[CLASSICAL MUSIC PLAYING OVER SPEAKERS]
MAN [ON TV]: As low-pressure systems flow through the area...
...high temperatures will remain in the mid to upper 50s.
Tuesday will be mostly cloudy, windy and mild...
...with scattered showers and high temperatures...
[SCRATCHING]
JOHN: That's better, huh?
WOMAN [ON TV]: More violence in Jackson Heights this morning...
...this time against a Pakistani driver dragged from his car and beaten with bricks.
Police are calling it a hate crime...
...adding they believe the motivation for the attack is the Nasir Khan case.
Mr. Khan is on trial for the stabbing murder of Andrea Cornish.
That's for you.
The good one.
Go ahead, take it. You earned it.
Did a good thing.
Call your family.
Thank you.
So how they doing?
I mean, they don't complain or nothing, but not good.
No, it's okay.
Family's everything.
WOMAN [OVER PA]: Safar Khan.
- My experience is in retail sales. - I can see that.
Unfortunately, I don't have anything like that at the moment. I...
- You're the mother of that— - Yes.
And it was why I was let go, the only reason.
What jobs do you have available?
What are you willing to do?
- What in particular? - Facebook, if he's on it.
- Who on earth isn't? - Me.
You hear Bob Rooney's kid just got his gold shield?
Christ, how old was he when he had him, 12?
Kid's 28, Tommy. The math is good.
Earlier, before this.
LUCAS: Hey, Dennis, when's your big day? - Not soon enough.
Yeah, I'll bet. What are you gonna do with yourself, play golf?
Uh-huh.
"You're a lifesaver."
"You're a friend indeed."
"You the man."
"Owe you bigtime, bro."
For what, I wonder?
Amir.
[CHATTERING]
- Yo. Use your bike? - What?
Your cell, man. I need to make a call.
What cell?
Stupid-ass motherfucker.
WOMAN: What are you looking for?
WEISS: How out of his mind he was.
Well, this was some cocktail, I'll tell you that.
- Too high to know what he was doing? - That depends on the individual.
I've had patients this fucked up who could fly 747s through five time zones...
...others who couldn't lift their head off the floor if their life depended on it.
Which are you interested in?
The aviators.
[CHATTERING AND CHINESE MUSIC PLAYING OVER SPEAKERS]
[CHATTERING]
Well, can you help me?
Yes.
For feet, for sex. Mix water. Three hundred dollars.
- Does it taste okay? - No.
- Credit card okay? - No.
[JAZZ MUSIC PLAYING OVER SPEAKERS]
FREDDY: Hey, yo.
Dude asked you to use that cell phone I gave you.
- Why'd you say no? - Because it's mine.
[CHUCKLES]
- What? - What?
Think I was just trying to save you a trip to the pay phone?
It's a cash machine, dummy. Ten dollars a minute.
- Oh. FREDDY: Oh.
I'm gonna make a proper convict out of you yet.
[THUNDER RUMBLES]
WOMAN [ON TV]: Hold the belly button up in the air.
Great. You can do it.
Every minute you've gotta move to your best ability.
Last one. Take it down now. Stretch it out—
Mr. Day?
Hi. My name's Chandra.
I was wondering if I could talk to you for a minute.
No, I don't have a minute. I got work to do.
I'm not here to cause trouble. I just need some information.
Is there somewhere else we could talk?
She the one got killed in the papers.
She's the one you saw the night she got killed.
At the gas station.
There's a security tape.
What was going on there?
You know.
I don't.
She had that vibration some women got.
Next thing you know, they're dead. Like that.
Vibration?
DAY: Like she the cat and you the yarn.
Women like that out to destroy you.
Sometimes you got no choice but to strike first. You know what I'm saying?
Like, uh, she deserved it?
Like it's a given with women like that to think they're God's gift...
...and you ain't nothing but a plaything...
...until they find out otherwise, like she did.
You talked to her there. Why?
Because I saw her for the destroyer that she was, and I did not like that.
Sometimes when you call them out, they get neutralized.
Um, do you remember the man she was with?
That wasn't no man. That was a ball of yarn.
Where did you go after that?
Where'd I go?
Really?
That's where you wanna go?
You a cat too?
