A southern town is rocked by scandal when teenager Mary Clay is murdered on Confederate Memorial Day. A district attorney with political ambitions, Andrew Griffin, sees the crime as his way to the Senate if he can find the right scapegoat to be tried for the crime. He seeks out Robert Hale, Mary's teacher at the business school where she was killed. Even though all evidence against Hale is circumstantial, Hale happens to be from New York (Leo Frank was a Southerner from Texas, but he was Jewish and had been raised in New York), and Griffin works with reporter William Brock to create a media frenzy of prejudice and hatred against the teacher. The issue moves from innocence or guilt to the continuing bigotry and suspicion between South and North, especially given the significance of the day of the murder.