Asylum (Season 2, Episode 4)
Premise: A street stabbing leads police to two homeless men, and to a constitutional question about whether a cardboard shelter in Central Park counts as a home.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 2, Episode 4
- Detectives
- Sgt. Phil Cerreta (Paul Sorvino), Det. Mike Logan (Chris Noth)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Ben Stone (Michael Moriarty), ADA Paul Robinette (Richard Brooks), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- Matthew Cowles as Christian “Lemonhead” Tatum, Stuart Rudin as James Polesky, Lycia Naff as Mimi Sternhagen
- Director
- Kristoffer Siegel-Tabori
- Writers
- Story: Robert Palm; Teleplay: Kathy McCormick
Summary
The Investigation
“Asylum” opens on the Upper West Side, where Nathan Robbins is stabbed to death outside a coffee shop moments after a clumsy marriage proposal to his girlfriend, Mimi. The bystanders’ accounts contradict one another, but several mention a man in a torn red parka and a homeless man who sleeps in a cardboard box by the shop. The detectives identify the box’s resident as Christian Tatum, known on the street as Lemonhead, a man with severe delusions who has been boasting about killing people.
Police find Tatum in a single-room hotel with Robbins’s engagement ring in the pocket of a red jacket. A lineup witness says two different men were involved, and Tatum admits he was the lookout while his friend James did the stabbing. James Polesky lives under a tree near the Central Park bridle path. Cerreta and Logan search his spot and find a knife with Robbins’s blood and Polesky’s fingerprints.
The Trial
The case against Tatum runs into trouble when a judge throws out the ring because the jacket was searched without a warrant. Tatum pleads to robbery and testifies against Polesky, who is convicted of murder and sentenced to 25 years to life. Then a civil-liberties lawyer takes Polesky’s appeal and argues that his shelter in the park was his home, so the warrantless search of it was illegal.
In a divided decision, the appeals court agrees and overturns the conviction, leaving Stone without the knife. He persuades the trial judge that Polesky, lacking standing, cannot contest the search of Tatum’s jacket, so the ring can come in. But Tatum, now deeply ill and medicated in a hospital ward, can no longer testify, and Stone moves to have his earlier testimony read to a new jury.
Spoiler, the ending: The judge allows Tatum’s prior testimony. Facing a retrial he is likely to lose, Polesky pleads guilty to first-degree manslaughter and receives the maximum sentence.
Why it stands out
- The episode turns a homeless man’s patch of park into a Fourth Amendment test case.
- The prosecution loses a conviction on appeal and has to rebuild the case without its strongest evidence.
- It shows how a witness’s mental illness can shape both the evidence and the outcome.