- You think I'm a ball of yarn? - No.
I've dealt with females like you my whole life, and I'm still here.
You know how?
Read your Bible.
Judges 16.
That's all a man need to know.
[SNIFFS]
Oh, God.
[DOORBELL BUZZING]
I'm not interested in being saved, thank you.
What's wrong?
CHANDRA: "The lords of the Philistines came to her with silver.
And after putting him to sleep in her lap...
...she called for someone to shave off his seven braids.
And so his strength left him.
And she said to him, 'The Philistines be upon thee, Samson.'
And they bound him in shackles, brought him to Gaza and gouged out his eyes."
That's what he thinks of women.
- And he followed them in his hearse. - You don't know that.
He waited for them to leave. There's no other reason.
And the cops haven't even bothered talking to him.
But you did.
His eyes...
Everything about him is so creepy.
Next time when you wanna talk to somebody, let me do it.
You want a drink?
Oh, forgot, no alcohol.
That's Muslims. I'll drink anything.
Next time, leave the Nancy Drew work to me.
He's really scary, John.
And I gave him my card.
Chasen High School. That's in the Bronx, right?
Yeah, off Fordham Road. Great basketball team, lousy metal detectors.
So why would a kid transfer out of a school half a dozen blocks from his house...
...to another one 40 minutes away by subway?
To Chasen?
Well, not for the robotics club, I'll tell you that.
Probably didn't have a choice.
BOX: His name was Nasir Khan.
Maybe you remember him.
Yeah. I remember him well.
He made the basketball team, but I didn't play him too much.
- He left in the middle of the ninth grade. - Yeah, he got into a fight with another kid.
Wound up throwing him down a flight of stairs. Broke his arm.
- But it could have just as easily been his skull. - No kidding.
They suspended him for a couple of weeks, but when he came back, it was just as bad...
...so he was transferred out.
- Thanks. I appreciate your time. - You're welcome.
JOHN: Thanks, Greer.
Jury selection isn't about selection.
It's about getting rid of your nightmares.
Anyone from law enforcement. Anyone from a law-enforcement family.
Anyone from a military family. No small-business owners.
No working-class whites. No elderly blacks. They're tired of getting mugged.
No one who knows anyone killed on 9/11. No one who listens to Fox News.
No golfers, no bowlers, no sailors and absolutely no lawyers.
- Are you listening to me? - Yeah.
- Can I get another of these? - Yup.
I broke up with my boyfriend.
Oh.
Fuck that. Who cares? This is important.
Educated liberals are good, unless they got a kid died of an overdose.
Jews, but not religious ones. Well, for this case, it's complicated.
Same with Muslims. Still, they tend to be... I don't know. Who the hell knows anymore?
WAITRESS: Here you go. - Thanks.
JOHN: You know who you really want? The prize of all prizes?
Young urban women. Mmm.
Because they don't give a shit about anyone's opinion but their own.
And odds are one of them's gonna be on our side just by accident.
And all we need is one.
- Young urban women. Well phrased. - I try.
Look, I get it.
Love is passion, it's fleeting, it's trouble.
"Paradise by the Dashboard Lights."
What?
You screw up, you break up, you get divorced.
I did.
It's not the end of the world.
You're alone.
Well, so are you now.
Can I get another of these?
Greer.
She's done.
Why no sailors?
MAN [ON TV]: While one officer leads Marilyn out of the bedroom...
...the other continues the luminol testing.
What he finds could be proof that something violent happened there.
- There are visible positive results... DWIGHT [ON VOICEMAIL]: Yo, it's Gooden.
Can't come to the phone right now, but you can leave a message.
Hey, Gooden, it's Dad again. What are you doing?
You wanna come over?
We could stay in, watch TV...
...go out to Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, whatever you want.
What do you say?
Call me.
I love you.
MAN [ON TV]: —to help you search for any kind of biological evidence.
Then, according to police, further disruptions...
[PATRIOTIC MUSIC PLAYING ON TV]
Your presence here today makes it possible for the court to select a jury...
...from a representative sample of our community.
If it wasn't for people like you...
...we would not be able to make real the Constitution's guarantee...
...of the right to trial by jury.
This right is included in our Bill of Rights...
...and guaranteed by the Sixth and Seventh Amendments...
