Bull (2016–…): Season 3, Episode 5 - The Missing Piece - full transcript
(SIREN WAILING IN DISTANCE)
ANNOUNCER: ...combination,
really controlling the pace...
(CONTINUES INDISTINCTLY)
(PHONE VIBRATING)
ANNOUNCER: That's the thing
about these two fighters,
they both have excellent footwork.
SAM: Dad?
What are you doing?
You should be asleep, pal.
I hear noise.
That's just the TV.
All right? Now close your eyes.
I'm not tired.
(KNOCKING ON DOOR)
All right. I got business.
All right? You stay in this bed.
You hear me?
I see you out of this bed,
you and me got big problems.
Yes, sir.
All right.
(FRONT DOOR OPENS)
- MAN: What's happening, man?
- JOSEPH: Yo, what's good, man?
- What you need?
- MAN: Back up. Back up, man!
- I'll take it all.
- Give me the roll!
- Just give me the cash!
- Give me the roll!
(OVERLAPPING CHATTER)
(CLATTERING)
(GRUNTING)
JOSEPH: No, no. No!
(GUNSHOTS)
(SCREAMS)
(KNOCKING ON GLASS)
Your 10:00 a.m. is here.
Dr. Harper came to see me yesterday.
He has a rather daunting legal problem,
and I immediately thought
we're gonna need some more hands on deck.
Well, before I sign on
for the big voyage,
let's begin at the beginning.
Why don't you tell me what's going on?
I'm a pediatrician.
I live in White Plains
just outside the city.
I was in my offices here
in Midtown, seeing a patient,
just after 11:00 yesterday morning,
when the police showed up to arrest me.
What for?
The execution-style murder
of a heroin dealer in the Bronx.
Okay.
HARPER: By the way,
I don't believe that I have been
in the Bronx in over a decade.
I have never ever in my life done heroin.
I'm not sure I'd know what it
was if it were in front of me.
I've not fired a gun that shoots
anything bigger than a BB.
And I was home with my wife and two girls
when this... execution took place.
Why do you think they arrested you?
DNA evidence was recovered from
under the victim's fingernails,
the result of a struggle with the killer.
And?
It appears to belong to Dr. Harper.
How close a match?
100%.
Not a lot of wiggle room there.
Our new client, Dr. Michael Harper,
is out on $1 million bail
after having been arrested
for the murder of Joseph Lowell,
a heroin dealer who was killed
in his apartment in the Bronx.
(QUIETLY): We only represent
the best clients.
MARISSA: No sign of a break-in,
which suggests the perpetrator
was a known acquaintance.
Additionally, he had just received a text
from someone with an
untraceable burner phone.
Joseph, the drug dealer,
was killed with his own gun,
which was later discovered in the Hudson
with no recoverable prints.
So is Dr. Harper in fact
a known acquaintance
of this Joseph Lowell?
He claims to have never heard his name
before the police showed up
at his medical practice.
Okay, so if he's innocent,
then how did his DNA end up
on this dead drug dealer?
At the moment,
no one can answer that question,
but Bull thinks
it may have something to do
with the way the police
made their DNA match.
What do you mean?
After the police found
what they suspected
was the murderer's DNA
under the victim's fingernails,
they ran the sample
through their internal database,
and they came up dry.
I'm confused. Then how
did they make the match?
They didn't, but it turns out
that one of these
big for-profit genealogy companies did.
Dr. Harper's wife had sent them
some of her husband's DNA
as a birthday present.
He's an only child, both his parents
had passed two years ago,
and he's got no sons.
He started talking to her
about how he felt
he didn't really know where he came from,
didn't really have a handle on his roots.
That he was likely
the last of his family,
but he really had no idea
who his family was.
It seemed like the perfect gift.
Wait. You're talking
about one of those places
you send a cheek swab into
to find out what country
your relatives came from?
TAYLOR: Is it even legal for them
to turn over your private
information like that?
I'm betting they had a search warrant.
They sure did.
It was all on the up-and-up.
Perfectly admissible in court.
DNA? That's a, that's a tough one.
Did you know that 95% of jurors
are willing to convict
based on DNA evidence alone?
CHUNK: Okay, so let's review.
This man had no
relationship to the victim,
had no criminal record,
no history of drug abuse,
had no ties to the crime whatsoever.
And where did he say he was
the night of the killing?
Home with his family.
Well, then there must have been
a mistake, right?
Now all we have to do is prove it.
CHUNK: Your posture should be relaxed.
More than anything, we want
you to appear comfortable.
You don't want to look
like you're trying too hard.
The jury can almost always sense it.
Trying too hard to what?
Save my husband's life?
Look, I know that this is difficult,
but alibis from family members
are the toughest to get a jury to trust.
You'd be surprised,
the things that people say
to protect their spouses.
We were home, with our kids,
watching television in bed.
If I had known I would have
to prove this in a trial...
I'm sorry.
(SIGHS)
He's a pediatrician.
He makes kids feel better
when they're sick.
He comforts them when they're scared.
- That's who he is.
- Well, there you go.
That's what the jury needs to know.
That's what the jury needs to understand.
You know I'm the one who sent
his DNA to that company.
Michael had nothing to do with it.
This... is my fault.
- Mrs. Harper, you...
- It was a couple years ago.
I'd completely forgotten about
it until I got that e-mail.
E-mail?
What do you know about
the Fourth Amendment?
Uh, unreasonable search and seizure.
It's one of my favorites.
Why? You got a pop quiz coming
up in constitutional law?
Michael's wife is the one
that sent his DNA sample
to that genealogy company.
- I know that.
- But did you know this?
A few days before the arrest,
she got an e-mail from the company.
It said they had received
a duplicate sample
and that they wanted to know
if it was from her
or another family member.
She just told you that?
I'm like a human can opener.
People spend time with me,
and they can't help themselves.
All right.
So where are you going with this?
Well, we know the police were
at a dead end.
They couldn't I.D. the DNA
from the crime scene
using their databases.
So they got a search warrant.
You heard Danny.
But how did they get it?
To get a search warrant,
you need probable cause.
There's no way they could've
known that Michael's wife
sent his DNA into that genealogy company,
or any genealogy company,
for that matter.
I know it sounds a little crazy,
but what if, before they got
the search warrant,
they sent a sample of this DNA
to the genealogy company...
every genealogy company...
posing as a customer,
all as part of an elaborate ruse
to get one of these companies to verify
they had a match in their system?
That way, they can go
to a judge, and say,
"We need a warrant
for this particular company."
Pretty good.
The website would've flagged it
as a duplicate match,
alerted the original customer...
And confirmed to the cops
that the killer's DNA
was in their system,
without even realizing it.
- Right.
- TAYLOR: So you're thinking
if we take this to a judge,
he or she might rule
all this DNA evidence
collected inadmissible?
It's worth a shot.
Your Honor, this e-mail was sent
to Mrs. Harper five days
prior to Michael's arrest,
and three days prior to the
application for a search warrant.
It's clearly a Fourth
Amendment violation.
Uh, exactly how so?
Well, the police contacted the website
under an assumed identity,
effectively tricking
them into participating
in a law enforcement investigation
without their knowledge.
And the A.D.A. here signed off on it.
Your Honor, using a ruse,
lying to a suspect
to elicit information
relevant to a criminal case
is absolutely legal here
in the state of New York.
You didn't lie to a suspect, you
lied to a public corporation.
It has no effect on the
legitimacy of the evidence.
Doesn't say a whole hell
of a lot about the integrity
of the D.A.'s office.
Kind of hard not
to wonder what other rules
- you'd be willing to break.
