The Ledger

4.9 Born Bad

In this episode (4.9), a teenager brutally beats to death another teenager, and his murderours tendencies are blamed on a genetic predisposition to violence. Briscoe and Logan investigate the case, and Stone and Kincaid refute the defense counsel's argument.

The episode begins with a priest named Father Jack walking the streets in a seedy part of town (pre-redeveloped Times Square?), handing out fliers for a soup kitchen and trying to get people off the street. He comes across a teenager who isn't moving. He's dead. He's been badly beaten, and has no ID on him, but he's wearing expensive sneakers, so if he's a street kid, he hasn't been out for long.

Briscoe and Logan talk to a couple of hookers at the soup kitchen, one of whom is a transvestite, to see if they saw anything. They theorize the kid may have been prostituting himself, and got roughed up. They want to talk to a pimp named Mr Clyde, and find him in a sex club, where Logan comments some of the kids don't look old enough to be there. Briscoe says, "I'm not old enough to be in here." Mr Clyde, though, is a dead end.

They talk to an Asian female ME, who says there is no evidence of sexual abuse, but he had string beans for dinner. They canvas the schools in the neighborhood to try to ID him. They finally track down a guidance counselor who knew him. His name was Johnny. They talk to his mom's ex-boyfriend, Zach, and Zach's new girlfriend, both of whom are pretty sketchy characters. This leads them to the mom, who was strung out and is now in rehab. They visit her, and she's mad because the state took her son away from her. This leads to a social worker, and then to Johnny's foster mom, Flo Bishop, who has a bunch of foster kids. She points them to Johnny's friends, who say he just disappeared that day. They requestion Zach, who has a solid alibi, but talk to his girlfriend and learn that Johnny had stopped by the apartment and tried to rob it (for a second time) but was thwarted by new locks. Zach, she says, was unaware of this, but she saw him runaway from the scene, along with his friends. Her friends were lying.

They check out the friends, one of whom, Chris, has a criminal record. They take Chris in for questioning, and he's a cocky son-of-a-gun. During interrogation, he turns to Briscoe and says, "Yo Brill Cream, why don't you and Captain America [Logan] go blow it out your butt." Nice.

Van Buren works on the other friend, and gets him to roll on Chris. He says Chris and the victim fought.

Chris gets represented by recurring character Helen Brolin [pic]. Kincaid investigates Chris's past, and learns that his mom pimped him to men. Kincaid talks to Chris's mom, who is pregnant and is smoking and drinking while talking to Kincaid, which earns Kincaid's disdain.

The prosecutors discuss Chris's childhood problems and figure out what to do. Schiff tells them to get the kid's childhood record opened. Kincaid sweet talks a family court lawyer who is apparently an old friend, and learns that family court will open previous cases to determine whether the current case should also be held in family court.

During the hearing to determine whether he should be tried as a juvenile, Chris talks to the judge about the fight, and says he doesn't remember it: he was in a blind rage. Stone discusses a violent incidenct Chris had at Spofford, where he attacked someone in the caferia. He was at Spofford to begin with because of an armed robbery, during which he shot a store owner with a .22. All this leads to a decision to try him as an adult.

Brolin launches a mental defent case, saying that Chris is genetically predisposed to violence because he has an XYY chromosome, which some scientists supposedly believe leads him prone to violence. (They mention in passing Richard Speck tried this defense, but it turned out he didn't have the XYY chromosome.) The judge allows it.

Chris talks to Olivet and expresses anger as a response when provoked. Olivet tells the DAs that the chromosome argument is fake and not scientifically established. Schiff tells the ADAs that the "White America Caucus" is using the case to show that genetic "inferiorities" lead to problems.

At trial, Chris's mom testifies about how violent her son was and what a bad mom she was. Brolin and Stone meet at a bar to discuss a deal. They meet with Chris, whose very angry and doesn't want a deal: he just wants to go to jail because he feels like his life is already wasted. He's listened to the testimony at trial, and determined his future is worthless. "I'm screw up," he says. "I want to go to jail...I'm a freak." Stone resists, but Schiff tells him, as ever, to take the plea and move on, which he does. Chris allocutes.

Posted by adm at June 23, 2004 06:05 AM

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