- Dr. Judy Waxman: You're telling me this guy got killed because he tried to catch a foul ball?
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: And the suspect list is the greater New York phone book.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: [finding the vic's ID] Brendan Donner.
- Ed Green: I thought he looked familiar!
- Dr. Judy Waxman: Not to me. I'm drawing a blank. Who is he?
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: Public enemy number one. At least in this city.
- Ed Green: League Championship Series, this dude goes for a foul ball, cost us the game and the pennant.
- Dr. Judy Waxman: We're talking about baseball?
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: Yeah. Instead of being the third out, the batter draws a walk. Next guy up hits a two-run homer and it's "wait 'till next year." Again.
- Ed Green: Looks like somebody was pissed off about waiting.
- Melissa Donner: I can't believe somebody killed him over a stupid game.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: We're not sure yet that that's why your husband was murdered, Mrs. Donner.
- Melissa Donner: But it's a pretty good bet, right? I mean, what other reason could there be? People treated Brendan like he was Osama bin Laden, as if any one of them wouldn't have tried to catch that damn ball.
- Ed Green: Did you take any of those threats more seriously than others? I mean, is there anyone in particular we should be looking at?
- Melissa Donner: Just half of New York. Poor Brendan. He was obsessed. He... read every letter, surfed the Internet, uh... watched all the talk shows. I'm telling you something, that game ruined our lives.
- Jeffrey Bowerman: Donner was getting death threats from all over the country; people mailing him dead rats, dog crap, you name it.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: When you care enough to send the very worst.
- Jeffrey Bowerman: The worst was the envelope full of white powder.
- Ed Green: Ahh. We were wondering why the FBI was involved in this.
- Jeffrey Bowerman: Standard procedure for all cases involving a suspected biological contaminant.
- Ed Green: Which this wasn't?
- Jeffrey Bowerman: Baking soda isn't lethal.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: Well, you never met my ex-wife.
- Jeffrey Bowerman: Well, we went ahead and seized all the letters, cards, and packages, anyway. Catalogued 'em.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: Wow. A lot of people with too much time on their hands, huh?
- Jeffrey Bowerman: We've got audio, too. I tapped Donner's phone just to be safe.
- Ed Green: For a case like this?
- Jeffrey Bowerman: I felt sorry for him. Wanted to go the extra mile, help the guy out.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: You bet the other team.
- Jeffrey Bowerman: Made out like a bandit. Donner may have been a schmuck to you guys, but he was a hero to us.
- Anita Van Buren: [Briscoe is reading the vic's hate mail] What would you have done to him?
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: [innocently] Who, me?
- Anita Van Buren: Oh, please. I remember how mad you were after that game. And I don't recall any tears from "Who, me?" when the tabloids published Donner's address and phone number.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: Okay, maybe that was a little bit over the line, but the idiot did earn himself a little grief.
- Anita Van Buren: He tried to catch a ball.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: Which was still in play! Any real New York fan would have kept his hands in his pockets.
- Ed Green: Hey, I got something. This is from two weeks ago.
- Ted Enwright: [Ed plays a voicemail message] You think I don't know where you live, Donner? You better be watching your back, Donner, 'cause one day soon, I'm coming up behind you and bash your thick head until you're dead. Moron.
- Ed Green: The FBI traced that call to a Ted Enwright.
- Anita Van Buren: Sounds promising.
- Ed Green: And the genius called from his home phone.
- Lisa Santoro: If I were you guys, I'd steet clear of Latent for a while.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: Why, they don't see the challenge in lifting prints off a broken bottle?
- Lisa Santoro: Any prints shattered along with the glass, so they're fragmented like a jigsaw puzzle. You guys like jigsaw puzzles? I love jigsaw puzzles. Want to know how I solved this one?
- Ed Green: That is why we're here.
- Lisa Santoro: I bought a bottle the same brand of Scotch, filled it with plaster, then broke it, leaving a perfect mold. Then I took the glass from the crime scene and glued it on that mold, putting each piece in its proper place. Voila.
- Ed Green: Just like a jigsaw puzzle.
- Lisa Santoro: With the bottle now reconstituted...
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: You could lift the prints.
- Lisa Santoro: Two sets. I ran them through BCI. The first belong to a Rooney, James.
- Ed Green: The bartender.
- Lisa Santoro: And owner. His prints are on file from when he applied for a liquor license.
- Ed Green: What about the second set?
- Lisa Santoro: Uh, BCI kicked back a Grimes, Walter.
- Ed Green: Walter Grimes?
- Lisa Santoro: Mm. Here's the best part.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: Yeah, convicted of murder, second degree in the killing of a young girl. Drew twenty-five to life at Green Haven.
- Lisa Santoro: Yeah. How'd you know?
- Ed Green: He reads the front page of the Times.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: Walter Grimes was released from prison three months ago.
- Anita Van Buren: We have any idea where Mr. Grimes is now?
