Atlanta, 1913: Leo Frank, gerent d'una fàbrica a Marietta (Geòrgia), va ser acusat de crims sexuals i de l'assassinat de Mary Phagan, una empleada de la fàbrica de catorze anys. Va ser condemnat a mort en un judici si més no qüestionable, ja que ni l'acusat ni el seu advocat defensor van estar presents a l'hora de pronunciar el veredicte, ja que es temia que la torba que envoltava l'edifici del Tribunal actués violentament. Les apel·lacions de Frank no van prosperar, però el governador de l'estat va commutar la pena de mort per cadena perpètua.

The Murder of Mary Phagan, a 1987 two-part American TV miniseries made by Orion Pictures Corporation and distributed by National Broadcasting Company, is a dramatization of the story of Leo Frank, a factory manager charged and convicted with murdering a 13-year-old girl, a factory worker named Mary Phagan, in Atlanta, Georgia in 1913. The trial was sensational and controversial. After Frank's legal appeals had failed, the governor of Georgia in 1915 commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment. In 1915 Frank was kidnapped from prison and lynched by a small group of prominent men of Marietta, Georgia. The film features Jack Lemmon, Kevin Spacey, Rebecca Miller, Charles Dutton, Peter Gallagher, Cynthia Nixon, Dylan Baker, and William H. Macy.

Written by Larry McMurtry, produced by George Stevens, Jr., and directed by William "Billy" Hale, the film was shot in Richmond, Virginia. It has a running time of 251 minutes, originally broadcast over two evenings.

Au début du XXe siècle à Atlanta, le meurtre d'une jeune fille suscite de vives réactions de la part de la communauté, et conduit finalement à l'arrestation d'un homme qui pourrait bien être innocent...