In case you weren't aware, in the criminal justice system the people (that means you!) are represented by two separate but equally important groups: the police who investigate crime, and the district attorney who prosecutes the offenders. These are their stories. In today's family-friendly episode, two kids are shot on a playground. Green and Lupo are called to the scene. A woman runs away screaming and Green orders the area cleared because he is afraid "it" is going to hit the fan. I miss Lenny Briscoe. He would have known the perfect wittily poignant bon mot for the it-hitting-the-fan occasion.
Lieutenant Van Buren shows up and is heckled by the crowd, who think that the top brass came just because one of the dead kids is white; the neighborhood has been rapidly gentrifying, and now the cops are finally giving a hoot about gun violence. She shoots her trademark S. Epatha eye-roll and goes to talk to Green and Lupo. Two shell casings were found. It seems that the little girl (who is black) was the innocent bystander to the shots fired at the little boy (who is white). The neighborhood is not happy that their real estate prices have just plummeted.
At the ME's office, the ambitiously blonde ME asks Green to sniff the dead boy's hair. It is chlorinated. But not public-pool chlorinated, private-pool chlorinated. The detectives head out to the new high rises to tell the kid's parents he's been shot. The parents were out at the theater last night (like all good gentrifiers), which is why they hadn't noticed their son was missing. The parents direct the cops to their son's friends, the Steels, with whom he was supposedly hanging out. The door is opened by The Profiler. Or the woman who played The Profiler on the show that she probably thought was going to launch her career into superstar Jennifer Aniston-ness, but really left her just south of Lea Thompson. And like all good almost-Lea Thompsons, she is having a guest turn on Law & Order. Took her long enough, eh? Anyway. She says the dead boy was there, but left. Her sons were going to talk to the cops more, but she cuts off any more questions and herds the cops out the door with an airy "I heard the dead kid was experimenting with drugs. Off to carpool. Ta!"
The cops hit up someone in narcotics to get the 411 on the drug dealers in the neighborhood. The cops threaten a drug dealer, Patek, in order to get the information that all three boys came by yesterday, and two went home crying when the "ballers" at the playground stole their basketball. The cops grab the Steel boys off the street and get them to confess that they had been at the playground with David (the dead boy), and that their ball was stolen by some neighborhood toughs in Baltimore Bullets jerseys, who said they would "pop a cap" in their white patooties if they ever came back. The cops canvass the neighborhood trying to find the guys. The neighbors are unwilling to help. They won't snitch, not without the approval of the resident B-grade Jesse Jackson (or the poor man's Al Sharpton?). When the Lieutenant asks the Rev for help, she is told that the only way the neighbors will come forward is if the local church is designated an historical landmark so it can't be turned into condos for the incoming rich white folk.
Needless to say, Jack McCoy, the newly-minted DA, is not happy: Extortion! Murdered Children! Civic Duty! Arm-Twisting! Lines! Handouts! Oh, fine. The day the ersatz Jesse/Al hybrid holds a press conference demanding that if anyone saw something, they should come forward and drive the murderers out of the neighborhood. One of the guys who spoke to Green shows up at the precinct, and IDs the guy in the Baltimore Bullets jersey as a kid named Will who Lupo spoke with. They found the casings right outside their brownstone. The cops get a warrant and head uptown.
They find the basketball in Will's house and arrest him for robbery. That is, until they find the gun that matches the murder weapon. Then they arrest him for murder. They haul him to the station and throw him into an interrogation room. Since Will is seventeen, he is not entitled to have a parent in the room, so the boy's father, Ray, talks with the Lieutenant. Green and Lupo try to get a confession out of Will, but they are unsuccessful. Luckily the Lieutenant manages to get one out of the father. Apparently the three white boys came back to the playground with baseball bats, they had cornered Will, and were planning on whacking him (literally), so Ray shot them. Imminent harm! Clear and present danger! Defense of others!
In the courtroom, the ADA asks for remand because the defendant confessed to two murders. Ray's grandstanding media-whorish defense attorney demands that his client be released on his own recognizance because the media is all over him and he won't be able to flee, and because it is way retarded that the DA is even charging the guy for protecting his son in the face of imminent harm. He demands that the judge try the case right then and there. The obviously racist judge snorts and sets the bail at a million dollars, much to the chagrin of the crowd.
Jesse/Al is pissed at the cops and the DA's office because he told his community to come forward against their better judgment, and now that the shooter is being prosecuted, he looks like a douche. The Lieutenant points out that Ray totally confessed to two murders, the white kids denied ever coming back to the playground, Will won't talk to the cops, Ray didn't come forward, guilty-as-sin-cakes. The ADAs ask Jesse/Al to speak to Ray's defense attorney and get him to let them talk to Will, the eyewitness. Um, isn't that called a deposition? The good reverend is busily telling them to bite his community when McCoy happens by. He tells Jesse/Al to either talk to the defense attorney or kiss his fast-tracked historical landmark status goodbye. Jesse/Al storms out. Jack sure figured that DA stuff out quickly! He tells the ADAs to haul the kid before the grand jury because that is the only way he will ever talk to them. Um...deposition? Gack, I should have paid more attention in criminal procedure.
In the grand jury room, Will testifies to the same story that his father told. He says that he and his friends kicked the white boys off the basketball court, stole their ball, and chased them off. The white boys came back with bats and chased him and demanded their ball. Will fell, heard shots, and then his dad grabbed him and pulled him into the house. The two white kids tried to help their fallen comrade-in-gentrification, gave up, and ran towards the park. The ADA stops Will to ask, "The park? Or the playground." Will specifies the park. Central Park. Maybe you've heard of it?
