A lawyer trying to cope with his son's accidental death takes on a case where a farmer is charged with booby trapping a watermelon patch with a shotgun which went off and injured a young boy. But in choosing to defend the farmer he puts himself at odds with the boy's father an old friend who is politically influential. In dealing with this case he is forced to confront his own son's death and his wife's slippage into being a virtual recluse.