# Conviction (2016)

> A brilliant attorney and daughter of a former president is blackmailed into leading a Los Angeles unit that reinvestigates possibly wrongful convictions.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/59082

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 13
- Episode runtime: 42 min
- Status: Canceled
- Genres: drama, crime
- Created by: Liz Friedman, Liz Friedlander
- Network: ABC
- Cast: Hayley Atwell, Shawn Ashmore, Eddie Cahill, Emily Kinney, Merrin Dungey, Manny Montana, Nick Baillie, Brian Dunstan
- TMDB rating: 7.1/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5396572/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: moderate
- Complexity: accessible
- Violence: mild
- Tone: tense, earnest, procedural, morally urgent

## What critics say

Audiences rated the single season as mixed, with a legal-thriller premise and a strong lead performance offset by uneven case-of-the-week execution.

## Synopsis

Conviction (2016-2017) is an American legal drama created by Liz Friedman and Liz Friedlander for ABC. Hayley Atwell plays Hayes Morrison, a brilliant young attorney and the daughter of a former U.S. president, who is blackmailed into running Los Angeles's new Conviction Integrity Unit. Her team, which includes Shawn Ashmore as Sam Spencer and Eddie Cahill as Conner Wallace, takes on cases where people may have been wrongly convicted, digging through old files, interviewing witnesses, and confronting prosecutors and police who would rather leave closed verdicts alone. The engine of each episode is a single case: a new fact, a doubtful witness, or a buried document that pushes the team against the institutions protecting the original outcome, while Hayes must also navigate the political pressure her family name brings. The series runs for one thirteen-episode season in a case-of-the-week format with a serialized thread underneath. Its tone is earnest, tense, and procedural, with a moral urgency that recalls prestige courtroom dramas such as The Good Wife and the documentary-style reexaminations of Making a Murderer. Fans of wrongful conviction stories and legal investigations will find its blend of courtroom pressure and personal stakes resonant. Set in present-day Los Angeles, it captures the grind of reopening cases the system has already sealed.

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