Stone faces a Texas cowboy lawyer and a hostile community as he tries to prosecute a young man accused of murdering a drug dealer for raping the man's sister.

Detectives Briscoe and Logan investigate the murder of Dawn Bryan. The young African-American woman once had a bright future ahead of her. She was a good student and was even voted most likely to succeed. It seems to have all come tumbling down when she got hooked on crack. She was shot with a .45 caliber gun and their first suspect is her supplier and sometime live-in boyfriend who goes by the street name of Skate. The dead woman's family are devastated by the loss of their daughter but they feel they lost her long ago when she became hooked on drugs. When the evidence points to a family member as the likely culprit, ADA Stone and DA Adam Schiff both feel a good deal of sympathy. Paul Robinette however doesn't think anyone should have leniency and pushes for a grand jury indictment.

A businessman most people suspect got away with conspiring to murder his first wife is now accused of conspiring to kill his second wife. The two cases share eerie similarities.

A teenager who was shot in a drug deal gone bad claims to have been coerced into working as an informant for a corrupt narcotics officer.