- Ed Green: Department of Corrections can't compel him to give an address because he was exonerated, not paroled.
- Anita Van Buren: Grimes a jailhouse lawyer or did he have some help?
- Ed Green: Rodney Fallon, the New York Exoneration Project.
- Anita Van Buren: Well, I'm sure Mr. Fallon keeps in touch with his success stories.
- Rodney Fallon: So far, the New York Exoneration Project has gotten almost fifty innocent people released, and we're looking at hundreds of other cases.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: And I'll bet each and every one of them didn't do it.
- Rodney Fallon: Oh, well, obviously they're not all innocent. But even if a single one is, don't you think it's our obligation to see to it that they don't spend a minute longer in jail?
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: I bet you can count the number of guys in jail who are genuniely innocent on one hand. You know how many felonies the average criminal commits before he gets caught, let alone convicted?
- Rodney Fallon: I'm well aware of the police statistics.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: It's about the same as the number of times you speed on the throughway without getting a ticket.
- Rodney Fallon: So what you're saying, detective, we shouldn't try to exonerate defendants who were wrongly convicted?
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: Yeah, sure we should try, but just don't tell me they're all innocent.
- Ed Green: Can we talk about Walter Grimes, please?
- Rodney Fallon: An outright travesty of justice. His lawyer was a twenty-five year old legal aid attorney trying his third case.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: Well, he caught a bad break.
- Rodney Fallon: Oh, that alone should have got him a new trial. DNA proved he didn't kill Leanne Testa.
- Ed Green: Which won't happen this time. Look, we may not have DNA, but we got your client's fingerprints on the bottle he used to fracture Brendan Donner's skull.
- Rodney Fallon: Well, we don't what happened that night. Maybe Walter was defending himself.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: Why don't we ask him ourselves?
- Ed Green: Yeah. Where can we find him? We got a warrant for his arrest.
- Rodney Fallon: I'd rather you didn't speak to Walter if I'm not present.
- Ed Green: What, are you still his lawyer?
- Rodney Fallon: If you have a warrant, I am.
- Ed Green: Then you should know that you have an obligation to surrender your client.
- Rodney Fallon: I know what my obligations are.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: Then you won't mind giving us his address.
- Desk Clerk: Oh, yeah. I remember this guy. He was here.
- Ed Green: Uh, was?
- Desk Clerk: Checked out earlier today. About 4:00 this afternoon.
- Ed Green: Six hours ago. Now that's a hell of a coincidence.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: No wonder Fallon gave up Grimes' address so easy.
- Ed Green: Yeah, he knew Grimes wasn't gonna be home. And he drops a dime to his favorite client as soon as we're out the door. Lawyers.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: [deadpan] This is me being surprised.
- Rodney Fallon: You asked me where Walter lived. I gave you his primary address.
- Ed Green: Hey, man, don't get smart with us!
- Rodney Fallon: Oh, I wouldn't dream of it. You couldn't keep up.
- Anita Van Buren: [entering] All right, let's all just take it down a notch. Mr. Fallon, this is way past zealous representation here.
- Rodney Fallon: I can't tell you where he went. It's arguably privileged information.
- Anita Van Buren: Well, consider it negotiating a fugitive's peaceful surrender.
- Rodney Fallon: I'll get him to come in.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: Not a chance.
- Rodney Fallon: I have no idea what he's capable of if he feels threatened. I... I can do this. He trusts me.
- Anita Van Buren: All right. You've got two hours. Either way, we're going to arrest him for murder or you for hindering prosecution.
- Serena Southerlyn: Judge Hinkle didn't think twice about remanding Grimes.
- Jack McCoy: After holding a woman hostage, I should hope not.
- Dr. Elizabeth Olivet: There's no need to be anxious. We're just having a conversation.
- Walter Grimes: I ain't anxious. What makes you think I'm anxious?
- Dr. Elizabeth Olivet: Do you know why you're here?
- Walter Grimes: My lawyer says it's because of what happened to me in prison. I lose control.
- Dr. Elizabeth Olivet: What do you think?
- Walter Grimes: I spent twenty years in prison for something that I didn't do! I don't have control over nothin'! How can I lose what I don't have?
- Dr. Elizabeth Olivet: You're talking about Leanne Testa's murder.
- Walter Grimes: Of course that's what I'm talking about. The police said I killed that girl. I'd never even met her.
- Dr. Elizabeth Olivet: They found a bloody knife in your apartment with your fingerprints on it.
- Walter Grimes: They planted that knife.
- Dr. Elizabeth Olivet: The police?
- Walter Grimes: Yeah, the police. I had an alibi. They didn't believe me.
- Dr. Elizabeth Olivet: But this time, you did kill someone. You killed Brendan Donner.
- Walter Grimes: He laid hands on me.
- Dr. Elizabeth Olivet: And that justified killing him?
