Plot summary

This film tells how Betty Ann Waters (Hilary Swank), an unemployed single mother of two boys, saw her brother begin serving a life sentence in 1983 for murder and robbery of a woman living in a trailer next door to him in Ayer, Massachusetts. Kenneth's ability to appeal his conviction using public defenders was exhausted and without a lawyer, he would have died in prison. That is when Betty Anne, a high school dropout, decided to dedicate her life to save her brother. Convinced that he was innocent, she spent the next 12 years taking steps to earn a law degree. In 1995 with a law degree in hand, she began focusing on her brother's case. Challenging the conviction with DNA evidence, with the help of the Innocence Project, she proved her brother's innocence, and Kenneth Waters walked out a free man in March 2001 after 18 years in prison. The estate of the late Kenneth Waters settled a civil rights lawsuit against the town of Ayer for $3.4 million in 2009. Douglas Young (the-movie-guy) & (www.themovieinsider.com)