Public defender Paul Bennett (Gig Young) dedicates himself to defending a destitute man accused of murder. Some-time piano player Richard Kincaid (James Anderson) was brought to trial for the crime 12 years earlier, but he was sure he would be found guilty and escaped before the jury reached a verdict. Now recaptured, he is due to be put on trial again. Bennett is faced with the task of tracking down the seven witnesses to a fight that Kincaid had with the murder victim before the crime. In the years since the first trial, World War II has come and gone and the lives of the witnesses have undergone major changes, most of them for the worse.