- Walter Grimes: I bumped into him, by accident. But this guy, he gets all freaky on me. In my face, telling me the whole world's against him.
- Dr. Elizabeth Olivet: And you thought hitting him with a bottle was an appropriate response?
- Walter Grimes: I didn't think about it. He grabbed me. A guy comes at you, you don't think twice. You just put him down. You stop to think about what to do, you're dead.
- Judge Michael Schneider: What prosecutor wouldn't love a peek at a defendant's juvie record? But if I unsealed it in every case, the seal would have no meaning.
- Serena Southerlyn: This isn't a typical case. Mr. Grimes' defense puts his juvenile record directly at issue. He claims he had no criminal tendencies before he went to prison.
- Judge Michael Schneider: So you want to look at his juvenile record, assuming that he has one, to determine if that's true.
- [Serena nods]
- Judge Michael Schneider: I'll tell you what. I'll review the file in camera. If I find anything relevant, I'll make it avaible to you. Agreed?
- Serena Southerlyn: Thank you, Your Honor.
- Bob: Sure I remember. Guy sticks a gun in my face, I'm gonna forget that?
- Serena Southerlyn: According to his juvenile records, the police arrested a young man named Walter Grimes.
- Bob: You're talking about that white kid, right?
- Serena Southerlyn: He would have been about fifteen at the time.
- Bob: He didn't do it. As far as I know, they never caught the kid that did.
- Serena Southerlyn: But the police arrested him.
- Bob: I told the officer... Daniels; his name was Daniels. I told Daniels the little pachuco who held me up was Hispanic. Daniels didn't believe me. But I saw what I saw.
- Serena Southerlyn: Are you sure?
- Bob: Sure I'm sure.
- Serena Southerlyn: How come Officer Daniels didn't believe you? How come he arrested Walter Grimes?
- Bob: You're gonna have to ask him.
- Kenneth Daniels: You're talking about a case that was, like, twenty-five years ago.
- Serena Southerlyn: I know cops who remember every suspect they ever interrogated.
- Kenneth Daniels: Walter Grimes?
- Serena Southerlyn: Yeah, that's right.
- Kenneth Daniels: Real punk. Absolute white trash. Is this about that guy he killed in a bar?
- Serena Southerlyn: That's right.
- Kenneth Daniels: [chuckle] See, that's what you get when you let a guy like Grimes loose on society.
- Serena Southerlyn: He was exonerated.
- Kenneth Daniels: Whatever.
- Serena Southerlyn: I'm looking into all of his priors. If Grimes did this liquor store robbery, it would actually help the case that we're prosecuting. But the store owner says that he didn't.
- Kenneth Daniels: What can I tell you? The old guy was wrong.
- Serena Southerlyn: But Grimes is white. The store owner said that the robber was Latino.
- Kenneth Daniels: Look, the old man was so scared he pissed himself. All he saw was the gun, if that. Grimes is the guy who held him up. I have no doubt.
- Serena Southerlyn: Except your gut isn't admissible, Detective.
- Kenneth Daniels: Which is why the DA kicked the robbery charge. Grimes did it. And it wasn't his first stickup, either. That kid was born to go to jail. Have a good day.
- Kenneth Daniels: This is great, Ed. What is it, uh, eight or ten years since I seen you? Not even a phone call. Now you're on my doorstep making accusations?
- Ed Green: Just questions, Kenny. Not accusations, just questions.
- Kenneth Daniels: These the sort of questions I should have my PBA delegate present for?
- Ed Green: Look, I spoke to the DA's office. You arrested Grimes for a liquor store robbery that the owner swears up and down that the kid didn't commit.
- Kenneth Daniels: Mr. Magoo? That old man was so blind, he couldn't tell his ass from his elbow. Grimes did the robbery, Ed. Trust me.
- Ed Green: Okay. But then you find a knife that puts the same guy away for a murder he absolutely did not commit. He goes to jail for twenty years.
- [noticing Kenny's reaction]
- Ed Green: What? What is it, man? You couldn't get him on the liquor store robbery, so you framed him for Leanne Testa's murder?
- Kenneth Daniels: Liquor store had nothing to do with it. How do you think Grimes' prints got on that knife? What, do you think I'm some kind of magician?
- Ed Green: I don't know, man. You tell me.
- Kenneth Daniels: Her name was Julie Sayer. She was sixteen, going on twelve. You know, innocent. The knife I found in Grimes' apartment, it was his, all right, but he didn't use it on Leanne Testa. He used it on Julie Sayer. Slit her throat with it. There was no DNA testing back then. Same type, O positive. So everyone assumed it was Leanne's blood.
- Ed Green: Well, if Grimes killed Julie Sayer, why didn't you collar him for that?
- Kenneth Daniels: I did. Grimes was a creep. I had witnesses who put him with the girl that morning. I brought him in. He started runnin' his mouth, talking trash. He even took a swing at me.
