In the late 1970s, a crime wave swept California. Several young girls were kidnapped, brutally raped, and murdered. Michael Dee Mattson, a drug addict with severe emotional problems, was convicted of these crimes and sentenced to be executed in California's gas chamber. James Potts, an aspiring young attorney still coming to terms with the rape of his own younger sister, is asked to find a way to get Mattson's conviction overturned.