- Enough.
Judge Volk, the defense requests
that the court suppress all
evidence relating to this DNA
since it was obtained
through what amounts to
an illegal search and seizure.
Your Honor, you mustn't
suppress that evidence.
T-The government's entire case...
Exactly! The government's
entire case is built on fruit
from a poisonous tree, and you
must, therefore, suppress it.
The discovery's troubling.
But if the defense takes it up
with anyone,
they should take it up
with the genealogy site.
Not the police.
They were just doing their job,
trying to find a cold-blooded killer
who orphaned a little boy.
(EXHALES)
Are you aware that boy's mother
died when he was a baby?
That man, whatever his troubles,
was all the boy had in the world.
Now he's in the system.
Where, in all likelihood,
he'll remain until he turns 18.
Someone has to be held
responsible for that.
The DNA match stands as evidence.
This trial will continue.
Anybody here ever heard
of the Phantom of Heilbronn?
Female serial killer,
terrorized France, Germany, Austria,
from 1993 to 2009?
DNA evidence linked her
to over 40 crimes,
including six murders.
And when I say "linked her,"
I mean figuratively,
because even though
they had all this DNA,
they had no idea who she was.
Three different countries.
No apparent links at all
between the victims.
Made no sense.
I sense a punch line coming.
Well, the police finally tracked that DNA
to a sweet old woman in Latvia
who was working in a factory,
manufacturing cotton swabs.
I'm guessing the same cotton swabs
used to gather the DNA evidence
from the crime scenes.
What happened?
She must have contaminated them
with her own DNA.
Validate that man's parking.
All right, until we find
our own little Latvian woman
working in a Q-tip factory,
we need to find jurors whose
psychological makeup
will allow them to look
past what seems to be
incontrovertible evidence.
How in the world do you do that?
We look for jurors
who rely on an affect heuristic
when it comes to decision-making.
I have no idea what you're talking about.
A heuristic is a kind of mental shortcut
we all use to make decisions
throughout the day,
and when those decisions are
allowed to be colored
by our mood or our feelings
in the moment we make the decision,
that is called an affect heuristic.
Essentially, we want jurors
who go with their gut.
Why?
Because the one thing there's no
denying is that when you first
meet our client, "killer" is not the word
that pops into your head.
Yeah, the guy's likable.
You trust him.
Not withstanding the charges against him,
he strikes you as a good man.
- Yeah.
- And the thing about jurors is,
if their first impression
is positive, they are gonna
struggle with the idea
that they need to modify that impression.
And the seemingly irrefutable
DNA evidence
- will have less impact.
- LINDSEY: And what do I need
to ask them to figure out if
they have this, um, this...?
- Affect heuristic?
- Yes.
You don't have to ask them anything.
You just have to open your eyes.
BULL: Older woman in the
gray sweater is looking
at Michael like he's her
grandson. We want her.
But we haven't even talked to her yet.
Words lie, body language doesn't.
She likes him.
But at the end of the day,
it can't just be
about an affect heuristic.
That might net us one
or two friends on the jury,
but we're gonna need
to broaden our search.
Target jurors
with pessimism bias, as well.
BENNY: People who tend to exaggerate
the likelihood that negative things
are going to happen to them.
Why would I want these people on my jury?
Because our narrative is that
Michael is an innocent man,
wrongly accused.
I believe jurors with pessimism bias
will put themselves in Michael's shoes.
And the fear of something
like this happening to them...
it will likely dilute
the importance of the evidence.
- LINDSEY: Good morning.
- Good morning.
Do you like to travel?
I honestly couldn't say.
I haven't done much of it.
Any particular reason?
I guess maybe I just feel safer at home.
LINDSEY: Safer how?
Can't get in a plane crash
if you don't get on a plane.
Can't have terrorists take over your
hotel if you don't go to the hotel
in the first place.
This juror is acceptable
to the defense, Your Honor.
Acceptable to the prosecution.
Fantastic.
We have ourselves a jury.
We'll see all of you here
bright and early tomorrow to start trial.
So we've got four out
of 12 jurors that are at least
inclined to look past the evidence.
I'll take it.
All I need is one to get a mistrial.
BENNY: Talk about being
happy in your work...
Yeah. Wonder what that's about.
Everything all right?
Dr. Harper?
What does the D.A.'s office know
that we don't?
What do you mean?
What kind of question is that?
Look, I get it.
The D.A.'s office has DNA
that would seem to prove you did this,
and supposedly that's all they have,
but common sense would suggest
that in the absence of any other link
to this crime, at least
one juror is gonna
take exception to the idea
of putting you behind bars
for the rest of your life.
But the A.D.A. is not acting that way.
In fact, he's acting
like he has you dead to rights,
and I would like to know why.
Well, I can't help you with that.
- You never met the victim?
- Never.
- Never purchased illegal drugs?
- Never.
Never consumed heroin?
Never tried to buy heroin?
You never contemplated
trying to buy heroin?
Of course not!
Then why is the A.D.A. so damn sure
he can draw a line
between you and the victim?
Or is it between you and heroin?
Just trust me, whatever it
is, they're gonna find it.
(SIGHS)
And if I'm gonna keep you out of prison,
I need to know about it.
Can we go somewhere
a little more private?
HARPER: Couple of years ago, I
broke my ankle playing basketball.
Emergency room doctor
prescribed oxycodone.
I took it.
I kept taking it,
even after my ankle healed.
And I'd never done drugs before.
I mean, never so much
as smoked pot in college.
It was so serene being high.
So tranquil.
Mm.
I never experienced that before.
You ever write your own prescription?
A doctor writing his own prescription
for a controlled substance...
the AMA would not look kindly on that.
No. Never.
The prescriptions were all legitimate.
All from other doctors.
Of course, my wife figured it out.
Mm, she knew something was going on.
She threw away the pills
and threatened to leave
with the kids if I didn't quit.
Did you go to rehab?
No, I did it myself.
It was rough, but... I was lucky.
I was able to do it on my own.
My wife's the only one who knows.
I wouldn't count on that.
I'm sure the A.D.A. has already gone
through your prescription
records, and once
he sees multiples on the oxy,
he is gonna make the case
that you got tired of having to
beg your doctors to supply you
with drugs and switched
to heroin, which is what happens
more often than not
when people get hooked on oxy.
But... that would be a lie.
Look, I swear to you,
I have never done heroin,
and I've never heard of this man.
I did not, I could not kill that man.
(CLICKS TONGUE)
Okay.
Then we're not putting the wife
on the stand.
Jody? She's his alibi.
Well, no. She is also the
only one who knows that he had
an addiction to opioid painkillers,
the most common gateway drug to heroin,
which is what the murder
victim was selling.
But what if the A.D.A. calls her?
Well, then we'll just have
to claim spousal privilege.
I mean, she's married to the accused.
They can't compel her to take the stand.
I don't like it,
but what choice do we have?
Morning. Get your scorecards.
You can't tell the players
without a scorecard.
What's going on?
He's springing a new witness on us.
I don't know who he is
or how he ties in to all this.
Do you know a Dr. David Parsons?
He's my neighbor.
Just your neighbor?
Well, he's a doctor.
Your oxy connection, right?
COLLINS: Dr. Parsons, how do you know
Dr. Michael Harper?
We've been neighbors and friends
for the past seven years.
Around the same age,
both in the same profession.
And have you ever treated
Dr. Harper as a patient?
Depends on how you define "patient."
He is a friend.
And I did help him with some follow-up
after he broke his ankle a few years ago.
What kind of follow-up?
Pain management.
