In the criminal justice system
the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups,
the police who investigate crime
and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders.
These are their stories.
Final out, '69 World Series. Who made the catch?
Tommie Agee. Yeah, right. What'd he do?
Take a subway over from center field?
Maybe he ran.
Then he would've ran into Cleon Jones, who made the catch.
Cleon? Yeah. I saw it.
My dad loved the Mets. He took me to all the games.
Okay, Einstein, who on the Orioles hit that ball?
Davey Johnson. You think I didn't know that?
I guess not. You're the man who knows it all.
Hey, Garrity! What?
Look.
Oh, man.
Check it out.
What do we got?
A kid, he's dead 12, 14 hours. I'd say 1800 hours yesterday.
A nice out-of-the-way place to kill somebody.
You mean dump somebody.
His sneakers are clean and there's no blood on the ground.
You could've carried this kid any place.
Look at the size of that crack.
Yeah, it's a blunt object to the head.
There's no other obvious marks or bruises on him.
He can't be older than 12, maybe 13.
Yeah, that's about right. Algebra 1, Lord of the Flies.
Let's see, "Derrick Walters.
"In case of accident or emergency contact Estelle Walters." Great.
Here.
You done with this side? Yes, sir. I am.
All right. Let's roll him.
Three dollars.
Here's a pin for blowing up balls.
Nobody on my block ever had one when we needed it.
"They must be destroyed."
Let me see that.
Damn!
What is that? The school fight song?
Andrew Dillard.
What, the psycho? The one who killed four black kids?
Five. And every one of them had this note in his pocket.
Lennie, he's in prison.
Yeah, but somebody got a hold of his playbook.
The warden at Sing Sing did a headcount personally.
Andrew Dillard's present and accounted for.
A copy cat, five years later? Where's he been?
At home, watching the Justice Network?
They just did a special on serial killers.
Educational TV.
But Dillard was a psycho racist.
Is that what's driving this guy?
There's no sign of sexual molestation.
Well, that doesn't mean the killer didn't try.
There's no sign of a struggle either.
Except a fractured skull.
Take a walk in the dead boy's high-tops.
He still had his school books with him.
He left school a little after 3:00 and never made it home.
That's a lot of ground to cover.
The boy's mother's here. She just made the ID.
Thanks, Gia.
I'll take it.
I went to the police station last night,
and I took Derrick's picture so they could go look for him.
What time was that, Mrs. Walters?
8:15.
I got home at 7:00.
Derrick's always there waiting for me.
The sergeant wouldn't do anything.
He said that Derrick was probably out with some friends.
I called his friends before I even went to the police station.
Boys, they're not always good at getting home on time.
We go to the market for our dinner groceries every night.
It's our time together.
What does Derrick usually do when school lets out?
Basketball.
He's on the team at Saint Justin's Church.
It's right across the street from our house.
And then he comes right home.
Can this wait? I got to close to a jury in six minutes.
You prosecuted Andrew Dillard, right? Right.
We found a boy dead this morning with a note in his pocket.
Black? "They must be destroyed."
It's not Dillard. He's serving five consecutive life sentences.
He's copying Dillard. Can you tell us what we're looking for?
Dillard had a rage against young black males.
He was mugged. The police caught the mugger, but he was acquitted.
So he thought the scales of justice needed a little adjustment?
It wasn't logical. He killed good kids, bad kids, whoever he met.
How'd he meet them?
Drove a delivery truck for a bakery.
He'd see kids outside grocery stores, hand out freebies.
Candy from a stranger.
He was in here every night with his mom.
He was a nice kid.
I was teaching him Spanish, one word a day.
Did he stop in for a lesson yesterday?
Yeah. "Peligroso." He could pronounce it, too.
Do you remember what time that was, Rhonda?
That was about 4:30, just after my break.
Did you see Derrick talking to anybody on his way over to the register,
or on his way out?
No, just our security guard.
Is that him?
No, it was one of the other guys.
The company rotates me around, you know, stores, bank machines,
sometimes block patrol for a neighborhood association.
And, yesterday, the Gotham market?
