Judy Wingate , working in a paper-box factory, is living very unhappily with her step-mother, Frances Wingate , and Frances is very fond of entertaining members of the underworld at home. Eddie Nolan assaults Judy and she knocks him out with a kitchen-pan, and flees. Eddie is only unconscious but Frances finishes him off...and Judy is charged with murder and sent to prison for five years. A young newspaper reporter, Dan Donahue, believes she is innocent. Meanwhile, Frances is filled with remorse over Judy's conviction for a crime she committed, but not remorse-filled enough to confess. But she has a plan to get Judy out of prison.