can get the conviction overturned, Crews' son hopes to use his father's plight to bolster his group's claim that a black man can't receive justice through laws made by whites.

An old friend of Judd objects to his son's friendship with a young man whom he thinks is a homosexual. Later, when the father is shot in an altercation, the son's friend is accused of attempted murder.