Held by the Law is a 1927 American silent crime film directed by Edward Laemmle and written by Charles Logue.

The film stars Ralph Lewis, Johnnie Walker, Marguerite De La Motte, Robert Ober, Fred Kelsey, and Maude Wayne.

[1][2][3] As described in a film magazine,[4] tragedy replaces gaiety at the engagement party of Mary Travis and Tom Sinclair when his cousin, Boris Morton, a gentleman black sheep, facing exposure for the theft of a necklace from a member of the guests, shoots Sinclair’s father in the back while the two fathers are drinking a toast in the library.

Morton, with the cunning of desperation, casts the gun from his gloved hand into the room and joins the horrified guests as one of them.

They lay a trap for Morton, who is induced to accompany Mary to the scene of the crime, ostensibly in the flimsy hope of unearthing new evidence that will free Travis.