Yes.
I feel terrible about that boy. I had to chase him out of there.
You chased him out?
Well, told him to move along.
He was looking at those girlie magazines.
You know what's in some of those?
You give him the standard "You'll go blind" speech, too?
Store policy, you got to be 21.
Did you see him talk to anybody after he talked to you?
He just walked away, alone.
You saw him leave? Which way did he go?
Out the door and...
It must have been right.
North.
Well, he couldn't look at those nudies when his mother was with him.
This guy has Derrick heading north, away from his apartment.
He still had two hours before mom showed up.
Maybe he was going to go visit a friend.
His mother called his friends.
Hey, did your mother always know all of your friends?
Derrick and me, we wasn't really in it together.
Well, your coach says you hung out together.
Only here.
It sucks that he got killed, he was our best forward.
Carlos, you live a couple of blocks uptown from here.
That's the way Derrick was heading before he got killed.
I didn't do it. I didn't even see him.
Hey, nobody said you did anything wrong.
We just want to know where he was going.
I don't know,
unless maybe to see Ernie. He lives near me.
There's no Ernie on the team.
Ernie's a scout for high schools.
He comes to some of our games.
Derrick said he was going to get him a scholarship.
A kid you were scouting, Mr. Bigelow. Derrick Walters.
Great hook shot and a great kid.
If he did anything, I'm sure it's a mistake.
I'll vouch for him down the line.
Yeah, well, when did you see him last?
Monday afternoon. I was packing on my way to Rochester.
My sister had a baby girl. I'm an uncle.
Congratulations.
So you say you were packing at your apartment?
Yeah, what's this about?
Derrick was killed on Monday afternoon.
Oh, man!
What happened?
Well, that's what we're trying to find out. What time was Derrick there?
About 5:00. He just sort of popped in to watch highlight reels.
Northern Prep, that's the school I was scouting him for.
Was that normal for Derrick to just sort of pop in on you like that?
Once in a while. He liked to talk basketball. I had to throw him out.
I was catching the train. What time was that?
About 5:30.
He walked me to the subway and then he said he was going home.
The athletic director at Northern Prep says
that Ernie Bigelow isn't even on the payroll.
Not a bad scam, pretending to be a scout.
He freelances.
If he finds a kid the school likes, they toss him a couple of bucks.
From that, he makes a living?
Well, he used to be a high school coach full-time.
I just got off the phone with his former employer.
You find out why he's not there anymore?
Yeah, "I don't know." "I don't remember. " And, "I can't talk about it."
Sounds like maybe boys and locker rooms.
Derrick Walters wasn't abused.
Not the day he was killed.
Well, what about the note?
Would get us looking for a white man.
I don't know how else to say it.
I didn't kill Derrick.
You want me to try it hanging from the chandelier?
Trust me, if you killed this kid, you're going to hang, all right.
You already told us, you were the last person to see him alive.
Except for the guy who killed him.
You told us you kicked him out of your place at 5:30
so you could catch a train to Rochester?
Right.
Right. Well, we may be dumb cops, Ernie, but we know how to read a timetable.
That train didn't leave till 8:00.
I stopped and had dinner first, the food on the train is terrible.
I don't remember you telling us anything about dinner. You, Lennie?
I don't remember you asking my full life story.
You asked when I last saw Derrick.
Look, why am I supposed to have done this?
I make my living recruiting kids like Derrick, not killing them.
Well, we'll get to that, Ernie.
See, the people at your old school are being very discreet,
but we're going to get the story.
That has nothing to do with this.
You like little boys.
That's ridiculous. We'll see about that.
Look, what happened at my old school was about gambling.
That's why I had to leave.
And you can prove that?
Look, to clear myself of this I have to give you the name of a guy who'll break my legs.
So you can't prove it?
Save my seat.
So, what do you think?
Harbor Unit just found another kid.
We found him just offshore.
How long ago?
Not very, he's fresh.
Do me a favor, shine your light over here, all right?
Hey, he's got marks on his neck.
Strangled.
That doesn't rule out our guy though.
