Judge Carter Addison murders his cheating mistress and frames her lover. Then the judge presides over the man's trial with Ben Matlock as the defense counsel.
Christina Ward hires Ben to defend Sonia Cardenas, the maid accused of knifing her cheating husband Richard. Sonia was one of Richard's dalliances and is reluctant to help Ben; is she covering for someone else?
Sisters Julia and Emily McCullough murder their wealthy Aunt Esther with a heavy object and frame her dull husband Harold Scully, a golf partner of Ben's. Ben reluctantly defends Scully and must break the sisters' alibi and strong bond.
Spoiled rock star and party girl Angel goes to her manager Lou Pearson's house to patch up a drunken fight and passes out. When she comes to, he's been fatally stabbed in the chest with scissors. Ben reluctantly defends her.
Ben's law professor Erskine Tate is arrested for vehicular homicide of postal worker Jim Donaldson but has no recollection of it. Ben suspects Tate's assistant Jim Billings and students Eric Lane and Wesley Wallace, then tries to prove it.
At Christmas, cruel landlord Alan Rawlings wants to evict his tenants and tangles with tenant Tom McCabe, a cynical disabled Korean War vet and street Santa. Rawlings is murdered with a paperweight and McCabe is accused.
During the taping of her TV cooking show, chef Victoria Edwards' ex-husband Mike, whom she hates, samples her cooking, then keels over dead from cyanide poisoning. Ben and Charlene investigate and the killer moves to strike again.
Maryann Nelson's book, whose characters are based on her neighbors, is a best seller. Angry neighbors threaten her. When Reverend DeLuca visits, someone shoots at her and kills him. The investigation leads to town Doctor Egan.
In California, Ben defends cookie magnate Alan Gardener who is accused of drowning his girlfriend Debbie O'Keefe, a bit-part actress who may have been involved with one of his friends.
One night, Peter St. John dies of what seems to be a heart attack while his private nurse Kathy Dawson was out. When his cause of death is determined to be murder, Kathy becomes the prime suspect. Ben's retainer: a $250K engagement ring.
Ben's ex-client Lester Matthews has spent years in prison for murder. Before his parole, Lester kills a fellow inmate with a knife in self-defense. Ben defends Lester again and figures out what happened in the previous case.
An Army lieutenant pushes his men too hard. Someone stabs him in the back, and he dies. The Army charges one of the soldiers in his company, Ben defends him, and Charlene and Tyler help. During a preliminary hearing the accused disappears.
Ben returns the defendant, but a crucial witness (the only witness) disappears. Tyler discovers a drug scheme, Charlene finds out about the background, and Ben figures out the pieces of the puzzle. Ben even learns about the Army.
A famous movie star, staying incognito at a special clinic, becomes outraged when his presence there is leaked to the media. When the doctor is found murdered he is arrested for it.
Gerald O'Hara is accused of killing Dan Keaton, a candidate in the current election, by gunfire and dumping the body at a construction site. Juror # 7 Harry Craven accuses Ben of bribing a witness with cash mailed from Ben's office.
A woman arrives home to find her house on fire and her husband dead. The police believe she did it to kill her husband who supposedly was planning on leaving her. A newspaper reporter helps Ben and discovers the husband had a secret past.
Habitually angry Dr Dave Westlake supervises a team of doctors and threatens them with bad performance reviews before being killed. Team member Bruce Jacobs finds the body and they all become suspects.