This was a few months after he broke it.
He told me the ankle was still acting up.
And so you wrote him
a prescription for oxycodone?
An opiate?
I did.
Did you believe he was in pain?
Most definitely.
Most definitely?
The truth is, you had no way
of really knowing, did you, Dr. Parsons?
Did you?
The witness will please
answer the question.
I depended largely
on Dr. Harper's anecdotal impressions,
but that's true with many patients.
But again, it had been
three months since the accident.
Yeah, that's true,
but it is not unusual for...
In fact, you didn't write
him one prescription.
- You wrote him three, didn't you?
- Over a period of about six weeks.
And was that it, or
did he ask for another?
I'd like to remind you
you are under oath, Dr. Parsons.
Yes, he did.
But you said "no"?
I became concerned.
- I spoke to his wife.
- Is it safe to assume
that you no longer thought
he was most definitely in pain?
You could assume that.
And isn't it true that when
an addict can no longer get
a prescription for oxycodone,
it's common for them
to turn to street drugs?
Most often heroin, which is
exactly what Joseph Lowell sold?
LINDSEY: Objection!
Speculation.
Dr. Parsons is not an addiction
expert, nor is he a mind reader.
Your Honor, David Parsons is a doctor,
and his training makes him
intimately familiar
with the world of opioid painkillers.
I'll allow it.
COLLINS: Dr. Parsons,
doesn't oxycodone addiction commonly lead
to heroin addiction?
(SIGHS)
Yes.
That's the conventional wisdom.
COLLINS: No further
questions, Your Honor.
Oh, um, would you have
anything a little stronger?
I might have a little something
under lock and key.
I'll be right back.
BENNY: You know,
just because a person
abused a prescription drug,
that doesn't make them a killer.
No. The DNA makes him a killer.
The oxy habit is just the assistant
district attorney's way
of dotting all the "I"s
and crossing all the "T" s,
lest any juror try to cultivate
some reasonable doubt.
Anyone else?
Dr. Bull?
Never on a day that ends in "Y."
I'm sorry I got you all into this.
Who am I kidding?
I'm sorry I got myself into this.
DANNY: Dr. Bull,
you know, ever since
you told us that story
about the, uh, the old lady
with the cotton swabs,
I've been researching false
positives as they relate to DNA.
And while there aren't a lot of them,
there was a case in California,
uh, just a few years ago.
Let's see.
Guy was arrested for murder
based solely on DNA evidence,
just like Dr. Harper,
and he swore up and down he was innocent.
And it turns out, he was.
They figured out
his DNA ended up on the victim
because of something called
"DNA migration."
Never heard of it. You?
No.
It's the secondary transfer of DNA.
And it happens because
the average person sheds
somewhere between 40
and 50 million skin cells a day.
Turns out we leave them behind
everywhere we go
on everything we touch.
Door handles, elevator buttons,
the creamer jug at the coffee shop.
Also, they don't stay put.
Those cells, that DNA...
just end up on the next person
who touches the creamer jug.
Sounds like you may have found a way
to un-dot some "I"s
and uncross some "T"s.
TAYLOR: So you're saying
a creamer jug or something
like it might explain
how Dr. Harper's DNA ended up
under the dead man's fingernails?
Exactly.
Marissa, line up a DNA expert,
someone who can spoon-feed
this concept to the jury.
You think that'll be enough?
No. We'll need something
concrete, some kind of proof
that our client and
the murder victim were both in
the same place on the day of the murder.
Taylor, is there any way you could try
and retrace the steps
of both men that day,
see if there's a point of intersection,
hopefully a mutual point of contact?
With a little luck...
and some loud music.
Is that something you might be
available to do tonight?
I think we can make that happen.
(HIP-HOP MUSIC PLAYING NEARBY)
♪ I'm lit, throw it in the air,
we ain't worried about it... ♪
TAYLOR: We know Dr. Harper lives here,
and he works here.
He takes the Metro-North Train
from White Plains to Grand Central.
DANNY: Makes sense.
And based on the info
from the victim's phone,
we know that after he dropped
his son off at school,
the day of his death,
he came into Manhattan
to "make some deliveries"
and "solicit new business."
Based on where he lived, I
realized it was almost certain
he took the subway from 180th Street
- to...?
- Grand Central Station.
Exactly.
All right. So, that's our
potential point of intersection,
our haystack.
The good doctor and
the drug dealer are our needles.
(TYPING)
How did you get this
in the middle of the night?
I just called the MTA.
And they just gave it to you?
Yup. Of course...
I might have cheated,
might have forgotten to mention
I no longer work with Homeland.
You're scary.
But still, it's Grand Central Station.
There's got to be, what,
hundreds of thousands of people
going through there every day?
How are you gonna find Dr. Harper?
I already did.
There are only so many
trains from White Plains
that line up with his office hours.
I worked backward from there.
Already strung together
all the footage he's in,
from the moment he walks
in the doors at the station
until he gets on the train.
I was just about to review it
when you showed up.
I want you in my lifeboat, baby.
DANNY: Well, he's pretty relaxed
for a man planning
to kill a guy later that night.
Oh, my God, that's it.
The guy even
grabs Dr. Harper's arm with his hand,
with his fingernails.
DANNY: All right, now tell me
you have an angle
where we can see his face.
That's all I've got.
DANNY: (SIGHS) This can't be it.
That woman, there?
She's got her phone up
like she's taking a selfie?
What are the chances she has
both our guys in that photo?
Mm, it's a long shot.
You know what's also a long shot?
That I can figure out
or find out who that woman is,
what her cell phone IP address is,
crack it and find the picture.
But is it... impossible?
Dr. Bull, Mr. Colón?
I was just about to leave my
office when I was delivered
an updated witness list from the A.D.A.
They're putting Sam Lowell on the stand.
The victim's son. He's a child.
COLLINS: Good morning.
Sam, thank you for testifying today.
You're welcome.
COLLINS: You understand this is
a court of law, that when
people sit in that chair
you're sitting in they're
expected to tell the truth?
I know that.
Good.
So with that in mind,
can you tell me about the
night your father was murdered?
Yes, sir.
COLLINS: So after you heard
your father let in a stranger,
you opened your bedroom
door and looked out.
Can you tell us what you saw?
I saw my...
I saw my dad...
lying on the ground.
There was a lot of blood.
And did you see anything else?
Did you see anybody else?
I saw... a man.
And that man...
Do you see that man
in this courtroom today?
He's right over there.
(GALLERY GASPING, MURMURING)
The simple truth is
they have... your DNA.
They have an eyewitness,
and they have created a plausible
relationship between you and the victim
based on your dependence on oxycodone.
I thought that you had some theory
about my DNA and the victim's DNA...
maybe I bumped into him somewhere.
Grand Central Station.
"He" turned out to be a she.
The girl who tripped on the stairs?
If only you had asked me.
I'm sorry to have gotten your hopes up.
I really do believe
this is the best course of action.
Gosh. If I had known
I was gonna be so outnumbered,
I'd have brought more people.
My client has never wavered in
his proclamation of innocence.
And I would not want
these conversations to suggest
- otherwise.
- But?
But... what kind of terms
might we be able to come to
if... Dr. Harper agreed to plead guilty?
Well...
he's staring at 25 to life right now.
I'd go to 20.
Well, that's not much of a deal.
The man is in his 40s.
You're right.
Forget it. Let's just
let the jury decide.
15 years to life.
No parole prior to 15 years served.
Let's keep in mind, he's charged
with killing a drug dealer.
That doesn't make the murder
any less of a crime,
but you never know what might happen
during jury deliberations.