...to the United States Constitution.
Yo, Marcus.
- Did your boy tell you about Steven Diaz? - Who?
Schoolmate at Flushing High. Threw him down a flight of stairs.
Almost killed him.
- Stick them up. - Mm.
What's that?
Board of Education incident report for violent behavior.
Our golden boy.
He lied to us again.
I was in fifth grade when the towers came down.
I didn't understand why I was getting beat up, why my little brother was...
...why my dad got jumped in his cab twice.
Pakistani kids, North African, any type of Muslim, it was a slaughterhouse.
You tried to fight back, it only made it worse.
I didn't have a fight with Steve Diaz. I just shoved him down those stairs.
Why? Because I just did.
I wish I could tell you something else, but I just did it.
It was like...
Like pushing open a door.
You just push it.
You know what I felt after?
Bad for my mom.
She never understood it.
To this day, doesn't. She was just like:
"Why, Naz? Why'd you do it? This isn't you. I don't understand."
Other than that, I felt nothing.
You look at me like she did.
"Why, Naz?"
No. I understand it.
It wasn't so easy for me, either.
You understand that.
But maybe I did kill that girl.
That's what you're thinking.
No.
Big day tomorrow.
CHANDRA: Ladies and gentlemen...
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, hello, I'm Chandra Kapoor...
...and I'm defending Mr. Nasir Khan.
Oh, my God.
Nick, Midleton.
[SIGHS]
[CELL PHONE RINGING]
- Yeah? - How's it coming along?
- I'm working on it. - Read it to me.
- Nothing to read yet. - I'll come over.
No, I got it.
Look, an opening statement's a memo, not the Gettysburg Address.
Get up there, tell them the burden of proof is on the state...
...quote the Constitution, get off the stage.
Short and sweet. People have busy lives.
- Don't read them War and Peace. - I got it.
Oh, God.
A young woman gets in a cab.
Little does she know this is the last cab ride she will ever take.
She gets in, tells the driver where she wants to go...
...just like we've all done a million times.
She's just 22 years old, and she's dead.
[DOORBELL RINGING]
Eighteen-fifty.
Um...
I'll be right back.
Yo. Thank you, but my mom's bringing me clothes.
Yeah, but they won't be right.
Thank you.
Your funeral.
JOHN: Hey. You're not gonna believe this—
Don't talk to me. I'm working on my opening.
Now?
Look.
- Hey. Hey. Look. - Shh. Shh.
I went to this Chinese guy.
He gave me some kind of tree bark or fish powder.
I don't know what the fuck it was, but it just...
What the hell is this?
You look like an extra from West Side Story.
Cheryl, get those cuffs off him. Give him to me for a minute. Thanks.
- Let's go. - What?
- Take it off. Take it off. Your shirt. - What? You kidding me?
I'm not kidding. It doesn't look good.
You can't wear royal blue in a courtroom, okay? You gotta wear a white shirt.
- The defendant wears a white shirt. - That's not white.
JOHN: Well, it's whiter than yours. Come on.
I've done this before. It's the wrong color.
The jury are coming in.
That's all right. They don't know what's going on.
Just relax. They don't know who you are. Just two guys.
- Relax. NASIR: Okay. But it looks stupid.
JOHN: It doesn't look stupid, okay?
The shirt you have on looks good.
All rise.
Let's go. Come on.
Good morning, everybody. Have a seat.
Good morning, jurors. My name is Helen Weiss.
I work for the District Attorney of New York.
But my real employer as I come before you today...
...is a young woman who lies in a grave at St. Raymond's Cemetery.
It's my job for her to speak to you...
...to take you on a tour of her final, desperate hours.
On it you will visit every stop she visited with the defendant...
...on his cold, calculating itinerary that night...
...which started with a stolen car in Queens...
...and ended with a young woman brutally stabbed to death in her bed.
Before I take you on this tour through hell, a word to the wise.
Be not distracted by Mr. Khan's benign appearance...
...as he sits here with us in his dress shirt and tie...
...nor by attempts by his attorneys to linger on the victim's personal struggles...
...in her all-too-brief life.
This case isn't about Andrea's life.
It's about her death.
Mrs. Weiss— She prefers to be called "missus."
