It's 1982, and everyone is trying to "Escape From New York." Terence Devine, a charismatic Vice cop with one eye on removing his family to Florida, is caught on tape taking money from a pimp. Forced to cooperate with the district attorney's investigation into his own unit, Devine's position becomes even more precarious when he's linked to the murder of a sex worker whose customers include some of the most powerful men in the city. Despite his fevered efforts to deflect the inquiry into the woman's death, Devine receives a life sentence for killing her.
Forty years later his long-estranged daughter, Sheila, a documentary filmmaker, reaches out to him in prison. When they meet, Devine insists he's innocent. Sheila is reluctant to delve into her family's troubled history and ridicules her father's claims, although she sees the box-office potential in making a movie about him. But as she examines his case she starts to question his guilt, and the pointed questions she asks place her own life in danger.
Public Morals is the story of people trying to right the wrongs of a world corrupted by power and greed. It is also about the elusive nature of justice and the difficulty of escaping the past, even when your life depends on doing just that.