The screenplay was adapted from a radio script by Maxwell Shane and Alex Gottlieb, and was first shown as the bottom-half of a double feature with the top-billed "Without Reservations" at Hollywood's Pantages Theatre: A newspaper columnist, against capital punishment and crusading against murder convictions based on circumstantial evidence, tampers with evidence found at a murder scene in such a manner that it leads to him being accused of the crime, convicted and on his way to the state prison to be executed. The tampering was to prove a point about circumstantial evidence, and he succeeded in proving that circumstantial evidence will indeed get one convicted. But, now, his problem is to prove his innocence, and he is not in the position to do so.