Mother's Milk (Season 10, Episode 12)
Premise: Blood in an abandoned apartment leads to an infant who starved to death, and Carmichael chooses to try his young mother while the father takes a deal.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 10, Episode 12
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Abbie Carmichael (Angie Harmon), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- Tessa Ghylin as Amy Beltran, Michael C. Williams as Jimmy Beltran, Donna Murphy as defense attorney Carla Tyrell, Lee Brock as Ms. Strickland, Susan Blommaert as Judge Rebecca Steinman
- Director
- Richard Dobbs
- Writers
- Lynn Mamet & Barry Schindel
Summary
The Investigation
“Mother’s Milk” begins as a missing-baby case when a building super shows an empty apartment and finds blood on a broken mirror and in a crib. The tenants, Jimmy and Amy Beltran, left weeks earlier owing rent, along with their infant son, Kyle. Jimmy lost his lumberyard job, and his mother says Amy walked out and took the boy. Jimmy bolts when the detectives catch up with him on a delivery route, and after his arrest he refuses to talk.
A priest recalls Jimmy at morning mass, a parishioner remembers him lighting two candles, and his father says Amy phoned to say Kyle was fine. A video store manager points to Mitch Palichek, a pierced coffee-shop worker, and the detectives find Amy staying with him. Each parent insists the other has the baby. Palichek says Amy sometimes slipped out while Kyle napped and once turned up the TV to drown out his crying. A search of the elder Beltrans’ property turns up Kyle’s body buried in a bag.
Jimmy is charged, but the medical examiner finds the baby was already dead when buried; he starved over several weeks and shows signs of severe vitamin deficiency. The blood on him is Amy’s, shed after his death, and Jimmy passes a polygraph.
The Trial
Mother and baby went home a day after the birth, and a lactation counselor, Ms. Strickland, says Amy grew frustrated with nursing; unopened formula sat in the apartment. Schiff gives Carmichael the case, and Jimmy takes criminal negligence and a year in jail in return for testifying. Defense attorney Carla Tyrell shows autopsy photos during jury selection, souring the whole panel, and Amy waives a jury so that Judge Rebecca Steinman decides.
Jimmy testifies that Amy told him she killed the baby but admits he hid the body. Tyrell paints Strickland as a breastfeeding crusader who scared Amy away from bottles. Schiff offers first-degree manslaughter, and Tyrell turns it down. Amy testifies that she signed a hospital pledge to nurse only and was turned away from a Medicaid clinic for lack of a card, and Carmichael presses her on the warning signs she ignored.
Spoiler, the ending: Judge Steinman says others share the blame but convicts Amy of second-degree manslaughter for recklessly causing Kyle’s death, and sentences her to a term of 18 months to four and a half years; Jimmy serves one year. Carmichael tells McCoy she regrets the choice to pursue the mother.
Why it stands out
- Autopsy photos shown by the defense during jury selection poison the panel, and the defendant opts for a bench trial.
- Schiff personally makes the plea offer so that Carmichael can keep up a hard line in court.
- Donna Murphy guest stars as defense attorney Carla Tyrell.