Dillard strangled, stabbed and bludgeoned.
Bus pass.
Sean Monroe. Twelve, going on nothing.
Hey, Lennie.
"They must be destroyed."
Yeah, yeah, we got the message the first time.
He...
He was my baby.
His sister, she's off on her own now.
But Sean...
I did the Scouts with him.
I took him to church.
Sundays and Saturdays.
He'd run off on his momma.
Boy thought he knew better.
Just high spirits.
We should have locked him up.
Keep him out of those movies.
Keep him off the streets.
You know how hard it is to get a boy to study geometry
when some idiot friend of his has a gun?
Had Sean been in trouble?
This close.
I took a second job last year so we could put him in private school,
the Cheever Academy.
Yeah. I've heard of it, good sports teams, did Sean play?
It was required. Sean played basketball.
Did he ever say anything about being scouted by a guy named Ernie Bigelow?
Nobody'd be scouting Sean.
He sat on the bench.
Do you have any idea where Sean might have gone after school yesterday?
Anywhere.
When can I...
Sean wore a crucifix that he got on his first communion.
When can I get that?
Same age, same color, approximately same time of day.
Sean Monroe was a troublemaker, Derrick Walters an angel.
Yeah, for a 12-year-old.
I don't know, there might be something in the basketball connection.
No, I talked to the principal at Ernie Bigelow's old school.
He was fired for gambling.
Plus, he was in Rochester the same day Sean Monroe was killed.
I just confirmed it with his sister and two of her neighbors.
Which leaves us...
Same age, same color.
I also talked to the M.E. About Sean's crucifix. He wasn't wearing it.
Well, it might have broken off if he was strangled with the chain.
There were finger marks on his neck.
Serial killers sometimes take trophies.
Well, there could be a religious angle.
Derrick played on a church basketball team, now the missing cross.
So we look for vampires and members of the clergy?
Oh, now that's good thinking. Get out of here, jeez!
Unfortunately, Sean didn't have a lot of friends here.
Well, it looks like maybe he didn't quite fit in, huh?
He didn't. But it wasn't race. Class counts for more.
You explain that to Sean's parents before you took their money?
They sent him here to keep him away from bad influences.
We did everything we could to provide that environment.
We'll need to talk to your bus driver. Want to find out where Sean got off.
He wasn't on the bus. Since this morning, I've talked to his teachers.
Sean cut his afternoon classes.
Alone?
We'll take that as a no. Who else played hooky?
Vanessa Carey.
So Sean had at least one friend?
What the boys didn't like, a girl found interesting?
It was nothing. These are children.
Well, the principal must have been wrong. Vanessa doesn't cut classes.
Is that right, Vanessa?
Well, usually. Vanessa.
Where did you and Sean go yesterday?
Who's Sean?
A classmate of your daughters. He was murdered last night.
Murdered? Well, what's this got to do with Vanessa?
Mrs. Carey. If you could just...
Just nothing. I have a right to know what's going on.
Then why don't you let us find out, okay?
Vanessa?
We cut class, Sean and me.
We were going to see a movie.
Then what happened?
We got to Broadway,
Sean met up with a couple of friends from his old school. Felix and Damien.
I don't like them. They do all kinds of stuff.
You knew them, too?
What kind of stuff do they do, Vanessa?
I don't know. They talk about stealing.
Sean said we could all hang together.
I said he could go with them or he could go with me.
And he went with them?
I went to the Museum of Natural History.
Well, both of your parents are on their way down, and you know what?
They weren't too thrilled to be hearing from the police.
Look, I don't know what you think you got. You're wasting your time.
Well, what do you want us to tell them?
That you're helping us out or that you're under arrest?
You can't even talk to us without them anyway, or without a lawyer.
Well, Damien, that's if you're a suspect.
You're here as witnesses. Witnesses to what?
When's the last time you saw Sean Monroe?
Long time before he got killed.
Look, why aren't you out trying to solve who did it?
Good idea, why don't you help us out
by telling us what you were doing with him yesterday afternoon?
We wasn't doing nothing.
Really?