- Ed Green: You didn't beat the dude down, did you?
- Kenneth Daniels: Only time I ever lost it like that. All I could see was that dead girl lying there with her throat cut.
- Ed Green: Did Grimes give it up?
- Kenneth Daniels: Oh, yeah, he told me how he killed Julie. Told me how he hid the knife in a storm drain. Told me exactly where to find it.
- Ed Green: But what, the bust wasn't any good?
- Kenneth Daniels: Lieu took one look at him, one look at my knuckles. He told me I had to kick him loose.
- Ed Green: He told you to 86 the arrest?
- Kenneth Daniels: Tried to find another way to make the case.
- Ed Green: But if the confession was inadmissible, then...
- Kenneth Daniels: The knife was, too. There wasn't gonna be any justice for Julie Sayer. I let Grimes go, fished the knife out of the storm drain, saved it for a rainy day.
- Ed Green: Then Leanne Testa gets stabbed.
- Kenneth Daniels: Wound patterns were consistent with Grimes' knife. Blood type the same as Julie's. Pieces fell into place.
- Ed Green: You call in an anonymous tip, and then you "find" the knife in Grimes' apartment?
- Kenneth Daniels: Why not? Grimes was guilty. He was a murderer! He was gonna walk on the murder of Julie Sayer. He was gonna walk because of me! It was eating me up, Ed. I had to make it right. I had to balance the scales.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: So, what do we got?
- Dr. Judy Waxman: Depressed skull fracture, glass shards in the wound. Victim was struck with a blunt object.
- Ed Green: Yeah, a liquor bottle.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: How'd you get his phone number?
- Ted Enwright: I read it in the papers.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: No, his new number.
- Ted Enwright: On the 'net. Everything's on the 'net. Come on, it's all up that website. Www.getdonner.com.
- [cut to the precinct]
- Anita Van Buren: You've got to be kidding me.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: We don't have that much imagination.
- Ed Green: Six months after the fact, this website still gets 30,000 hits a day. I mean, most of this stuff is harmless; you know, "stupid Donner" jokes and whatnot, but check it out. They have a message board.
- Anita Van Buren: "Hey, fellow Donner haters. Think I just saw Donner shoving his stuff in the back of a moving van. Guess his old lady hates him as much as the rest of us."
- Ed Green: Now, this entry started a landslide. People started writing in whenever they saw Donner on the street or in the subway. They call it DonnerWatch.
- Anita Van Buren: Which is how they knew where to keep sending all the hate mail.
- Ed Green: I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but I'm actually starting to feel real sorry this dude.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: Hey, we were *one out* away from the World Series.
- Ed Green: Walter Grimes, born Poughkeepsie, 1964. Arrested '83, convicted '84, second degree murder. Victim was Leanne Testa, fifteen. Stabbed to death.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: Uh, a year ago, when Grimes finally got a court order to test the DNA, it turned out the blood that the cops found on the knife in his apartment wasn't Leanne Testa's.
- Anita Van Buren: Property still had the evidence?
- Ed Green: M.E.'s office. This is pre-DNA. They tested it for sirology. After the trial, it went to the medical examiner's and never made it back to the police lab.
- Anita Van Buren: It's lucky for Grimes. Police lab would've destroyed it after he got convicted. So Grimes didn't kill Testa. Good for him. Question is did he kill Brendan Donner?
- Ed Green: Grimes' prints are a twelve-point match to the ones on that liquor bottle. There are eight people in that bar who IDed him from a photo array. They all saw him bash Donner's skull in.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: [finding Fallon bound and gagged in a motel room closet] Mr. Fallon, it looks like you put up a hell of a fight.
- Ed Green: Where's your client? And the first words out of your mouth better not be "privileged".
- Rodney Fallon: [Green undoes his gag] He's not here.
- Ed Green: I can see that. So where is he?
- Rodney Fallon: You said you weren't going to interfere.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: You said you were gonna bring Grimes in. Looks like we both failed on our promises.
- Rodney Fallon: Well, I tried to convince him to surrender himself to the authorities for his own good, but he was in no mood to go back to prison.
- Ed Green: How long has he been gone?
- Rodney Fallon: About ten minutes.
- Ed Green: Did he say where he was going?
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: And don't forget what we said about that word "privilege".
- Rodney Fallon: He took my wallet. Said he needed to get to his cousin's in Providence.
- Jack McCoy: I don't think Mr. Grimes is eligible for the Exoneration Project's services this time, Mr. Fallon.
- Rodney Fallon: Well, I don't see why he wouldn't be. Walter is innocent.
- Jack McCoy: Then can he explain his fingerprints on the murder weapon and the eyewitnesses at the bar?
- Serena Southerlyn: Or his behavior when he saw two NYPD detectives? Taking a hostage isn't exactly consistent with innocence.
- Rodney Fallon: Well, that depends on how you define innocence.
