Joe Beckett is just a regular guy. He lives and works in a small town in southern Florida to support a wife who doesn't love him and a daughter he adores-both the result of a drunken high school one night stand six years earlier. Determined to make the most of his marriage for the sake of his daughter Casey, Joe comes home early one day to surprise his wife Megan with a gift and dinner reservation, only to find her being brutally raped in their bedroom-or so he thought. Joe fights off the attacker with a baseball bat and accidentally kills the man in the process. The man, it turns out, was not raping Megan but rather was her longtime lover and the nephew of the sheriff-a man whose reign of power and corruption in the county is without bounds. When Megan lies about the attack, claiming that Joe killed the man in a jealous rage, the sheriff has all he needs to arrest Joe for murder and the fix is in. With the sheriff helping matters along with the judge and the jury, Joe is convicted and sent to prison for twenty years; away from his beloved Casey. While in prison, Joe works diligently to prove his innocence and expose the corrupt sheriff; engaging the help of a beautiful attorney at the Center on Wrongful Convictions who helps with his case and thaws his heart. Joe finally gets a letter from Casey, who informs him that her mom has a new boyfriend who it seems is developing more than a passing interest in young Casey. With a renewed determination to get out of prison, rescue his daughter, and expose the sheriff's corruption, Joe forms an unlikely alliance with the leader of a deadly prison gang who helps him with his plan to escape and find the justice that has for so long eluded him.