—gets to take you on her tour before I can take you on mine.
And that's fine. That's how it works.
The state gets to go first, then the defense.
All I ask is you keep an open mind and remember this:
There is no burden on me to prove to you the defendant didn't commit the crime.
The burden is on the state to prove he did. Thank you.
WEISS: In the normal course of a day...
...what percentage of the vehicles approaching the Midtown Tunnel...
...is recorded by security cameras?
A hundred percent.
This one came through on October 24th at 9:17 p.m., it says there.
And there's an E-ZPass record of the same vehicle at the same time.
- This. - Yes.
Same plate, registration, medallion and VIN.
Have you checked the plates and registration to see who owns this cab?
Yes. Yousef Bashir, Tariq Mazari and Salim Khan.
Which of them was driving it the night it came into Manhattan?
None of them.
He seemed upset that these guys wouldn't get out of his cab.
- He wanted them out, in no uncertain terms? - Yeah.
There they go.
One of those bottles looks like water, but I can't tell what the other is.
Can you?
Beer.
Whose DNA is on this? The defendant, the victim's or both?
- Only the victim's. - Okay.
So after buying her beer in Harlem, he drove her to West 87th Street...
...according to this parking violation issued at 1:55 a.m.
- Whose blood is on this? - The defendant's.
WEISS: Any chance you could be wrong?
Yes, 1 in 5 billion.
- Well, what's this doctor's name? - Dr. Yee.
Y-E-E. The guy is a miracle worker. He's Anne Sullivan.
Three hundred dollars and he throws in aphrodisiacs.
FREDDY: You know why I'm here?
I don't ask that question.
FREDDY: I mean here, Rikers.
Not up north at Clinton.
Took my wife seven hours on a Greyhound bus traveling with the kids to come see me.
So I got a dude in my crew to put another body on me.
New charge, new trial, know what I'm saying?
So now I'm back down here, bus ride's only 20 minutes away.
What's one more murder charge? The fuck I care, right?
Yo, let me ask you something.
Did you like your life out there?
- My life? - Yeah.
Yeah, I guess.
God's honest truth...
...whether you're in here or out there...
...you know who you are, how to get what you need...
...shit, sweet can be had anywhere.
[CHUCKLES]
POLICEWOMAN: Upon observing the vehicle proceed across an intersection...
...in violation of a posted no-left-turn sign, we commenced pursuit.
After pulling him over, I requested to see his driver's license...
...detected the smell of alcohol and asked him to blow.
WEISS: Blow?
Take a BACtrack for me. Breathalyzer. That's when the call came.
A break-in at 144 West 87th Street.
Since we were the closest car to the address, we said we would respond.
- So you let Mr. Khan go? - No. We took him with us.
I didn't want him driving off in his cab given how intox he was.
Objection. The officer just said no test was given.
She's got a point.
If he didn't blow, how would you know how intoxicated he was?
Because his eyes looked like two cherries floating in buttermilk...
...and he reeked like someone just dropped a bomb in a tequila factory.
[CROWD CHUCKLES]
Okay.
Then what happened?
After we arrived at the scene, we found the victim, called for Homicide.
Detective Box arrived and noticed Mr. Khan in the back of our patrol car...
...and instructed that I get someone to take him back to the house, which I did.
- The house? - The precinct.
So he's gone now. You're still at the scene.
- Is that the last you saw him that night? - No.
Once everybody was doing their thing, CSU, ME, we went back to the precinct.
The desk sergeant told us to cut him loose...
...since at that point, too much time had passed to test his alcohol level.
So per standard procedure, I patted him down to make sure he wasn't armed.
- And that's when I found it. - It?
- That. - This.
POLICEWOMAN: In his jacket pocket.
WEISS: Did he try to explain how he came to have this knife in his pocket?
No. He tried to make a run for it.
How far did he get?
Not far, but it took two other officers and myself to restrain him.
- Three trained officers? - Yeah, and it wasn't easy. Fought like a bull.
- What's your name, son? - Nasir.
- You don't understand. - That's why we're gonna talk, okay?
So I will understand. Just you and me. Come over here.
Please, let go, I— No, no, I didn't do it! I didn't—
- I didn't do it! POLICEMAN 1: Give me your arm!
