In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate, yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders.
The series follows a two-part approach: the investigation of a crime and apprehension of a suspect by New York City Police Department homicide detectives; the second is the prosecution of the defendant by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. Plots are often based on real cases that recently made headlines, although the motivation for the crime and the perpetrator may be different.