And where wasn't you doing it?
Around.
You know what, Rey? I think these punks are going to need lawyers after all.
I'm sure your parents won't mind paying for them.
We were at Broadway and 96th, where the stores are at.
Felix! What's it matter?
They don't care about the small stuff.
What were you doing?
Picking up things.
From the stores?
No, off coconut trees.
Let's try it without the cracks, all right?
Now, was Sean picking up things, too?
Till he got caught.
Where was that, what store?
I don't know. We split up.
I came out of Goody's and saw this cop had him by the neck.
And I just broke out.
They call it community-based policing.
I call it walking in circles with 20 pounds on my waist.
I guess I'm lucky. All I have to carry around is junior here.
Ever seen this kid?
Yeah. Wise guy. What did he do?
Got killed.
I thought he was a little young for that.
Him and his buddies are still stealing water guns.
You see him stealing anything yesterday afternoon, a little after 2:00?
A little after 2:00, I was resolving a parking-space dispute on Riverside.
Well, his friends say they saw him getting nabbed by a cop on this block.
It wasn't me.
And if it was a uniform, it wasn't anybody else.
'Cause I am the community-based policeman.
You still have radio cars around.
Those guys don't stop here unless they hear gunfire, or to make fun of me.
Well, thanks. Okay.
I don't think Sean's friends were making this up.
Well, from right here, Lennie, I can see three security guards.
Maybe it was one of them.
I don't know, these kids know the difference
between a rent-a-cop and the real thing.
From a hundred yards, running scared, with six hot CDs in their pants?
So where do you want to start?
Derrick Walters was chased out of a store by a security guard, right?
That guy who rotates around town.
I don't have to go with you if I am not under arrest.
Well, there's no problem, Simon.
You can help us out right here.
Help you how? This is Sean Monroe.
Did you see him yesterday?
Your dispatcher said you were working near Broadway.
I don't know that boy.
Well, there's a little coincidence that's kind of bothering us, Simon.
See, two days ago, Derrick Walters had a run-in with you at the Gotham market,
and a couple hours later he was dead.
Now, yesterday, this boy had a run-in with a security guard on Broadway,
and he turned up dead.
You're not being logical.
I'm not? Why is that, Simon?
There's a lot of security guards on Broadway. I see them all the time.
Yeah, but only one of them was with that first boy before he was killed.
You see what I mean? It's circular reasoning.
Hey, I see you keep a Bible here, Simon.
Well, I like to read it.
What? No TV?
There's nothing worth watching.
See, I don't think it's circular reasoning.
I mean, you can see why we're suspicious, can't you?
Just give me an alternate explanation.
How do I even know you're telling me the truth?
I'll tell you what, Simon.
You swear on the Bible you never touched those boys
and we'll walk right out of here.
The Bible is not for playing games.
This is no game. This is serious.
This is a crime. But I didn't do it.
And I'll believe you. Just swear to God. Put your hand right there.
Go ahead, swear to God.
Go ahead, put your hand down on that and swear to God.
You don't know what you're asking.
You got a problem with that, Simon?
They were sinners.
Derrick Walters and Sean Monroe?
Both of them.
Well, there are a lot of sinners in town, Simon, why'd you pick these two?
You wouldn't understand.
Help us.
I'm telling you what I did, isn't that all you care about?
That's not the way it works.
This one
looked at filthy magazines.
A lot of people looked at that rack, didn't they?
He was wearing an image of Saint Justin.
It wasn't just lust. It was sacrilege.
What image?
On his head.
A hat from his basketball team.
Justin was a martyr to our Lord.
And the other boy, he was wearing a cross.
Mmm-hmm.
And he stole,
defiling our Lord.
He had to be destroyed.
The same notes Andrew Dillard left.
Did you get the idea from reading about him?
It wasn't an idea.
God put them in my path.
But you wrote those notes, why?
So people would understand.
You thought Dillard hadn't made the point?
He had nothing to do with it.
Not with Derrick and Sean.
Not with any of it.
I killed those boys.
I killed all those boys.
You just gave Dillard the credit.