Someone might seize on it, and...
15 to life.
You should be a lawyer.
I need 24 hours to sell it to my client.
I'll call the judge and request
a recess for tomorrow.
HARPER: I can't make sense of any of it.
I mean, you are asking me
to willingly agree to...
to give up a minimum
of a decade and a half of my life.
And my girls will be all
grown up by the time I get out.
My wife...
if she's still willing to be my wife...
- Stop that.
- Sorry.
(SIGHS)
It's just this...
This defies all logic for me.
I mean, it's...
It's like I'm discovering
that night no longer follows day,
that the ground is not beneath
us, the sky is not above us.
I never met that man they said I killed.
And that little boy...
he's wrong...
or confused about what he saw.
And as far as
the DNA evidence is concerned,
I'm a doctor.
I'm a man of science. I know
that what they are asserting...
is absolute.
It's unimpeachable.
The only problem is I'm me,
24 hours a day.
I was not there, I did not do it,
and I know that with
just as much certainty
as the science is
screaming that I must have.
(JODY SNIFFLES)
If only I didn't send that sample.
- No. Mm-mm.
- I'm sorry.
It was such a thoughtful thing.
My parents,
- they never liked to talk about the past.
- (SNIFFLES)
Whenever I'd ask them where we came from,
they'd just throw their
hands up in the air
and say we were Americans.
To finally read about...
my family's history,
- the bad parts, the slave ships...
- (SNIFFLES)
...the good parts.
That my ancestors fought
side by side with the colonists to...
secure this freedom for
this country from Britain.
(SNIFFLES)
I'm the last of the line.
And my legacy is...
I killed a man.
Not that I've helped hundreds
of kids get through...
infancy and adolescence
in good health.
Not that I married this amazing woman.
(SNIFFLES)
And helped bring two phenomenal
girls into this world.
Just...
(SNIFFLES)
...I killed a man.
A man I never met.
I promised the A.D.A. that...
we'd let him know within 24 hours.
(SNIFFLES)
(ELEVATOR BELL CHIMES)
(KEYS JANGLING)
7:22 in the morning.
Definitely makes me an early bird.
Question is,
does that make you two worms?
I couldn't sleep.
I called Taylor.
Luckily, I was alone.
And she agreed to come in here
and help me with something.
Get back to the part where
you said you couldn't sleep.
I just couldn't stop thinking
about poor Dr. Harper.
You were not alone in that. (SIGHS)
Something in the way he said
his parents never wanted to talk
about the past, how it
seemed like he's spent...
his whole life feeling...
disconnected.
I'm not unfamiliar with that feeling.
You're talking about...
being adopted.
(EXHALES) Dr. Harper wasn't adopted.
I don't understand
how any of this applies.
Found this 45 minutes ago.
BULL: What am I looking at?
His mother's medical records.
The woman he believes is his mother.
Elinor Harper had a hysterectomy at 23.
Uterine fibroids.
Dr. Harper came into her life
when she was 28.
She can't be his biological mother.
It's not possible.
So, why am I looking
at this birth certificate?
I mean, who is this?
Who is... Jackson McKay?
You are, Dr. Harper.
Jackson McKay was your name
for the first 14 months of your life,
right up until your parents, the Harpers,
adopted you.
Adopted?
I'm not adopted.
I know it's got to come as a shock,
but I have a folder full of records here
that proves you are.
I'm sorry, why are you
telling us this now?
This is why.
What's this now?
Your brother's birth certificate.
Your twin brother.
Oh, my God.
The only other person on the planet
who has exactly the same DNA that you do.
100% match.
LINDSEY: Can you identify
the man in this photo?
That's Brandon McKay.
(GALLERY MURMURING)
LINDSEY: And how do you know Mr. McKay?
He's what we would call a client
at the city shelter
on 156th Street where I work.
Like a lot of our clients,
he would come in when it got
too cold to be on the street.
Objection your honor, what exactly
is the point of this witness?
I have no idea, Counselor.
But I assure you, I'm fascinated.
Objection overruled.
You are a social worker
and addiction counselor.
Can you talk about some
of the underlying conditions
that you believe contributed
to Mr. McKay's chronic homelessness?
Like a lot of our clients,
Mr. McKay struggled
with an addiction to heroin.
And he had a violent streak.
I remember he got
into a fistfight with one
of the other residents
two Christmases ago.
Do you happen to have
his shelter records with you?
I do. And do your records
happen to indicate
Mr. McKay's birth date?
March 2, 1975.
The exact same birth date as Dr. Harper.
(GALLERY MURMURING)
Give me a sense.
It's starting to look
less like a stoplight
and more like a Christmas tree in here.
So, what did Brandon McKay
have that my client didn't?
For one, motive.
He was in dire need of heroin and money.
By robbing the victim's supply,
he could get both.
Second, opportunity.
He was a known associate of the victim,
someone Joseph would've let into
his home no questions asked.
And was Dr. Harper identified
by the victim's son?
Of course.
Because he looks exactly like
the murderer.
He's his twin brother.
But the most important thing
is the one thing these two men shared.
Their DNA.
Identical twins' DNA is identical.
A 100% match.
Which means there is no way to tell
which one of the brothers
committed this crime,
even if, in your hearts,
I think you already know.
Very well then. That concludes
the closing arguments.
And in anticipation of the jury beginning
- their deliberations...
- Your Honor,
I apologize for the, uh, interruption.
But before we ask the jury to deliberate
upon the evidence and the testimony,
I was hoping to request a short recess
so that I might confer
with opposing counsel
and save the court and the jury
some time and...
trouble.
Let's take 20 minutes recess
in my chambers.
What do you that means?
Only good things.
(QUIETLY): Do you want some company?
Sure.
So,
when he says they're
dropping all the charges...
It means you're free.
It means it's over. They realize
they made a mistake.
BENNY: A mistake you might
- actually want to sue them for.
- Mm.
But that's a conversation
we can have another time.
So, now what happens to my brother?
Will there be another trial?
Well, if there were,
the same way his DNA
gave us reasonable doubt,
yours would do the same for him.
There's no way, definitively,
to prove which one of you did it.
So they won't prosecute?
They can't.
Dr. Harper, the second we found out
that you had an identical twin,
I had my team out
in the field looking for him.
And we found him.
I'm sorry.
Uh...
he's been in the Philadelphia
City Morgue for three days
as a result of an overdose.
Michael, he was a junkie.
A murderer.
But he looked just like me.
You're not the same.
I know, but...
still, I looked him up on-online.
We both played basketball in high school.
Forward.
We both struggled with addiction.
I had a few fistfights when I was young.
We shared some demons.
You're wondering why your life
turned out one way
- and his turned out another?
- No, I know.
I had parents that put me through school
and a wife that helped
me with my sobriety.
BULL: Maybe. Let's not
forget about free will.
Our DNA is not our destiny.
We can change it, piece
by piece, choice by choice.
If we're strong enough.
Which you were.
So what about the boy?
The victim's son.
The one who identified me.
The assistant district attorney said
he went to live with his cousins.
They seem happy to have him,
and he seems happy to be there.
You should go home, play with your kids.
It's a beautiful afternoon.
That it is.
("IT'S A FAMILY AFFAIR" BY SLY
AND THE FAMILY STONE PLAYING)
LINDSEY: So, what is everybody else
doing the rest of the day?
Oh, I think I'm going home,
calling my brother and sister.
Wow.
That's a great idea. I think
I'm gonna do the same thing.
Dr. Bull?
Actually, I'm gonna go back to the office
and try and track down an old girlfriend.
