One Trial Decides the Fate of a City

Before the "boy murderer" goes to trial, newspapers inflame the city with a non-existent crime wave. Prosecutor Pugh rejects an offer to plead Berner guilty to 2nd degree murder, and the public is told that if this 17-year-old defendant isn’t hanged, every citizen will be a future target. But jurors hear a more nuanced and complicated story, creating a dangerous divide between the people who hear the evidence in court from the ones that only get it from newsprint.