I guess you checked this out?
Brooks knows places, times of death, methods, and he kept souvenirs,
religious medals or crosses, off of every one of the kids
that Dillard was blamed for killing.
And the parents ID'd them.
But after Dillard went to prison, the killings stopped for five years.
Well, when Dillard got arrested, Brooks told his mother what he'd done.
Now, she didn't give him up, but she put him on phenothiazine,
some kind of sanity juice.
It and she kept him in check, but she died two months ago,
and he started missing his appointments at Bellevue.
Hey, the system's not perfect. It's one in a million.
My one.
Everybody's calling, from The Times to The Enquirer.
What do I say about Andrew Dillard?
Oops.
Tell them your staff is so good, they can even convict an innocent man.
How did this happen? You and Diana Hawthorne, two of my best people.
Had a very strong case.
Dillard was a racist and a nut.
Fibers on the victims were the same type as his delivery man's uniform.
His handwriting matched the notes on the victims.
He was seen arguing with one of the victims the same day he was murdered.
And no one saw him murder anybody.
Most killers aren't thoughtful enough to provide witnesses.
Yes. Right.
We do circumstantial cases all the time.
I hope Mr. Dillard is understanding.
Meanwhile, I moved him downstate, pending release.
He wants to meet.
If we're lucky, he may just ask for a pound of your flesh.
Five years of my life.
You know what I learned?
How to make a shiv out of a toothbrush.
I am sorry, Mr. Dillard.
I spent most of my time in a cell about the size of this table,
to protect me from the brothers.
You said I killed black boys.
That's the way the evidence pointed.
My ass.
Go on. Tell him.
What he did.
My client is referring to our claim
that you intentionally engaged in a malicious and wrongful prosecution.
Intentionally? I don't like what happened, but my conscience is clear.
What about your memory?
This statement was taken by a detective, two months before Mr. Dillard's trial.
It was never turned over to the Defense.
"Regarding Jaleel Franklin"?
He was victim number three. The one Mr. Dillard was seen arguing with.
A witness told the detective she saw the boy an hour later
walking into Central Park with a black man,
Simon Brooks.
She called me when she saw his face on the news.
I've never seen this before.
Isn't that what prosecutors say when they bury exculpatory evidence?
He specializes in this kind of case. Can you believe it?
Keep it.
It's the basis of our suit for $50 million.
I've made copies.
Malicious prosecution, false imprisonment, tortious interference.
Do you want to order? No.
We'll just be a minute.
Isn't there a rule about not making it personal?
Haven't you heard? I personally, deliberately, suppressed evidence.
It's ridiculous.
Right.
"Right?" That's a ringing endorsement.
Jack, you have made some pretty close calls.
You want to co-sign the complaint?
Does it occur to you that the detective who took that statement
might not have given it to me?
What would his motive be?
What's mine supposed to be?
I'll look into it.
Thank you.
The Dillard case?
Two hundred cops were tearing the city apart.
I got called in off of public morals to canvass 110th Street.
And you found this witness?
Laverne Chalmers.
Third-floor apartment, walks with a limp, offered me Ovaltine.
You remember all that?
It's part of the job, Ms. Kincaid.
Well, didn't you think it was strange that what she said never came up at the trial?
I turn the statement over to the D. A., the witness never shows up.
I mean, that's not unusual.
Maybe somebody investigated and found out she hears voices.
Maybe she dropped dead.
But you're sure, you did hand over the statement?
Put it in the D.A.'s hand personally.
My partner was there. You don't believe me, ask him.
Personally? To Jack McCoy?
No, the other one.
A good-looking woman, like you.
I love you too, Donald,
but I don't think the judge is going to care about your plastic surgery.
That's right, 9:00 a.m. See you there.
The part of private practice I hate, clients.
It was filling out time sheets that kept me away.
I was served with the Dillard lawsuit yesterday.
Jack's got you on the case? He doesn't trust the city attorney?
Call it an internal investigation.
I'm just trying to find out what happened.
Jack must be frantic,
trying to figure out how to pound out all the dents in his integrity.