♪ It's a family affair ♪
♪ It's a family affair. ♪
ANNOUNCER: ...combination,
really controlling the pace...
(CONTINUES INDISTINCTLY)
(PHONE VIBRATING)
ANNOUNCER: That's the thing
about these two fighters,
they both have excellent footwork.
SAM: Dad?
What are you doing?
You should be asleep, pal.
I hear noise.
That's just the TV.
All right? Now close your eyes.
I'm not tired.
(KNOCKING ON DOOR)
All right. I got business.
All right? You stay in this bed.
You hear me?
I see you out of this bed,
you and me got big problems.
Yes, sir.
All right.
(FRONT DOOR OPENS)
- MAN: What's happening, man?
- JOSEPH: Yo, what's good, man?
- What you need?
- MAN: Back up. Back up, man!
- I'll take it all.
- Give me the roll!
- Just give me the cash!
- Give me the roll!
(OVERLAPPING CHATTER)
(CLATTERING)
(GRUNTING)
JOSEPH: No, no. No!
(GUNSHOTS)
(SCREAMS)
(KNOCKING ON GLASS)
Your 10:00 a.m. is here.
Dr. Harper came to see me yesterday.
He has a rather daunting legal problem,
and I immediately thought
we're gonna need some more hands on deck.
Well, before I sign on
for the big voyage,
let's begin at the beginning.
Why don't you tell me what's going on?
I'm a pediatrician.
I live in White Plains
just outside the city.
I was in my offices here
in Midtown, seeing a patient,
just after 11:00 yesterday morning,
when the police showed up to arrest me.
What for?
The execution-style murder
of a heroin dealer in the Bronx.
Okay.
HARPER: By the way,
I don't believe that I have been
in the Bronx in over a decade.
I have never ever in my life done heroin.
I'm not sure I'd know what it
was if it were in front of me.
I've not fired a gun that shoots
anything bigger than a BB.
And I was home with my wife and two girls
when this... execution took place.
Why do you think they arrested you?
DNA evidence was recovered from
under the victim's fingernails,
the result of a struggle with the killer.
And?
It appears to belong to Dr. Harper.
How close a match?
100%.
Not a lot of wiggle room there.
Our new client, Dr. Michael Harper,
is out on $1 million bail
after having been arrested
for the murder of Joseph Lowell,
a heroin dealer who was killed
in his apartment in the Bronx.
(QUIETLY): We only represent
the best clients.
MARISSA: No sign of a break-in,
which suggests the perpetrator
was a known acquaintance.
Additionally, he had just received a text
from someone with an
untraceable burner phone.
Joseph, the drug dealer,
was killed with his own gun,
which was later discovered in the Hudson
with no recoverable prints.
So is Dr. Harper in fact
a known acquaintance
of this Joseph Lowell?
He claims to have never heard his name
before the police showed up
at his medical practice.
Okay, so if he's innocent,
then how did his DNA end up
on this dead drug dealer?
At the moment,
no one can answer that question,
but Bull thinks
it may have something to do
with the way the police
made their DNA match.
What do you mean?
After the police found
what they suspected
was the murderer's DNA
under the victim's fingernails,
they ran the sample
through their internal database,
and they came up dry.
I'm confused. Then how
did they make the match?
They didn't, but it turns out
that one of these
big for-profit genealogy companies did.
Dr. Harper's wife had sent them
some of her husband's DNA
as a birthday present.
He's an only child, both his parents
had passed two years ago,
and he's got no sons.
He started talking to her
about how he felt
he didn't really know where he came from,
didn't really have a handle on his roots.
That he was likely
the last of his family,
but he really had no idea
who his family was.
It seemed like the perfect gift.
Wait. You're talking
about one of those places
you send a cheek swab into
to find out what country
your relatives came from?
TAYLOR: Is it even legal for them
to turn over your private
information like that?
I'm betting they had a search warrant.
They sure did.
It was all on the up-and-up.
Perfectly admissible in court.
DNA? That's a, that's a tough one.
Did you know that 95% of jurors
are willing to convict
based on DNA evidence alone?
CHUNK: Okay, so let's review.
This man had no
relationship to the victim,
had no criminal record,
no history of drug abuse,
had no ties to the crime whatsoever.
And where did he say he was
the night of the killing?
Home with his family.
Well, then there must have been
a mistake, right?
Now all we have to do is prove it.
CHUNK: Your posture should be relaxed.
More than anything, we want
you to appear comfortable.
You don't want to look
like you're trying too hard.
The jury can almost always sense it.
Trying too hard to what?
Save my husband's life?
Look, I know that this is difficult,
but alibis from family members
are the toughest to get a jury to trust.
You'd be surprised,
the things that people say
to protect their spouses.
We were home, with our kids,
watching television in bed.
If I had known I would have
to prove this in a trial...
I'm sorry.
(SIGHS)
He's a pediatrician.
He makes kids feel better
when they're sick.
He comforts them when they're scared.
- That's who he is.
- Well, there you go.
That's what the jury needs to know.
That's what the jury needs to understand.
You know I'm the one who sent
his DNA to that company.
Michael had nothing to do with it.
This... is my fault.
- Mrs. Harper, you...
- It was a couple years ago.
I'd completely forgotten about
it until I got that e-mail.
E-mail?
What do you know about
the Fourth Amendment?
Uh, unreasonable search and seizure.
It's one of my favorites.
Why? You got a pop quiz coming
up in constitutional law?
Michael's wife is the one
that sent his DNA sample
to that genealogy company.
- I know that.
- But did you know this?
A few days before the arrest,
she got an e-mail from the company.
It said they had received
a duplicate sample
and that they wanted to know
if it was from her
or another family member.
She just told you that?
I'm like a human can opener.
People spend time with me,
and they can't help themselves.
All right.
So where are you going with this?
Well, we know the police were
at a dead end.
They couldn't I.D. the DNA
from the crime scene
using their databases.
So they got a search warrant.
You heard Danny.
But how did they get it?
To get a search warrant,
you need probable cause.
There's no way they could've
known that Michael's wife
sent his DNA into that genealogy company,
or any genealogy company,
for that matter.
I know it sounds a little crazy,
but what if, before they got
the search warrant,
they sent a sample of this DNA
to the genealogy company...
every genealogy company...
posing as a customer,
all as part of an elaborate ruse
to get one of these companies to verify
they had a match in their system?
That way, they can go
to a judge, and say,
"We need a warrant
for this particular company."
Pretty good.
The website would've flagged it
as a duplicate match,
alerted the original customer...
And confirmed to the cops
that the killer's DNA
was in their system,
without even realizing it.
- Right.
- TAYLOR: So you're thinking
if we take this to a judge,
he or she might rule
all this DNA evidence
collected inadmissible?
It's worth a shot.
Your Honor, this e-mail was sent
to Mrs. Harper five days
prior to Michael's arrest,
and three days prior to the
application for a search warrant.
It's clearly a Fourth
Amendment violation.
Uh, exactly how so?
Well, the police contacted the website
under an assumed identity,
effectively tricking
them into participating
in a law enforcement investigation
without their knowledge.
And the A.D.A. here signed off on it.
Your Honor, using a ruse,
lying to a suspect
to elicit information
relevant to a criminal case
is absolutely legal here
in the state of New York.
You didn't lie to a suspect, you
lied to a public corporation.
It has no effect on the
legitimacy of the evidence.
Doesn't say a whole hell
of a lot about the integrity
of the D.A.'s office.
Kind of hard not
to wonder what other rules
- you'd be willing to break.
- Enough.
