An innocent man (John Beal) sits on death row in colorful company, as friends race to save his life.

When he quits his job as an aircraft engineer in New Mexico after an argument with his boss, John Thompson (John Beal) decides to take his girlfriend (Ann Dvorak) and move to California. On his way to pick up his paycheck, he is kidnapped by a criminal gang who are planning to rob the payroll office at John's former employer. They take his car and one of them wears his uniform coat while holding up the office. During the robbery, the paymaster is killed, and a little boy is run over as the gang is escaping. They dump the car and release John, who shortly afterward is arrested and charged with robbery and murder. Despite conflicting evidence and John's protestations that he has been framed, he is convicted, sentenced to death and sent to prison, where he is put on Death Row while awaiting execution. A detective (Preston Foster) who had helped to convict John now starts to think that maybe he was innocent as he claimed, starts to go back over the evidence and doesn't like what he finds.—[email protected]

After his designs for a new aircraft are rejected by his conservative boss, engineer John E. Thompson (John Beal) quits his job and makes plans with his fiancée, travel agent Connie Stewart (Ann Dvorak), to leave New Mexico for California. While on his way to pick up his last paycheck, John is ambushed by gangsters, who steal his car and use it and his company coat to rob the payroll office. During the hold-up, the paymaster is killed by "Mac" MacAndrews, the gang's leader, and a little boy is run over as the gangsters make their escape. The gangsters dump John's car and release John, who then is arrested by the police. Implicated by the physical evidence, John is convicted of the crimes by Knight, an ambitious district attorney, and by the revenge-hungry public, and is sentenced to hang. Sure that John is innocent, Connie convinces police detective Steven Mathews (Preston Foster), who had helped to convict John, to re-interview a guard who had been injured during the robbery. When the guard relates a story different from his trial testimony, Steven suspects that John was framed and pursues a new investigation of his case. In prison, John grows increasingly despondent and skeptical as his death row neighbors leave for the gallows one by one. Unknown to him, however, two of the gangsters, Bright Boy Schultz and Clyde Beasley, also have been framed by a greedy Mac and are serving time in the same prison. Filled with guilt, Bright Boy sends a message through the prison pipes to John that he knows the identity of the real killer. Bright Boy is unable to finish his message, however, and an hysterical John is sent to the "hole." After Clyde stabs Bright Boy to death in the prison yard, Steven drugs Clyde and drags Mac's name out of him. In spite of Steven's mounting evidence against Mac, the governor refuses to stay John's approaching execution. On the same day that John is to die, Mac poisons his double-crossing cohort, Nick Trotti, and takes off for Chicago with the payroll money. As John's neighbors stage a violent protest in their cell-block, Steven and Knight catch Mac with Nick's corpse and the stolen cash. With minutes to spare, John is saved from execution, and exonerated, he leaves for California with Connie.