POLICEMAN 2: Hands behind your back. POLICEMAN 1: Give me your arm.
Give me your arm. Get—
Hands behind your back. Give me your arm.
Before this, in your patrol car on the way to the precinct, what was his demeanor?
Quiet, mostly.
- Not a peep? - No, he did say one thing.
What did he say?
Is she dead?
"Is she dead?"
What did you make of that?
Nothing at the time, because I thought he was a witness.
Then Officer Wiggins pulled the knife out of his pocket.
Thank you.
Your witness.
[CLEARS THROAT]
"Is she dead?"
Does that sound to you like something somebody would say to a police officer...
- ...if he'd just committed a murder? - I don't know.
I once collared a rape suspect...
...that asked to go back to the victim's house to look for his car keys.
[CROWD CHUCKLES]
Thank you.
It's okay.
FREDDY: Dude is okay, from what I understand. It's that girl I'm worried about.
Too young.
Well, at least she believes me.
See, that's what I'm talking about.
That ain't important.
Only a new lawyer wouldn't know that.
[CELL PHONE RINGING]
- Hello? - Hey. Hey, it's me.
The caller ID said "unavailable."
That's pretty accurate.
Oh, don't worry, it's not being recorded. This is my cell.
They allow cell phones?
It okay I call you?
Um. Yeah. Is there a problem? Are you all right?
One of the things you miss here is being able to say good night...
...to someone that's not an animal in a fucking zoo.
It used to be my parents or my brother, you know?
It still is. You should call them.
I don't think so.
Listen, I just wanted to say thank you for everything you're doing for me.
And that I hope it doesn't scare you if I say...
...good night.
[DIAL TONE]
MAN: Use that phone, playboy?
Where's your green dot?
[GRUNTS]
What'd you see? Hm?
- What'd you see? - Nothing.
- What you gonna tell Freddy? - Nothing.
- Hey. Let me ask you something. - Not now.
How much you think this place is worth? Ten million?
So how is it an unemployed 22-year-old drug-addled party girl...
...lives there like Eloise at the Plaza, hmm?
- You're not looking for a financial adviser. - No, I don't have enough money to bother.
This is about Andrea. I'm an attorney.
- For? - Nasir Khan.
- The guy who—? - Who's not been convicted, yeah.
I saw you at Andrea's funeral...
...arguing with some guy I didn't know at the time was her stepfather.
- I'm part of the fucking family. - What was it about? That?
Look, I really can't talk about my clients. Like you, it's a matter of confidentiality.
Okay.
Look, I was hoping that you could help me with some background information...
...off the record, but if that's impossible...
...you know, we'll have to do it more formally, with a subpoena and all that.
One way or the other, I gotta do my job.
Off the record.
Off the record, sitting here, just us chickens.
You know, I never understood that expression.
Me neither.
Close the door.
Evelyn, Andrea's mother, she was my client.
When she died, Andrea came to me to help her sort things out.
I mean, no 20-year-old kid should have to deal with that, but, well, sometimes they do.
One of the things I had to tell her...
...was that her mother's husband of just two years...
...might get half of everything.
I didn't know him at the time.
I didn't know Andrea at the time either, except for Evelyn mentioning her.
But as I'm working with her on this, then I got to know him.
You met him? Don?
- I just seen him at the funeral, at the trial. - You can see just by looking at him...
...he's younger than most 60-year-old women's husbands by like 25 years.
Well, it turns out he's got quite a history with the gray ladies.
Yeah. He's got quite a history with a few other things too...
...like restraining orders.
- Really? - He threatened me, I can tell you that.
And it was fucking scary.
So here he is, personal trainer by trade...
...if you can call that a trade, makes 30 grand a year if he's lucky.
Stops working altogether when he marries Evelyn.
Doesn't work a day after that. And he wants half of everything Andrea's got.
I mean, some kind of Driving Miss Daisy gratuity, sure.
But 5 or 6 million dollars? Andrea said no way.
Actually...
Actually, what she said was "Over my dead body."
Guess he gets it all now.
[HIP HOP MUSIC PLAYING OVER SPEAKERS]
Keep going. That's right. You're getting it.
Good.
So you're here most of the time?
- Yeah? - Yeah.