In 1950s England, slow-witted Derek Bentley falls in with a group of petty criminals led by Chris Craig, a teenager with a fondness for American gangster films. Chris and Derek's friendship leads to their involvement in the true case which would forever shake England's belief in capital punishment.

Cicero, the future Consul of Rome, is just starting out as a trial lawyer in crime-ridden Rome where assassinations for political advantage and for estate grabbing had become de rigueur. The matriarch of a prominent family hires him to defend a relative on a charge of patricide. He faces one of the shrewdest criminal trial prosecutors in the Republic who is backed by powerful political forces with motives to see that his client is convicted and executed in one of the most horrible manners possible.