The Majesty of the Law (1915)

Judge Randolph Kent repudiates his son when the latter makes no satisfactory explanation of how the jewels which were stolen at Mrs. Monroe's ball came to be found in his coat pocket. That young Kent, heretofore the idol of the little city and the apple of his father's eye, was, after all, hopeless from the beginning seemed proven when he was later indicted for embezzlement. By an irony of fate Judge Kent himself is forced to hear the case, and on considering the incontrovertible evidence instantly gives his son the maximum sentence, ten years in state's prison. But before the sheriff starts with the condemned youth it is discovered that young Kent has all along been sacrificing himself to shield others. Innocent himself, he protected the thief of the jewels at the Monroes' because it was the brother of the girl he was about to marry, and shouldered the crime of the real embezzler because the latter had befriended Kent and got him his position at the bank when the Monroe scandal had made him an outcast.