Judge Volk, the defense requests
that the court suppress all
evidence relating to this DNA
since it was obtained
through what amounts to
an illegal search and seizure.
Your Honor, you mustn't
suppress that evidence.
T-The government's entire case...
Exactly! The government's
entire case is built on fruit
from a poisonous tree, and you
must, therefore, suppress it.
The discovery's troubling.
But if the defense takes it up
with anyone,
they should take it up
with the genealogy site.
Not the police.
They were just doing their job,
trying to find a cold-blooded killer
who orphaned a little boy.
(EXHALES)
Are you aware that boy's mother
died when he was a baby?
That man, whatever his troubles,
was all the boy had in the world.
Now he's in the system.
Where, in all likelihood,
he'll remain until he turns 18.
Someone has to be held
responsible for that.
The DNA match stands as evidence.
This trial will continue.
Anybody here ever heard
of the Phantom of Heilbronn?
Female serial killer,
terrorized France, Germany, Austria,
from 1993 to 2009?
DNA evidence linked her
to over 40 crimes,
including six murders.
And when I say "linked her,"
I mean figuratively,
because even though
they had all this DNA,
they had no idea who she was.
Three different countries.
No apparent links at all
between the victims.
Made no sense.
I sense a punch line coming.
Well, the police finally tracked that DNA
to a sweet old woman in Latvia
who was working in a factory,
manufacturing cotton swabs.
I'm guessing the same cotton swabs
used to gather the DNA evidence
from the crime scenes.
What happened?
She must have contaminated them
with her own DNA.
Validate that man's parking.
All right, until we find
our own little Latvian woman
working in a Q-tip factory,
we need to find jurors whose
psychological makeup
will allow them to look
past what seems to be
incontrovertible evidence.
How in the world do you do that?
We look for jurors
who rely on an affect heuristic
when it comes to decision-making.
I have no idea what you're talking about.
A heuristic is a kind of mental shortcut
we all use to make decisions
throughout the day,
and when those decisions are
allowed to be colored
by our mood or our feelings
in the moment we make the decision,
that is called an affect heuristic.
Essentially, we want jurors
who go with their gut.
Why?
Because the one thing there's no
denying is that when you first
meet our client, "killer" is not the word
that pops into your head.
Yeah, the guy's likable.
You trust him.
Not withstanding the charges against him,
he strikes you as a good man.
- Yeah.
- And the thing about jurors is,
if their first impression
is positive, they are gonna
struggle with the idea
that they need to modify that impression.
And the seemingly irrefutable
DNA evidence
- will have less impact.
- LINDSEY: And what do I need
to ask them to figure out if
they have this, um, this...?
- Affect heuristic?
- Yes.
You don't have to ask them anything.
You just have to open your eyes.
BULL: Older woman in the
gray sweater is looking
at Michael like he's her
grandson. We want her.
But we haven't even talked to her yet.
Words lie, body language doesn't.
She likes him.
But at the end of the day,
it can't just be
about an affect heuristic.
That might net us one
or two friends on the jury,
but we're gonna need
to broaden our search.
Target jurors
with pessimism bias, as well.
BENNY: People who tend to exaggerate
the likelihood that negative things
are going to happen to them.
Why would I want these people on my jury?
Because our narrative is that
Michael is an innocent man,
wrongly accused.
I believe jurors with pessimism bias
will put themselves in Michael's shoes.
And the fear of something
like this happening to them...
it will likely dilute
the importance of the evidence.
- LINDSEY: Good morning.
- Good morning.
Do you like to travel?
I honestly couldn't say.
I haven't done much of it.
Any particular reason?
I guess maybe I just feel safer at home.
LINDSEY: Safer how?
Can't get in a plane crash
if you don't get on a plane.
Can't have terrorists take over your
hotel if you don't go to the hotel
in the first place.
This juror is acceptable
to the defense, Your Honor.
Acceptable to the prosecution.
Fantastic.
We have ourselves a jury.
We'll see all of you here
bright and early tomorrow to start trial.
So we've got four out
of 12 jurors that are at least
inclined to look past the evidence.
I'll take it.
All I need is one to get a mistrial.
BENNY: Talk about being
happy in your work...
Yeah. Wonder what that's about.
Everything all right?
Dr. Harper?
What does the D.A.'s office know
that we don't?
What do you mean?
What kind of question is that?
Look, I get it.
The D.A.'s office has DNA
that would seem to prove you did this,
and supposedly that's all they have,
but common sense would suggest
that in the absence of any other link
to this crime, at least
one juror is gonna
take exception to the idea
of putting you behind bars
for the rest of your life.
But the A.D.A. is not acting that way.
In fact, he's acting
like he has you dead to rights,
and I would like to know why.
Well, I can't help you with that.
- You never met the victim?
- Never.
- Never purchased illegal drugs?
- Never.
Never consumed heroin?
Never tried to buy heroin?
You never contemplated
trying to buy heroin?
Of course not!
Then why is the A.D.A. so damn sure
he can draw a line
between you and the victim?
Or is it between you and heroin?
Just trust me, whatever it
is, they're gonna find it.
(SIGHS)
And if I'm gonna keep you out of prison,
I need to know about it.
Can we go somewhere
a little more private?
HARPER: Couple of years ago, I
broke my ankle playing basketball.
Emergency room doctor
prescribed oxycodone.
I took it.
I kept taking it,
even after my ankle healed.
And I'd never done drugs before.
I mean, never so much
as smoked pot in college.
It was so serene being high.
So tranquil.
Mm.
I never experienced that before.
You ever write your own prescription?
A doctor writing his own prescription
for a controlled substance...
the AMA would not look kindly on that.
No. Never.
The prescriptions were all legitimate.
All from other doctors.
Of course, my wife figured it out.
Mm, she knew something was going on.
She threw away the pills
and threatened to leave
with the kids if I didn't quit.
Did you go to rehab?
No, I did it myself.
It was rough, but... I was lucky.
I was able to do it on my own.
My wife's the only one who knows.
I wouldn't count on that.
I'm sure the A.D.A. has already gone
through your prescription
records, and once
he sees multiples on the oxy,
he is gonna make the case
that you got tired of having to
beg your doctors to supply you
with drugs and switched
to heroin, which is what happens
more often than not
when people get hooked on oxy.
But... that would be a lie.
Look, I swear to you,
I have never done heroin,
and I've never heard of this man.
I did not, I could not kill that man.
(CLICKS TONGUE)
Okay.
Then we're not putting the wife
on the stand.
Jody? She's his alibi.
Well, no. She is also the
only one who knows that he had
an addiction to opioid painkillers,
the most common gateway drug to heroin,
which is what the murder
victim was selling.
But what if the A.D.A. calls her?
Well, then we'll just have
to claim spousal privilege.
I mean, she's married to the accused.
They can't compel her to take the stand.
I don't like it,
but what choice do we have?
Morning. Get your scorecards.
You can't tell the players
without a scorecard.
What's going on?
He's springing a new witness on us.
I don't know who he is
or how he ties in to all this.
Do you know a Dr. David Parsons?
He's my neighbor.
Just your neighbor?
Well, he's a doctor.
Your oxy connection, right?
COLLINS: Dr. Parsons, how do you know
Dr. Michael Harper?
We've been neighbors and friends
for the past seven years.
Around the same age,
both in the same profession.
And have you ever treated
Dr. Harper as a patient?
Depends on how you define "patient."
He is a friend.
And I did help him with some follow-up
after he broke his ankle a few years ago.
What kind of follow-up?
Pain management.
This was a few months after he broke it.
He told me the ankle was still acting up.