Maybe you can help.
The detective who took the missing witness statement
said that he never met with Jack.
Only with you.
I've met a lot of detectives.
If he gave me that statement, I turned it over to Jack.
He was the lead prosecutor. You know what that's like.
He says he never saw it.
What do you expect him to say?
Well, I expect him to tell me the truth.
Oh, my!
Look, Claire?
You know how Jack operates.
Yes.
But if he never even saw the statement...
Fine. It got lost.
It happens.
You don't believe that?
I know Jack McCoy. I worked with him for four years.
I know.
And I slept with him for three.
I know.
And maybe that's affecting your judgment.
And it's not affecting yours?
You are sleeping with him, aren't you?
The cop says he gave the evidence to Diana. Diana said she gave it to you.
Actually, she says if she got it she gave it to Jack.
"Lf, if, if. " That makes us look so much better.
We'll get to the bottom of this.
The damage has been done.
We've got cops all over the country manufacturing evidence.
Criminal justice system held in contempt.
And now this gangrene creeps into the prosecutor's office.
This prosecutor's office!
So we just board up the windows and go out of business?
No, we suspend you.
Until I know what happened.
Am I permitted to participate in my own defense?
I am not banning you from the building.
Correspondence, pleadings, forensics.
No statement.
Does it matter?
If it's there, I concealed it. If it's not, I destroyed it.
I got a notice from Dillard's lawyer.
He wants to depose me.
I was in law school when this case happened.
Pattern.
"Ms. Kincaid, do you believe
"the defendant McCoy concealed or destroyed the statement?"
Objection. I wasn't there. What I think is irrelevant.
You can't object. It's a deposition.
"No."
"Have you ever seen the defendant McCoy withhold exculpatory material?"
Jack.
The Rowland case. The statement of the retarded girl.
That went to motive.
It's not an element of the crime.
The judge disagreed.
"So, Ms. Kincaid,
"have you ever seen the defendant McCoy withhold exculpatory material?"
"Yes."
You're going to say that?
I have to say that.
I didn't believe I had a duty to disclose.
"He didn't believe he had a duty to disclose."
Does that help?
Not if you say it like that.
Jack, what did the handwriting expert testify at the trial?
That Dillard's writing conclusively matched the notes found on the bodies.
Experts make mistakes.
Do they? Here's his initial report.
He was unable to come to a conclusion.
What changed his mind?
He was Diana's witness.
What can I say?
The notes found in the dead boys' pockets were block printed, not scripted.
That makes it hard to judge letter formation,
whether the writing is halted or tremulous.
You told the jury the tremors
definitely came from an attempt by Dillard to avoid identification.
And that's not what you said in your initial report.
Mr. McCoy, you were the prosecutor, you know what happened.
What happened?
I spoke at length with Ms. Hawthorne, your associate.
The other evidence.
What did she say?
That you had incontrovertible physical evidence that Mr. Dillard was the killer,
and that it was thrown out on some technicality.
She told me to make my evidence as strong as possible.
She asked you to lie?
Well, she said it wouldn't be a lie, because Dillard did write the notes.
He was the murderer.
You didn't think to talk to me about this?
Well, I wanted to, but Ms. Hawthorne said that you were too busy.
That it wouldn't be necessary.
So you just said the writing matched, even though you couldn't really tell?
A serial killer of children was about to go free.
I was told I was the only one who could prevent that from happening.
Jack.
Diana.
I begged you to get rid of that coat eight years ago.
You suborned perjury.
You never showed me the witness statement.
I've been suspended.
Two boys are dead.
Wonderful opening statement. Concise, but strong.
I'm sure Claire is learning a great deal from you.
For the past three hours, I've been trying to figure out
what the hell you were thinking.
What you were thinking.
Win the case. Like that?
How many times have I seen you reject unreliable witnesses?
How many times have I seen you give experts a little pep talk?
How many times have I seen you use a footnote to the fine print of the CPL
to avoid giving something to the defense?
You crossed a line I never came near.
Get off it, Jack. You know what I did.
Exactly what you wanted me to.
