It's the early '80s in the small Mississippi town of Clanton, in Ford County, Mississippi. Small-time drug dealer and recently released ex-convict Bill Ray Cobb and his best pal Willard take Cobb's new pickup truck on a joyride through town. Tearing through the backroads, high and drunk, they ride up on ten-year-old Tonya Hailey as she's bringing a bag of groceries back to her family's home. Cobb and Willard kidnap Tonya, drive her into the woods, tie her up, and beat and rape her until they fall asleep. They keep her tied up through the night, occasionally throwing beer cans at her, or urinating on her. The next morning, they try to lynch Tonya, but the branch snaps. They panic and drive all over town looking for a place to throw her into the river, but they can't find a spot without witnesses, so they just leave her in the road. She's soon found and brought to her family's home. She's alive, but in critical condition and rushed to the hospital.
Earlier that day Tonya's father, Carl Lee Hailey, receives a call at work, at the lumber mill, from his wife Gwen. Gwen is worried that Tonya's been kidnapped, but Carl Lee isn't concerned because the kids have gone missing for a night before and always turned up from a friend's house. But when he arrives home from work that day, he is greeted by a squad car in his driveway. In the house, he finds his little girl in a critical state. He holds her until the ambulance arrives.
Cobb and Willard are quickly pursued by Clanton police. Sheriff Ozzie Walls sends an informant into Cobb's preferred honky tonk, where he's already bragging about the rape to the other men at the bar. Walls arrests Cobb and Willard, and after a brief interrogation, he produces a signed confession from Willard. Cobb and Willard's trials are set, and the case seems very clear—these two are guilty.
Meanwhile, Jake Brigance is a young lawyer living in a picturesque Victorian home with a shiny new five-thousand-dollar coat of paint on it. His criminal law practice is finally getting off the ground and slowly earning a good reputation in the region. Jake is married to Carla, and they have a four-year-old girl named Hanna. A few years back, Jake represented Carl Lee Hailey's brother, Lester Hailey, in a murder case, so Jake knows the Hailey family fairly well, and he's pretty shaken to hear that Carl Lee's little girl, Tonya, has been raped.
Shortly after hearing about the rape, Carl Lee approaches Jake and asks him what would happen if he were to take matters into his own hands with regards to Cobb and Willard. Jake advises Carl Lee against any rash decisions. He explains that he would be tried for murder if he killed them—capital murder—and would thus face the death penalty. Carl Lee feels confident that Jake could get him off, like he did his brother, but Jake explains that Lester killed a Black man. It would be much harder to acquit Carl Lee as a Black man who killed two white men. Out of obligation, Jake informs Sheriff Walls that Carl Lee told him he's thinking about killing those two boys. Both Walls and Jake agree that he's saying what any father would say at this juncture. They don't take his threats seriously.
But Carl Lee does mean his threat very seriously. He drives to Memphis with Lester to visit an old friend named Cat. Cat is a big-time strip club owner who also deals in arms and drugs. Carl Lee asks Cat for an M-16, like they used in Vietnam together. Cat doesn't ask any questions, he just takes Carl Lee and Lester out on the town, and by the end of the day, there's a fully automatic M-16 in the trunk of Carl Lee's car. Carl Lee cases the Ford County Courthouse in Clanton. He traces every step that Cobb and Willard would take during their preliminary hearing. Then, on the day of the hearing, as the boys are being led out of the courthouse, Carl Lee pops out of a janitor's closet and mows them down with his rifle. In the process, Carl Lee accidentally shoots Deputy Dewayne Looney in the leg, and Looney's leg has to be amputated below the knee.
Carl Lee is promptly arrested and taken to the jail by Ozzie Walls. Carl Lee and Ozzie are old friends, and Carl Lee is treated well in jail, frequently allowed to leave and visit his family with the help of the sheriff. Carl Lee immediately hires Jake Brigance for his defense. Jake takes the case thinking that it could make his entire career. The publicity alone would be worth a million dollars. But the Haileys' limited funds pose a problem for Jake. Carl Lee is only able to offer him $900 for his services, when he quotes him at $7,000 for a capital murder defense.
All of Jake's other business falls by the wayside while he works Carl Lee's case. His wife and daughter are forced to leave the state after the situation in Clanton becomes so volatile with the creation of a Ford County chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. Racial tensions come to a head, and during the course of the trial, Jake's house is burned down, and a Klansman shoots at him with a sniper rifle. Jake gets free legal help from an ambitious third-year law student named Ellen Roark. While Carla is away in NC, Jake and Ellen become awfully close, but any chance of an extramarital affair is dashed when Ellen is kidnapped by the Klan, stripped, beaten, and left for dead in a field, only to be found by the Klan informant and taken to the hospital, where she stays for the remainder of the novel.
After a long and bracing trial with more obstacles than forgiveness, Carl Lee Hailey is acquitted by an all-white jury. His trial brings over fifteen thousand Black protesters to the little sleepy town of Clanton and highlights the latent racial tensions that remain in the American South long after the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Civil Rights era.