- Jack McCoy: I define an innocent person as someone who didn't commit the crime.
- Rodney Fallon: Or someone whom the law recognizes should not be held responsible for his actions. A defendant can't be convicted if he didn't act with mens rea - criminal intent.
- Serena Southerlyn: He brained a man with a liquor bottle.
- Rodney Fallon: Walter Grimes was convicted of a crime he didn't commit. If he hadn't gone to prison for twenty years, as an innocent man, he never would have attacked Brendan Donner.
- Serena Southerlyn: What are you saying? Prison made him do it?
- Rodney Fallon: It certainly changed him. Profoundly. He absolutely wasn't the same man when he came out.
- Jack McCoy: I'm sorry the system failed you, Mr. Grimes, but a wrongful conviction does not earn anyone a free pass on murder.
- Dr. Elizabeth Olivet: Walter Grimes is legally sane.
- Jack McCoy: But?
- Dr. Elizabeth Olivet: But I'm sure his lawyer can find experts who will say that his experience in prison so programmed him that he lacked the ability to appreciate that his conduct was wrong.
- Jack McCoy: It turned him into a killer?
- Dr. Elizabeth Olivet: Well, they'll argue that he couldn't differentiate between his old environment and his new one.
- Jack McCoy: He couldn't tell the difference between Rooney's Tavern and the exercise yard at Green Haven?
- Dr. Elizabeth Olivet: Exactly. The defense will get a gaggle of psychiatrists to say that Grimes lacked the ability to curtail a lethal instinct developed by two decades in prison.
- Jack McCoy: I'd feel sorry for a man who lost that much of his life on a wrongful conviction.
- Dr. Elizabeth Olivet: If Fallon gets this in front of a jury, you could have a problem.
- Judge Antonia Mellon: You're moving to preclude this defense, Mr. McCoy?
- Jack McCoy: Your Honor, it's ridiculous. Under Mr. Fallon's theory, every ex-con would have a dense for murder.
- Rodney Fallon: But we're not talking about men who were criminals before going to prison. We're talking about a man who was completely innocent before being sent to Green Haven, and was profoundly and irrevocably changed, and not for the better by the experience.
- Serena Southerlyn: And prison erased his sense of right and wrong?
- Rodney Fallon: In a manner of speaking, yes. It maimed him. It dehumanized him. It replaced traditional notions of right and wrong with a "kill or be killed" reflex that led, tragically, to Brendan Donner's death.
- Jack McCoy: That doesn't meet the New York standard, Your Hononr. Either Mr. Grimes didn't know what was doing was wrong or he didn't understand the nature of his behavior. Simply reacting to a perceived threat because he thought he was in a hostile environment doesn't cut it.
- Serena Southerlyn: He wasn't in prison. He was in a bar, Your Honor. He completely overreacted.
- Rodney Fallon: Exactly. Walter Grimes completely overreacted because of how his prison experience shaped him.
- Judge Antonia Mellon: You have an expert who'll back your theory, Mr. Fallon?
- Rodney Fallon: I've got five of them, Your Honor.
- Judge Antonia Mellon: Fax their C.V.s over to me. If they're credible, I'm inclined to let this go to a jury.
- Serena Southerlyn: You don't think that there might be something to Grimes' defense?
- Arthur Branch: People adapt to their environment in or out of prison. He knew where he was and how he was supposed to act.
- Jack McCoy: How do we know he wasn't a bad apple before rotting in prison for twenty years? Fallon's already conceded this defense only applies if Grimes was a law-abiding citizen before being shipped off to Green Haven.
- Serena Southerlyn: Leanne Testa's murder was his first arrest.
- Jack McCoy: How old was he at that time?
- Serena Southerlyn: Nineteen.
- Jack McCoy: If he had committed any prior crimes, they might have been as a juvenile.
- Serena Southerlyn: And those records would be sealed.
- Arthur Branch: I'm sure that under the circumstances, you could convince a judge to unseal those records. If there are any.
- Serena Southerlyn: Jackpot. Grimes fits the textbook definition of a bad seed. Arrests for school ground assault, menacing, auto stripping, possession of stolen property.
- Jack McCoy: But no convictions.
- Serena Southerlyn: The system kept cutting him loose. The closest he ever came was a liquor store robbery when he was fifteen.
- Jack McCoy: He threatened the owner with a gun. Why did the ADA kick it?
- Serena Southerlyn: I don't know. But it makes one thing pretty clear. Even if Grimes didn't kill Leanne Testa...
- Jack McCoy: He was hardly an innocent man.
- Jack McCoy: So we know Grimes wasn't the choir boy his lawyer's been saying he was, but we can't prove it?
- Serena Southerlyn: That's what it looks like.
- Jack McCoy: What about the knife? The one found at Grimes' apartment.
- Serena Southerlyn: DNA confirmed that the blood on it wasn't Leanne Testa's.