And so you wrote him
a prescription for oxycodone?
An opiate?
I did.
Did you believe he was in pain?
Most definitely.
Most definitely?
The truth is, you had no way
of really knowing, did you, Dr. Parsons?
Did you?
The witness will please
answer the question.
I depended largely
on Dr. Harper's anecdotal impressions,
but that's true with many patients.
But again, it had been
three months since the accident.
Yeah, that's true,
but it is not unusual for...
In fact, you didn't write
him one prescription.
- You wrote him three, didn't you?
- Over a period of about six weeks.
And was that it, or
did he ask for another?
I'd like to remind you
you are under oath, Dr. Parsons.
Yes, he did.
But you said "no"?
I became concerned.
- I spoke to his wife.
- Is it safe to assume
that you no longer thought
he was most definitely in pain?
You could assume that.
And isn't it true that when
an addict can no longer get
a prescription for oxycodone,
it's common for them
to turn to street drugs?
Most often heroin, which is
exactly what Joseph Lowell sold?
LINDSEY: Objection!
Speculation.
Dr. Parsons is not an addiction
expert, nor is he a mind reader.
Your Honor, David Parsons is a doctor,
and his training makes him
intimately familiar
with the world of opioid painkillers.
I'll allow it.
COLLINS: Dr. Parsons,
doesn't oxycodone addiction commonly lead
to heroin addiction?
(SIGHS)
Yes.
That's the conventional wisdom.
COLLINS: No further
questions, Your Honor.
Oh, um, would you have
anything a little stronger?
I might have a little something
under lock and key.
I'll be right back.
BENNY: You know,
just because a person
abused a prescription drug,
that doesn't make them a killer.
No. The DNA makes him a killer.
The oxy habit is just the assistant
district attorney's way
of dotting all the "I"s
and crossing all the "T" s,
lest any juror try to cultivate
some reasonable doubt.
Anyone else?
Dr. Bull?
Never on a day that ends in "Y."
I'm sorry I got you all into this.
Who am I kidding?
I'm sorry I got myself into this.
DANNY: Dr. Bull,
you know, ever since
you told us that story
about the, uh, the old lady
with the cotton swabs,
I've been researching false
positives as they relate to DNA.
And while there aren't a lot of them,
there was a case in California,
uh, just a few years ago.
Let's see.
Guy was arrested for murder
based solely on DNA evidence,
just like Dr. Harper,
and he swore up and down he was innocent.
And it turns out, he was.
They figured out
his DNA ended up on the victim
because of something called
"DNA migration."
Never heard of it. You?
No.
It's the secondary transfer of DNA.
And it happens because
the average person sheds
somewhere between 40
and 50 million skin cells a day.
Turns out we leave them behind
everywhere we go
on everything we touch.
Door handles, elevator buttons,
the creamer jug at the coffee shop.
Also, they don't stay put.
Those cells, that DNA...
just end up on the next person
who touches the creamer jug.
Sounds like you may have found a way
to un-dot some "I"s
and uncross some "T"s.
TAYLOR: So you're saying
a creamer jug or something
like it might explain
how Dr. Harper's DNA ended up
under the dead man's fingernails?
Exactly.
Marissa, line up a DNA expert,
someone who can spoon-feed
this concept to the jury.
You think that'll be enough?
No. We'll need something
concrete, some kind of proof
that our client and
the murder victim were both in
the same place on the day of the murder.
Taylor, is there any way you could try
and retrace the steps
of both men that day,
see if there's a point of intersection,
hopefully a mutual point of contact?
With a little luck...
and some loud music.
Is that something you might be
available to do tonight?
I think we can make that happen.
(HIP-HOP MUSIC PLAYING NEARBY)
♪ I'm lit, throw it in the air,
we ain't worried about it... ♪
TAYLOR: We know Dr. Harper lives here,
and he works here.
He takes the Metro-North Train
from White Plains to Grand Central.
DANNY: Makes sense.
And based on the info
from the victim's phone,
we know that after he dropped
his son off at school,
the day of his death,
he came into Manhattan
to "make some deliveries"
and "solicit new business."
Based on where he lived, I
realized it was almost certain
he took the subway from 180th Street
- to...?
- Grand Central Station.
Exactly.
All right. So, that's our
potential point of intersection,
our haystack.
The good doctor and
the drug dealer are our needles.
(TYPING)
How did you get this
in the middle of the night?
I just called the MTA.
And they just gave it to you?
Yup. Of course...
I might have cheated,
might have forgotten to mention
I no longer work with Homeland.
You're scary.
But still, it's Grand Central Station.
There's got to be, what,
hundreds of thousands of people
going through there every day?
How are you gonna find Dr. Harper?
I already did.
There are only so many
trains from White Plains
that line up with his office hours.
I worked backward from there.
Already strung together
all the footage he's in,
from the moment he walks
in the doors at the station
until he gets on the train.
I was just about to review it
when you showed up.
I want you in my lifeboat, baby.
DANNY: Well, he's pretty relaxed
for a man planning
to kill a guy later that night.
Oh, my God, that's it.
The guy even
grabs Dr. Harper's arm with his hand,
with his fingernails.
DANNY: All right, now tell me
you have an angle
where we can see his face.
That's all I've got.
DANNY: (SIGHS) This can't be it.
That woman, there?
She's got her phone up
like she's taking a selfie?
What are the chances she has
both our guys in that photo?
Mm, it's a long shot.
You know what's also a long shot?
That I can figure out
or find out who that woman is,
what her cell phone IP address is,
crack it and find the picture.
But is it... impossible?
Dr. Bull, Mr. Colón?
I was just about to leave my
office when I was delivered
an updated witness list from the A.D.A.
They're putting Sam Lowell on the stand.
The victim's son. He's a child.
COLLINS: Good morning.
Sam, thank you for testifying today.
You're welcome.
COLLINS: You understand this is
a court of law, that when
people sit in that chair
you're sitting in they're
expected to tell the truth?
I know that.
Good.
So with that in mind,
can you tell me about the
night your father was murdered?
Yes, sir.
COLLINS: So after you heard
your father let in a stranger,
you opened your bedroom
door and looked out.
Can you tell us what you saw?
I saw my...
I saw my dad...
lying on the ground.
There was a lot of blood.
And did you see anything else?
Did you see anybody else?
I saw... a man.
And that man...
Do you see that man
in this courtroom today?
He's right over there.
(GALLERY GASPING, MURMURING)
The simple truth is
they have... your DNA.
They have an eyewitness,
and they have created a plausible
relationship between you and the victim
based on your dependence on oxycodone.
I thought that you had some theory
about my DNA and the victim's DNA...
maybe I bumped into him somewhere.
Grand Central Station.
"He" turned out to be a she.
The girl who tripped on the stairs?
If only you had asked me.
I'm sorry to have gotten your hopes up.
I really do believe
this is the best course of action.
Gosh. If I had known
I was gonna be so outnumbered,
I'd have brought more people.
My client has never wavered in
his proclamation of innocence.
And I would not want
these conversations to suggest
- otherwise.
- But?
But... what kind of terms
might we be able to come to
if... Dr. Harper agreed to plead guilty?
Well...
he's staring at 25 to life right now.
I'd go to 20.
Well, that's not much of a deal.
The man is in his 40s.
You're right.
Forget it. Let's just
let the jury decide.
15 years to life.
No parole prior to 15 years served.
Let's keep in mind, he's charged
with killing a drug dealer.
That doesn't make the murder
any less of a crime,
but you never know what might happen
during jury deliberations.
Someone might seize on it, and...
15 to life.
