Railroaded!

A federal judge is sent to a town to preside in a murder trial. He discovers that the defendant, a poor Mexican, is accused of killing the brother of a powerful landowner, and the townspeople are in no mood for the niceties of a trial. The judge, who has come to believe the accused is innocent of the murder, has to find the real killer before the defendant is railroaded to the gallows.

The polite Piedmont town of Hillston, North Carolina, wants to go on believing it is still too temperate to require homicide experts. But when the wife of a state senator is found beaten to death, the inner circle of Hillston's ruling families arranges to have the case assigned to Detective Justin Savile, the charming black sheep of the dynasty that founded the town.