The McMartin family's lives are turned upside down when they are accused of serious child molestation. The family run a school for infants. An unqualified child cruelty "expert" videotapes the children describing outrageous stories of abuse. One of the most expensive and long running trials in US legal history, exposes the lack of evidence and unprofessional attitudes of the finger pointers which kept one of the accused in jail for over 5 years without bail.

Pete "Skag" Skagska is a 56-year-old union foreman of a Pittsburgh steel mill until a crippling stroke forces him to stay home and try to put his life back together and deal with family problems.

During the 1960s' civil rights movement, a black civil rights worker returns to his small Southern town and runs for sheriff against the incumbent, a popular segregationist.