Judge Jim Scott (Fred MacMurray) wants to sentence a killer to die, but the outlaw's family members intend otherwise. All-powerful patriarch Charlie Hayes (Robert Middleton) and his intimidating kinfolk are confident they can use violence to get their doomed relative's sentence commuted into something less severe. Although Sheriff Barney Wiley (John Ericson) wilts under the family's strong-arm tactics, Scott remains determined to see justice done at the end of a rope.