- Jack McCoy: But it was someone's. Let's see if we can find out whose.
- Serena Southerlyn: I'll have Briscoe and Green contact the primary on the Testa case.
- Detective Adams: Anyway, I went in with my partner and a team of five blues. We searched from ceiling to cellar.
- Ed Green: Yeah, you found the knife.
- Detective Adams: Wrapped in a dishrag. It was hidden under a loose floorboard in his closet.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: But the blood on the knife wasn't Leanne Testa's.
- Detective Adams: Hell of a thing. This Fallon guy...
- Ed Green: Yeah, the Exoneration Project.
- Detective Adams: Got a court order, did family DNA against the knife, proved it wasn't Testa's.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: Grimes always said that the knife was planted.
- Detective Adams: Well, of course he'd say that. Who knows? He probably killed somebody else.
- Ed Green: Yeah, that's why we need to run that knife past forensics, see if it matches any open cases.
- Detective Adams: Well, after Fallon had it tested, it went back to the M.E.'s office. Ought to still be there.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: So, that day, when you found the knife in Grimes' apartment, anything strike you as fishy?
- Detective Adams: Well, I didn't actually find it. Some uniform, got his shield a few years back. Reynolds, Daniels, something like that.
- Ed Green: Not Kenny Daniels?
- Detective Adams: Yeah, Kenny Daniels. That's it. You know him?
- Ed Green: We were at the same for a while, the 29. I ain't seen him in years.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: He the kind of cop that would plant evidence?
- Ed Green: Not the Kenny Daniels I knew. He was a stickler. By the book. He drove me crazy. Thought I was a cowboy. He'd always say "Dot your 'I's, cross your 'T's."
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: People change.
- Serena Southerlyn: At least he didn't frame an innocent man.
- Jack McCoy: No, he framed a guilty one.
- Serena Southerlyn: The way he sees it, he kept Grimes from falling through the cracks in the system.
- Arthur Branch: Well, somebody should tell him not to do the system any more favors. Regardless of his motivation, this is the worst kind of police misconduct. Now, any appeleate court would find that this shocks the conscience, and so should we.
- Jack McCoy: Agreed. But he's all we've got.
- Arthur Branch: Where's this lieutenant of his now?
- Serena Southerlyn: In the cemetery. He died of a heart attack six years ago.
- Arthur Branch: So no one but Daniels can say that Grimes killed Julie Sayer.
- Jack McCoy: No, but if we could prove he did, Fallon's defense strategy on the Donner murder goes out the window.
- Serena Southerlyn: Grimes was a murderer before he was ever shipped off to Green Haven.
- Arthur Branch: All right. Go try him on the Sayer murder first.
- Serena Southerlyn: Only Grimes' confession is no more admissible today than it was twenty years ago.
- Jack McCoy: But today, DNA analysis will confirm that the blood on the knife is Julie Sayer's.
- Rodney Fallon: The knife was planted in my client's apartment.
- Jack McCoy: By a police officer. The chain of custody remained intact.
- Rodney Fallon: This is outrageous. I can't believe you can stand there and say that to me with a straight face. You're forgetting how that officer found the knife in the storm drain in the first place.
- Serena Southerlyn: Your client told him where it was.
- Rodney Fallon: He beat it out of him! An improperly obtained confession. The knife is poisonous fruit.
- Serena Southerlyn: You're assuming that the police wouldn't have found it without Grimes' confession.
- Rodney Fallon: They canvassed all over the city. They would have never found it, and you know it.
- Jack McCoy: Let's see what a judge thinks. In the meantime, consider this your notice of our lab work.
- Serena Southerlyn: We exhumed her body and extracted DNA from her bones. The blood on the knife was Julie Sayer's.
- Jack McCoy: DNA is a double-edged sword, counselor.
- Rodney Fallon: DNA is persuasive. Only if it's admissible.
- [handing Jack a blueback]
- Rodney Fallon: My motion to suppress the knife.
- Jack McCoy: Is he right?
- Serena Southerlyn: About the DNA?
- Jack McCoy: About the search. Fallon just said the police looked high and low for the knife.
- Serena Southerlyn: That's right.
- Jack McCoy: Let's get the case's primary on the phone.
- Detective Johnson: Julier Sayer was sixteen, pretty. On the front page of the Post for weeks. Bet your ass we tore the city apart.
- Anita Van Buren: Do you remember searching on 190th Street between Audubon and Amsterdam?
- Detective Johnson: Where it happened. We turned that neighborhood upside down.
- Anita Van Buren: Storm drains?
- Detective Johnson: We searched them all. From Washington Heights to Inwood.
- Anita Van Buren: Would you be willing to sign an affidavit?
- Detective Johnson: What, that we searched the storm drains?
- Anita Van Buren: Every one in the area.
- Detective Johnson: With a flashlight and a fine-tooth comb. And didn't find a thing.
