Eric Fisher, a 17-year-old kid with addiction issues, is taken into custody after his mother is brutally murdered in her San Fernando Valley home in 1983. The lead detective on the case, Dave Russell, interrogates Eric while Eric's devastated father, lawyer Henry Fisher, tries to help his son.

Two decades after the murder, a series of newspaper articles about the Fisher case sways public sentiment in Eric's favor. Eric prepares for an evidentiary hearing that could lead to a retrial with a new, elite lawyer, Bernard Poulos. LAPD cold case detectives begin building a new case against Eric, until a break comes in the form of Melanie Pruitt - a childhood friend of Eric's with a story that may shed new light on the Fisher murder.