The White Gloves Verdict

In the decaying Gulf Coast town of St. Jude, the ritualistic murder of a young Black clerk at the Gallatin's department store inflames racial tensions. Harold Vance, a white floor manager whose pathological self-discipline borders on the monastic, is arrested after his pristine fingerprints are found on the weapon. As defense attorney Elias Cormier—a disgraced former prosecutor wrestling with his own ghosts—digs into the case, he unearths a logical chasm in the state's evidence: the very compulsions that make Vance seem capable of monstrous control prove he could not have committed the crime. A courtroom battle ensues where the line between saint and psychopath blurs, and a single, overlooked habit becomes the fulcrum of an astonishing reversal.