- Rodney Fallon: First the People concede that Detective Daniels, who was then Officer Daniels, questioned my client without counsel present in clear violation of his Sixth Amendment rights. And then they concede he assaulted my client to obtain a confession in violation of his Fifth Amendment rights, used that illegal confession to seize the knife in violation of my client's Fourth Amendment rights. And as if that wasn't enough, they freely admit he then planted the knife to frame my client for a crime he didn't commit, in violation of, at the very least, his Fourteenth Amendment rights. Are there any amendments the People *haven't* violated? And now, in what has to be the single greatest demonstration of legal chutzpah in the history of jurisprudence, he contends the knife shouldn't be suppresed.
- Judge Antonia Mellon: Mr. McCoy, is this true?
- Jack McCoy: Every word, Your Honor.
- Judge Antonia Mellon: Then how can you argue in support of the knife's admission?
- Jack McCoy: Because of the inevitable discovery doctrine. The knife is admissible if the police would have eventually discovered it without the impropriety.
- Rodney Fallon: Well, how is that possible? They only found the knife because Officer Daniels planted it in my client's home.
- Serena Southerlyn: You said it yourself. The police canvassed the area where the knife was originally hidden.
- Jack McCoy: I have an affidavit from Detective Johnson, the primary on the case, who searched the storm drain where Grimes had hidden the knife.
- Judge Antonia Mellon: But it wasn't there to be found.
- Jack McCoy: Because Officer Daniels had already removed it. Under inevitable discovery, the issue is what would have happened but for Officer Daniels' wrongful conduct?
- Judge Antonia Mellon: The knife would have been in that storm drain for Detective Johnson to find.
- Jack McCoy: Exactly.
- Rodney Fallon: Oh, this is outrageous. You're basically saying that Daniels' illegal conduct makes the knife admissible.
- Jack McCoy: It isn't that I don't see the irony, but the evidence is admissible.
- Judge Antonia Mellon: He's got you, Mr. Fallon. Look, Mr. Grimes' confession remains inadmissible, but the knife comes in.
- Arthur Branch: Don't pop those champagne corks yet. No amount of fancy footwork is gonna change the fact that your sponsoring witness is Kenny Daniels.
- Jack McCoy: I hate using him, but what choice do we have?
- Serena Southerlyn: A cop who admits he framed a guilty man for another crime which he didn't commit.
- Jack McCoy: In service of the greater good.
- Arthur Branch: Well, that's what you'll tell the jury. What Fallon will tell them is that Daniels is a vigilante with an ax to grind.
- Jack McCoy: Which is exactly what we need to prepare him for.
- Kenneth Daniels: If I hadn't done what I did, Grimes was gonna walk. Why are you making me out to be the bad guy?
- Jack McCoy: Because you crossed the line, detective. And because that's what Rodney Fallon will do when you take the stand.
- Kenneth Daniels: He's not the first shyster I've taken on. I can handle him.
- Serena Southerlyn: Let's hope he's the only one whose client's been framed by you.
- Kenneth Daniels: Okay. I deserve that.
- Kenneth Daniels: Planting the knife was wrong. What I did was wrong. I was trying to do right, but now I see the ends didn't justify the means.
- Jack McCoy: I'm sure you understand people may view whatever testimony you'd offer against Walter Grimes with a certain amount of skepticism.
- Kenneth Daniels: I made one mistake twenty years ago.
- Jack McCoy: Since then?
- Kenneth Daniels: I've told the truth and played by the rules.
- Rodney Fallon: [standing up as Jack sits down] Have you?
- Kenneth Daniels: Yes.
- Rodney Fallon: "One mistake." You admit you framed my client for the murder of Leanne Testa.
- Kenneth Daniels: I admit to framing him for one murder because he committed another; the one he's on trial for here.
- Rodney Fallon: You don't get to be judge and jury this time, Mr. Daniels.
- Kenneth Daniels: He confessed to me that he killed Julie Sayer.
- Rodney Fallon: A confession you beat out of him. Which mistake do you regret, beating my client or planting evidence against him?
- Kenneth Daniels: Both.
- Rodney Fallon: So that's two mistakes.
- Rodney Fallon: Tell me, is there anyone who can corroborate your story?
- Kenneth Daniels: Just your client.
- Rodney Fallon: My client maintains his innocence. Which means we're left with your word.
- Kenneth Daniels: Then you're left with my word, and I'm telling the truth.
- Rodney Fallon: But I don't believe you, Mr. Daniels. You've been obsessed with getting my client for decades, since he was a kid haven't you?
- Kenneth Daniels: No.
- Rodney Fallon: You arrested him for a liquor store robbery that was committed by someone else.
- Kenneth Daniels: I stand by that arrest.
- Rodney Fallon: Even though the owner said the robber was Latino? And then, on another occasion, you assaulted Mr. Grimes.
