Hubris (Season 27, Episode 12)
Premise: Benson rescues a trafficked foster girl and comes to doubt the child-abuse pediatrician whose testimony took her from her father and sent another mother to jail.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 27, Episode 12
- Starring
- Capt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Sgt. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Sgt. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Det. Terry Bruno (Kevin Kane), Capt. Renee Curry (Aimé Donna Kelly), ADA Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino), ADA Cindy “CJ” Jones (Norma Kuhling), Judge D. Serani (Michael Mastro)
- Guest stars
- Sean Patrick Thomas as Nate Williams, Milan Marsh as Riley Williams, Kate Burton as Dr. Bethany Allen, Maria Dizzia as Dr. Ashley Mancini, Briana Starks as Corinne Langford
- Director
- Juan José Campanella
- Writers
- Story: Nicholas Evangelista; Written by: Michele Fazekas
Summary
“Hubris” begins when officers arresting a john find a battered teenage girl in his car. At the hospital she refuses to give her name until Benson wins her over with soft socks and makeup wipes. She is Riley Williams, almost 15, a foster child who says a man told her she would never see her father again if she talked. Her foster mother, Monique Sherman, calls Riley uncontrollable, but the apartment is full of a man’s things. He is Marcus Boyd, released last year after a prison term for promoting prostitution, and the squad catches him at the Midtown bus terminal, where he ends up with a broken leg after trying to run.
Riley slips out of the hospital and turns up at the home of her father, Nate Williams, who calls Benson. Four years earlier, he says, Riley broke her arm playing volleyball; the hospital reported suspected abuse, and although the Bronx SVU lieutenant, Javier Delacruz, saw an accident, Family Court removed her. Riley goes to a new foster family. Carisi pushes Nate’s lawyer, Harris Malone, to seek a new hearing, where child-abuse pediatrician Dr. Bethany Allen testifies that Nate waited three days to treat a fever when Riley was a newborn and that the fracture suggests a child shielding her face. The judge reserves decision. Allen tells Benson that police cannot judge medical science, while Dr. Ashley Mancini, who examined Riley, says she would not have removed Riley on this record.
Benson’s subpoenas for Allen’s records annoy Carisi, but ADA CJ Jones realizes she used Allen six months earlier to indict Corinne Langford, a Black single mother whose baby son, Jayson, had a brain bleed. Langford pleaded guilty to attempted reckless endangerment and is serving a year at Rikers while an aunt keeps the boy. Carisi warns that doubting one expert could reopen many cases; CJ wants the truth, and Langford tells her the baby only bumped his head. Checking Medicaid billing, Mancini finds that Allen ordered a test for von Willebrand disease, a bleeding disorder, that Jayson has it, and that the result vanished from his file. Before an investigative grand jury, Allen swears she never tested for it.
Spoiler, the ending: Threatened with perjury, Allen says she was protecting a child in danger. She is offered a choice between a trial that could cost her prison time and her license, or surrendering her license now with no felony record; her answer is not shown. A judge dismisses the case against Langford and apologizes to her, though she must still fight to regain her son. Family Court’s ruling on Riley is not shown on screen.
Why it stands out
- Sean Patrick Thomas guest stars as Nate Williams, a father who has spent four years trying to win back custody of his daughter.
- Norma Kuhling, formerly of Chicago Med, appears in her recurring role as ADA Cindy “CJ” Jones, who works with Carisi.
- Kate Burton plays Dr. Bethany Allen, the child-abuse pediatrician whose diagnoses the squad sets out to test.