Tony Goldwyn has displayed a lack of ethics in the White House. As President Fitzgerald Grant on ABC's hit melodrama "Scandal," he has cheated on his wife right under her nose and even smothered a pesky Supreme Court justice on her sickbed.

But in his roles as producer, director and writer, Goldwyn is exposing the ethical minefields of the justice system in a new drama "The Divide."

This eight-episode series, which premieres on WE tv on Wednesday (9 p.m.), teams Goldwyn with fellow creator and producer Richard LaGravenese.

Inspired by the Innocence Project (which works to exonerate wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing), "The Divide" focuses on a Philadelphia caseworker named Christine Rosa, who has become obsessed with winning a last-ditch appeal for a white inmate facing execution for the murder of a black family.

As Christine (series star Marin Ireland) and her boss (Paul Schneider) probe inconsistencies in the case, they butt heads with the city's charismatic African-American district attorney (Damon Gupton).

"In the past," Goldwyn says, "I had assumed that if someone's in prison, they probably did it. I didn't realize how much gray area there is in our justice system, and how many cracks catch people without money and influence."

Goldwyn and LaGravenese first worked together when LaGravenese did a script rewrite for the Goldwyn-directed 2010 film "Conviction," which starred Hilary Swank in a dramatization of an actual Innocence Project case.

When that was done, says Goldwyn, "I wanted to explore the Innocence Project further. I thought a TV series would be a great way."

After months of hashing out ideas, then crafting a proposal for the series, they landed a deal with the corporate parent of AMC to film a pilot. Time passed. Then so did AMC on the series. But a sister network, WE tv, stepped up and has claimed "The Divide" as its first scripted series.

Goldwyn had landed the original deal for "The Divide" before committing to "Scandal," but despite those duties, he says the show was generous in giving him freedom to develop "The Divide." When "Scandal" took a two-month hiatus in the middle of last season, Goldwyn was able to head to Toronto, where he directed the first two episodes of "The Divide" as it sprang to life again.