- Kenneth Daniels: He was a suspect. He attacked me, counselor, and I defended myself.
- Rodney Fallon: He was in your custody and you beat him bloody.
- Kenneth Daniels: Like I said, I regret that.
- Rodney Fallon: Then you framed him for Leanne Testa's murder.
- Kenneth Daniels: And I've got nothin' to gain by admittin' it. In fact, I'm throwing away my career and my pension.
- Rodney Fallon: Your career and pension mean nothing to you, do they? Not compared to your vendetta against Walter Grimes.
- Kenneth Daniels: Enjoy the show?
- Ed Green: You held up okay.
- Kenneth Daniels: What're you doing here?
- Ed Green: It's my case.
- Kenneth Daniels: I thought maybe you came to gloat.
- Ed Green: Now, why would I do that? We're friends.
- Kenneth Daniels: I thought we were.
- Ed Green: Don't try to turn this around on me, Kenny. You put yourself in this circus.
- Kenneth Daniels: D.A.'s could've made their case on that barroom fight without dredging this up and dragging me into the middle of it.
- Ed Green: We had no choice. You did.
- Kenneth Daniels: You could've let it go, Ed.
- Ed Green: You don't want justice for Julie Sayer?
- Kenneth Daniels: I already had justice for Julie Sayer.
- Jack McCoy: Your fingerprints are on the knife. Julie Sayer's blood is on the knife. How did all that get there?
- Rodney Fallon: Objection!
- Walter Grimes: Daniels put it there.
- Jack McCoy: How did Detective Daniels get your knife?
- Rodney Fallon: It is not incumbent upon the defendant to prove how Detective Daniels did anything.
- Jack McCoy: He's making all these assertions. He must have some idea.
- Walter Grimes: I don't know how! He framed me, okay? I never killed anybody!
- Jack McCoy: You didn't kill Brendan Donner three months after being released from prison...
- Rodney Fallon: Objection, Your Honor! Objection!
- Jack McCoy: ...by smashing his head in with a liquor bottle?
- Anita Van Buren: Sketch artist came up with a composite of our suspect.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: [glancing at the sketch] Could be anybody.
- Anita Van Buren: How are you doing?
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: I'm reading Donner's hate mail. Ed's listening to it.
- Anita Van Buren: Anything interesting?
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: Ahh, they either want to dump him in the East River or throw him off a building or run him over with a car. Not much originality.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: [in Grimes' apartment] Hey, Ed, do you always leave your phonebook out?
- Ed Green: Only if I've been using it.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: Yeah. There's an old PI trick. If you had it open to a certain page, it bends the spine. It'll open there.
- [he picks the phonebook up and drops it on the table]
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: Hotels. Some cheaper than others.
- Ed Green: Where do we start?
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: At the bottom and work our way up, I guess.
- Detective Adams: We got an anonymous tip about the Testa case. Judge signed the search warrant.
- Ed Green: Off an anonymous tip?
- Detective Adams: Back in '84, we had a couple political appointees, they let us take a few more procedural shortcuts than they do now.
- Detective Lennie Briscoe: Ah, the Regan years.
- Kenneth Daniels: Grimes killed Julie Sayer. He admitted it. And because I screwed up, he was gonna walk. That's a mistake I couldn't live with, and I'm not gonna apologize for fixing it!
- Serena Southerlyn: If you don't, he may walk on Julie's murder a second time.
- Jack McCoy: If the jury sees you as some kind of a vigilante with no qualms about framing someone or planting evidence, they won't listen to a word you say!
- Kenneth Daniels: I screwed up twenty years ago. But by making it right, it's the best thing I've ever done. You really want me to say I feel sorry when I don't?
- Jack McCoy: You're a police officer. And you put yourself above the law. I can't believe you have no regrets about that.
- Kenneth Daniels: Yeah, I have some regrets; that I gave him a beating and I screwed up the case. What, do you want me to lie?
- Jack McCoy: I want you to acknowledge what it is I know you must be feeling!
- Kenneth Daniels: And that's what?
- Jack McCoy: Guilt.
- Kenneth Daniels: Guilt about what?
- Jack McCoy: Guilt about having been so arrogant as to put yourself above the law!
- Rodney Fallon: This is outrageous. Accusing him of murder?
- Jack McCoy: The defendant denied it. I have every right to attack his credibility.
- Rodney Fallon: He hasn't been convicted in that case! He hasn't even been tried.
- Jack McCoy: But he did raise a "not responsible" defense. Which is an admission that he killed Brendan Donner. And if the defendant denies that, I'll put Dr. Olivet on the stand to impeach him.
- Rodney Fallon: You goaded him into that denial so you could bring in the other case to poison the minds of the jury.
- Judge Antonia Mellon: They call that cross-examination, Mr. Fallon. Sorry, counsel. Your client opened the door and put out the welcome mat. If I were you, I'd talk to Mr. McCoy about a plea.