The city needs this over.
Dillard is getting $3,000,000 to settle his suit.
Thank you, sir, and I'm very glad to be back.
Make yourself at home.
Diana Hawthorne was a very expensive employee.
She's as good as disbarred.
The ethics committee has already taken statements
from the detective and the handwriting expert.
It's not enough.
I'm sure they'll be talking to you, too.
Disbarment's not enough.
It's over. Get back to work.
Derrick Walters and Sean Monroe were murdered
because we put the wrong man in jail.
Diana Hawthorne is responsible.
Not criminally. There's no law against prosecutorial misconduct.
What kind of message does that send?
How can we expect people to have confidence in us
if we don't go after bad prosecutors?
But how? You want to charge Diana Hawthorne with murder? The law doesn't fit.
Turn the page.
Criminal facilitation. She engaged in conduct
which provided a person with the means or opportunity to commit a Class A felony.
You want to step into a pit of snakes and scorpions?
Right now, you're cleared, you're out of it.
You want to try to put Diana in jail for 15 years,
she'll do anything, say anything.
I'll take that chance.
Diana Hawthorne, please? She's tied up right now.
We'll untie her. Wait.
Just take it easy.
Who are you? Police. Stand up, please.
Diana Hawthorne, you're under arrest
for criminal facilitation in the second degree.
You have the right to remain silent.
Anything you do say can be used against you in a court of law, you understand?
Jack.
It's absurd, Your Honor, Ms. Hawthorne cannot be held responsible
for the actions of an insane serial killer she never met.
Look at the statute.
She provided Simon Brooks the opportunity to commit these crimes.
If the police hadn't stopped looking for him, he would have been in jail.
If they had caught him.
They seemed to think Andrew Dillard was guilty. So did you.
We all would have changed our minds if Ms. Hawthorne had acted properly.
And the massive manhunt for the real killer would have resumed.
How could I believe I was aiding a man I didn't know existed?
You didn't know his name.
You knew somebody was killing young boys and it wasn't Andrew Dillard.
No, I thought it was Andrew Dillard.
And how could you possibly prove what I was thinking, anyway?
It can be inferred from the existence of the witness statement you were concealing.
Who says she concealed anything? Her embarrassed former colleagues?
I suggest we find out, Mr. Fox, at a trial.
Your motion to dismiss is denied.
It's a cover-up. Mr. McCoy is worried
about saving his own reputation and so he's scapegoating me.
I was following his orders.
The Nuremberg defense? Who does that make me?
All right. That's enough.
We'll hear the rest of this when Ms. Hawthorne's attorney cross-examines you, Mr. McCoy.
I assume that you'll be prosecuting, Ms. Kincaid?
Have your clerk contact mine about a trial date.
I had no knowledge of Ms. Hawthorne's conversation with the expert witness,
and if I had known, I never would have condoned it.
What she did was not standard practice in your office?
Absolutely not. I followed
and I expected all of my associates
to follow the rules that apply to all lawyers,
as well as their responsibilities as prosecutors.
Would you tell the jury what that responsibility is?
We represent the people in a search for justice,
which necessarily means the truth.
It's not a competition and we're not paid to win.
Thank you. No further questions.
Mr. McCoy,
did you convict a man named Hank Chappell of murder last year?
Yes. Was he guilty?
No, the real murderers conspired to frame him.
When I learned that, his conviction was voided.
But you did manage to convict an innocent man without any help from Diana Hawthorne?
Yes.
And as you were preparing to try that case,
conducting your search for justice and truth,
you found no indications the man was innocent?
No. Isn't that odd,
considering he was innocent?
He appeared to be guilty. Amazing.
Not a single hint of the truth to be found.
Or maybe you did find one or two and overlooked them.
Objection. No foundation.
Sustained.
In the matter of Andrew Dillard,
you testified
you never saw the witness statement pointing to the real killer,
and you never had a conversation with your key expert witness.
Nothing substantive.
Aren't those odd omissions for the lead prosecutor?
I believed I was ably assisted by the defendant.
Whom you trusted because you'd trained her.