The cops and the ADAs head back to the playground. They find the requisite clue they missed before: there is a fresh dent in the playground bench. (Can a dent be fresh? Is an old one stale? Whatever.) This could back up Will's story. Since the two boys live uptown, why did they run towards the park once they got into trouble? The cops surmise that they were running towards a car. The ADA thinks it's too complicated a scenario to be plausible. Green snorts, "Geez, you are new to this show." The ADA instructs them to find someone with a car who may have been with the boys that night.
At the white boys' prep school, the cops are getting the preppy version of the "no snitch" rule. After finally learning that one of the boys got a lot of red cards in his soccer matches, the cops grill the coach until he admits that the boy wasn't the problem; it was his mother, The Profiler. Apparently she liked to encourage him to stand up for himself and head-butt other players. Somehow this information is sufficient to get a search warrant for her car. The cops execute the warrant while interfering with the pretty white family's plans to head to their country house. They empty the car while The Profiler stands and squawks. They find three baseball bats wrapped in a garbage bag, and arrest The Profiler. Why do these people always hold onto the murder weapons? Gentle readers, do yourselves a favor and dispose of all murder weapons in a prompt and efficient manner. You will thank me later.
Back at the courthouse, The Profiler's attorney is demanding to know where in the penal code (Hee! "Penal"!) it states that possession of baseball bats is a crime. The ADA ignores the question and asserts that The Profiler took her car out of the garage at exactly the right time to carpool her boys up to the playground. The defense attorney points out that she was parked around the corner and didn't see anything, but the ADA doesn't care. She drove the boys to it. Literally.
At the DA's office, McCoy and the ADAs argue about which wacky legal theory they should attempt today. They decide to try both the poor black dad who pulled the trigger and the rich white mom who drove her sons to the playground with baseball bats -- together. Same criminal incident, same jury. Let the jury decide whether the snooty racist gentrifier or the innocent-kid-shooting community member is more culpable. God, I love this show -- confusing law students for a decade and counting! The attorneys for the two defendants are obviously outraged, and demand that their clients be tried separately. The judge has no choice but to deny the severance motion so that the audience has something to watch for the twenty minutes. Der.
During the trial, one of the white kids (in a suit with a double Windsor knot in his tie and hair carefully combed to look simultaneously fancy, dirty, and emo, which seems like a lot for a teenage boy to manage when his mother is on trial for murder) testifies that Ray shot his friend when they were chasing Will with bats. The ADA then asks him whether his mom encouraged him. He is leading the witness, but the judge allows it because he should be considered a hostile witness, because he is a teenager. Er, rather, "because he is testifying against his mother." He says that his mom encouraged them to stand up to the bullies or they would get chased out of the neighborhood. He says that his mom made them bring the bats for self-defense because, she said, the boys probably had knives. Not looking good for The Profiler.
Ray's turn on the stand. He testifies that he was trying to protect his son and that he feels terrible about the little girl he accidentally killed. The ADA wants to know why he didn't just yell stop? Wasn't he mad that all the white people were moving into his neighborhood? Wasn't he mad that he got an eviction notice that day? Didn't he shoot the white boy because he was angry? Ray doesn't know. He just doesn't know.
The Profiler takes the witness stand. She claims that her boys were scared and wanted to move out of the neighborhood. She told them to stand up to the bullies. She drove them to the playground. She heard some popping sounds and then the boys came running back to the car. Instead of calling the cops, she took her boys home and lied to the police. Like any mother would. The ADA is not having that. He wants to know if she likes her new neighbors. She says yes. The ADA refutes that with a giant stack of complaints she has filed against her neighbors. While trying to explain about the cultural differences leading to the littering and noise complaints, she paints herself into a racist corner. Bad Profiler. No wonder your show got cancelled. And by the way? You are totally going to have to move.
Van Buren tracks down McCoy to show him a photo of a noose that was hung over the basketball hoop at the playground where the kids were shot. She is concerned about the outcome of the trial. McCoy says the whole city is concerned, but for her, for her he will go tell his ADA to offer a plea bargain because two guilty pleas would solve a lot of problems. Cutter is irked by the request because his "summation is ready," and he McCoys that he is against expediency in lieu of justice. Jack tells him there's too much on the line and to make a deal.
The ADA offers ten years to the shooter and five years to the driver. They turn him down just so we have the pleasure of hearing Cutter's aforementioned summation.
In closing, The Profiler's attorney claims that the only reason his client is there is political pressure to put a white face at the defendants' table. The other defense attorney points out that she is a racist and his client was just acting in defense of his son. The ADA's now-much-ballyhooed summation points out that neither of these parents are particularly reasonable human beings. One parent carpooled her kids to a street fight and one used lethal force to stop a teenager with a bat. He wants the jury to make them both take responsibility for the deaths of the two kids.
The jury files back in. They find Ray not guilty in the death of the boy, but guilty for the death of the girl. They find The Profiler not guilty for the death of the boy and guilty for the death of the girl. The jury then reads a statement they have prepared. I always get excited when the jury prepares a statement because I imagine that it will be just like the letter that The Breakfast Club wrote the principal, but it never is. Here, the jury recommends that both parties be given the exact same sentence, because they are both equally responsible, even though one is a jock and one is a princess. McCoy and the Lieutenant stand in the back of the courtroom and heave a sigh of justice.