AllMovie

Popular mystery writer Richard North Patterson found two of his potboilers, Eyes of a Child and Degree of Guilt, turned into a four-part miniseries for NBC with this star-studded opus. Degree of Guilt stars Daphne Zuniga as Terri, a young wife and mother trapped in an abusive marriage to Ritchie (Vincent Ventresca) in the San Francisco Bay area. With Ritchie sleeping around on her and burning through the family's savings, Terri turns to the sheltering arms of Patterson's recurring attorney-hero Christopher Paget (David James Elliott), much to her mother Rosa's (Tricia O'Neil) dismay. Torn between two men, Terri moves back in, child in tow, with the scolding Rosa. But when Ritchie turns up dead, it's up to Christopher to get his love off the hook. Degree of Guilt also stars Sharon Lawrence as an icy femme fatale whom Christopher is called upon to represent.