In part.
You were her supervisor.
Yes. And her lover.
Objection. Relevance.
Overruled.
Yes, we were lovers.
Do you recognize the handwriting on this note, Mr. McCoy?
I don't think you'll need the expert.
It's mine.
Would you read it?
"Diana, thanks for an amazing night. I had to get to the office early.
"It's time to nail Andrew Dillard."
What'd you mean, "Nail Andrew Dillard?"
Prosecute him vigorously.
How decorous. You sure you didn't mean nail Andrew Dillard?
It was facetious between two people who were close.
You certainly were.
What Ms. Hawthorne is accused of doing,
wouldn't that consist of" Nailing Andrew Dillard?"
It's not what I intended.
So she didn't read your mind.
To convict Andrew Dillard, didn't Diana Hawthorne, your subordinate, your lover,
merely do what you told her?
I never told her to break the law.
Why would I?
There's no value in incarcerating the wrong man.
Really? Weren't you promoted to your current position
three weeks after Dillard was convicted?
I was told I'd be getting that position a month before the trial.
It wasn't final. You could have lost it.
Didn't that give you extra incentive to win?
No, that was not a factor.
Oh. Did you celebrate your promotion alone?
No.
With Ms. Hawthorne?
Yes.
How?
I took her to Ireland.
Everything I knew about being a prosecutor, I learned from Jack.
And that included the handling of potentially exculpatory evidence?
In my judgment that witness was unreliable.
Jack always said, "You have prosecutorial discretion. Use it."
And the handwriting expert?
Jack said an expert is useless unless he's sure.
I took great pride in my work.
What happened in this case is a prosecutor's worst nightmare.
I never intended to convict an innocent man.
Thank you.
Ms. Hawthorne,
you took a solemn oath as an attorney to uphold the law, didn't you?
Jack took that same oath. I saw how he followed it.
Really? He never told you to conceal evidence or suborn perjury, did he?
I never did either of those things.
Come on.
We've heard from the detective who gave you the statement.
We've heard from the expert who you told to lie.
Did Jack McCoy ask you to conceal evidence or suborn perjury?
Not in those words, but he was driven to win,
and he taught me to be the same.
Forget him. I mean, you're the one who was so eager to win,
you betrayed the principles of your own profession.
Objection. Argumentative.
Sustained.
You got a lucrative job in private practice after the Dillard case, didn't you?
It was a year later.
It was a lucrative job.
Well, I never looked for that job.
I wanted to spend my entire career in the district attorney's office.
You left voluntarily, didn't you?
I left because I no longer felt comfortable working with Jack,
after our relationship changed.
You mean after you stopped being lovers?
Yes.
Your boss and your lover, that's a pretty strong influence.
Yes.
So I did what he wanted me to do.
But why would he want you to do something that could jeopardize his career?
Jeopardize?
It got him his promotion.
Was that on your mind?
Was it, Ms. Hawthorne?
At the time, no.
But you knew he wanted that promotion.
Well, it wasn't a secret. He's very ambitious.
And you wanted his admiration?
Yes, he was my boss.
And your lover.
You wanted his affection.
Yes.
And what better way than to make him a gift of that promotion?
That's not what this was about.
Of course it was.
He never asked you to do anything.
You decided to get him what he wanted.
And like all good gifts,
it was a surprise.
The smell of this place.
We worked a lot of nights.
You shouldn't be talking to me, Diana.
Yeah.
Well, I think we broke a lot of rules.
She's a smart girl, Jack.
I don't think until today I even admitted it to myself.
That you committed a heinous crime?
No.
That I did it for you.
For my man.
I didn't know women like me did things like that.
I never asked you.
No.
But I thought you'd be grateful.
You didn't need my gratitude.
Yes, I did, Jack.
And here we are.
I took her plea, facilitation in the fourth degree.
She does six months and gives up her license.
I've got habeas motions on my desk
from every defendant she ever came near.
I'll go through them.
You bet you will.
You didn't have to take the deal, Claire.
You could have won the case.
I know.
But I thought that's what you wanted.