The Star Chamber

“They meet. They judge. They execute.”

Murderers keep walking out of Los Angeles courtrooms, freed on technicalities the law was never meant to allow. Steven Hardin (Michael Douglas), a young judge, watches it happen from the bench, bound by the same rules that let them go, and the despair follows him home to his wife Emily (Sharon Gless). Peter Hyams has him argue with Detective Harry Lowes (Yaphet Kotto) and a colleague (Hal Holbrook), and Hardin carries every dismissed case with him.