You should be a lawyer.
I need 24 hours to sell it to my client.
I'll call the judge and request
a recess for tomorrow.
HARPER: I can't make sense of any of it.
I mean, you are asking me
to willingly agree to...
to give up a minimum
of a decade and a half of my life.
And my girls will be all
grown up by the time I get out.
My wife...
if she's still willing to be my wife...
- Stop that.
- Sorry.
(SIGHS)
It's just this...
This defies all logic for me.
I mean, it's...
It's like I'm discovering
that night no longer follows day,
that the ground is not beneath
us, the sky is not above us.
I never met that man they said I killed.
And that little boy...
he's wrong...
or confused about what he saw.
And as far as
the DNA evidence is concerned,
I'm a doctor.
I'm a man of science. I know
that what they are asserting...
is absolute.
It's unimpeachable.
The only problem is I'm me,
24 hours a day.
I was not there, I did not do it,
and I know that with
just as much certainty
as the science is
screaming that I must have.
(JODY SNIFFLES)
If only I didn't send that sample.
- No. Mm-mm.
- I'm sorry.
It was such a thoughtful thing.
My parents,
- they never liked to talk about the past.
- (SNIFFLES)
Whenever I'd ask them where we came from,
they'd just throw their
hands up in the air
and say we were Americans.
To finally read about...
my family's history,
- the bad parts, the slave ships...
- (SNIFFLES)
...the good parts.
That my ancestors fought
side by side with the colonists to...
secure this freedom for
this country from Britain.
(SNIFFLES)
I'm the last of the line.
And my legacy is...
I killed a man.
Not that I've helped hundreds
of kids get through...
infancy and adolescence
in good health.
Not that I married this amazing woman.
(SNIFFLES)
And helped bring two phenomenal
girls into this world.
Just...
(SNIFFLES)
...I killed a man.
A man I never met.
I promised the A.D.A. that...
we'd let him know within 24 hours.
(SNIFFLES)
(ELEVATOR BELL CHIMES)
(KEYS JANGLING)
7:22 in the morning.
Definitely makes me an early bird.
Question is,
does that make you two worms?
I couldn't sleep.
I called Taylor.
Luckily, I was alone.
And she agreed to come in here
and help me with something.
Get back to the part where
you said you couldn't sleep.
I just couldn't stop thinking
about poor Dr. Harper.
You were not alone in that. (SIGHS)
Something in the way he said
his parents never wanted to talk
about the past, how it
seemed like he's spent...
his whole life feeling...
disconnected.
I'm not unfamiliar with that feeling.
You're talking about...
being adopted.
(EXHALES) Dr. Harper wasn't adopted.
I don't understand
how any of this applies.
Found this 45 minutes ago.
BULL: What am I looking at?
His mother's medical records.
The woman he believes is his mother.
Elinor Harper had a hysterectomy at 23.
Uterine fibroids.
Dr. Harper came into her life
when she was 28.
She can't be his biological mother.
It's not possible.
So, why am I looking
at this birth certificate?
I mean, who is this?
Who is... Jackson McKay?
You are, Dr. Harper.
Jackson McKay was your name
for the first 14 months of your life,
right up until your parents, the Harpers,
adopted you.
Adopted?
I'm not adopted.
I know it's got to come as a shock,
but I have a folder full of records here
that proves you are.
I'm sorry, why are you
telling us this now?
This is why.
What's this now?
Your brother's birth certificate.
Your twin brother.
Oh, my God.
The only other person on the planet
who has exactly the same DNA that you do.
100% match.
LINDSEY: Can you identify
the man in this photo?
That's Brandon McKay.
(GALLERY MURMURING)
LINDSEY: And how do you know Mr. McKay?
He's what we would call a client
at the city shelter
on 156th Street where I work.
Like a lot of our clients,
he would come in when it got
too cold to be on the street.
Objection your honor, what exactly
is the point of this witness?
I have no idea, Counselor.
But I assure you, I'm fascinated.
Objection overruled.
You are a social worker
and addiction counselor.
Can you talk about some
of the underlying conditions
that you believe contributed
to Mr. McKay's chronic homelessness?
Like a lot of our clients,
Mr. McKay struggled
with an addiction to heroin.
And he had a violent streak.
I remember he got
into a fistfight with one
of the other residents
two Christmases ago.
Do you happen to have
his shelter records with you?
I do. And do your records
happen to indicate
Mr. McKay's birth date?
March 2, 1975.
The exact same birth date as Dr. Harper.
(GALLERY MURMURING)
Give me a sense.
It's starting to look
less like a stoplight
and more like a Christmas tree in here.
So, what did Brandon McKay
have that my client didn't?
For one, motive.
He was in dire need of heroin and money.
By robbing the victim's supply,
he could get both.
Second, opportunity.
He was a known associate of the victim,
someone Joseph would've let into
his home no questions asked.
And was Dr. Harper identified
by the victim's son?
Of course.
Because he looks exactly like
the murderer.
He's his twin brother.
But the most important thing
is the one thing these two men shared.
Their DNA.
Identical twins' DNA is identical.
A 100% match.
Which means there is no way to tell
which one of the brothers
committed this crime,
even if, in your hearts,
I think you already know.
Very well then. That concludes
the closing arguments.
And in anticipation of the jury beginning
- their deliberations...
- Your Honor,
I apologize for the, uh, interruption.
But before we ask the jury to deliberate
upon the evidence and the testimony,
I was hoping to request a short recess
so that I might confer
with opposing counsel
and save the court and the jury
some time and...
trouble.
Let's take 20 minutes recess
in my chambers.
What do you that means?
Only good things.
(QUIETLY): Do you want some company?
Sure.
So,
when he says they're
dropping all the charges...
It means you're free.
It means it's over. They realize
they made a mistake.
BENNY: A mistake you might
- actually want to sue them for.
- Mm.
But that's a conversation
we can have another time.
So, now what happens to my brother?
Will there be another trial?
Well, if there were,
the same way his DNA
gave us reasonable doubt,
yours would do the same for him.
There's no way, definitively,
to prove which one of you did it.
So they won't prosecute?
They can't.
Dr. Harper, the second we found out
that you had an identical twin,
I had my team out
in the field looking for him.
And we found him.
I'm sorry.
Uh...
he's been in the Philadelphia
City Morgue for three days
as a result of an overdose.
Michael, he was a junkie.
A murderer.
But he looked just like me.
You're not the same.
I know, but...
still, I looked him up on-online.
We both played basketball in high school.
Forward.
We both struggled with addiction.
I had a few fistfights when I was young.
We shared some demons.
You're wondering why your life
turned out one way
- and his turned out another?
- No, I know.
I had parents that put me through school
and a wife that helped
me with my sobriety.
BULL: Maybe. Let's not
forget about free will.
Our DNA is not our destiny.
We can change it, piece
by piece, choice by choice.
If we're strong enough.
Which you were.
So what about the boy?
The victim's son.
The one who identified me.
The assistant district attorney said
he went to live with his cousins.
They seem happy to have him,
and he seems happy to be there.
You should go home, play with your kids.
It's a beautiful afternoon.
That it is.
("IT'S A FAMILY AFFAIR" BY SLY
AND THE FAMILY STONE PLAYING)
LINDSEY: So, what is everybody else
doing the rest of the day?
Oh, I think I'm going home,
calling my brother and sister.
Wow.
That's a great idea. I think
I'm gonna do the same thing.
Dr. Bull?
Actually, I'm gonna go back to the office
and try and track down an old girlfriend.
♪ It's a family affair ♪
♪ It's a family affair. ♪