Second Chance (Season 22, Episode 11)
Premise: A model student with no record beats a recently paroled ex-con to death, the defense blames a psychotic reaction to high-potency cannabis, and Maroun’s drive for a murder conviction runs up against her own family’s grief.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 22, Episode 11
- Detectives
- Det. Frank Cosgrove (Jeffrey Donovan), Det. Jalen Shaw (Mehcad Brooks)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Nolan Price (Hugh Dancy), ADA Samantha Maroun (Odelya Halevi), DA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston)
- Guest stars
- Brandon Tyler Moore as Jessie Erickson, Damon Gupton as defense attorney Thorpe, Theodus Crane as William Barnes, Tyra Joy Smith as Sonya, Nicole Ansari-Cox as Zara Maroun
- Director
- Rachel Leiterman
- Writers
- Pamela Wechsler & Jonathan Collier
Summary
The Investigation
“Second Chance” opens with Derek Stanton, paroled nine months earlier after four years in Fishkill for selling marijuana, found beaten to death on a downtown street, his cash untouched. Camera footage catches part of the attack but not the assailant’s face. Stanton’s phone shows 28 unanswered calls to Jordan Spall, another Fishkill parolee, who runs from Cosgrove and Shaw, has an alibi, and says Stanton was recruiting ex-cons. The venture is a pizzeria on Pitt Street, due to open the next day, whose window was smashed overnight. Stanton’s daughter, Sonya, and ex-wife, Lena, are hiding from Lena’s husband, William Barnes, who once threatened to kill Stanton; Barnes asks for a lawyer.
Video of Barnes’s late walk clears him but catches a young man throwing rocks along the block, including at the pizzeria, who matches the attacker’s build, hoodie and ring. A dispensary sale leads to Kyle Brimmer, a student at the elite Martindale school, who says the two bought concentrated hash oil before he went home at 1:08 a.m., leaving his friend to wander the East Village. The friend, Jessie Erickson, 18, is a star athlete with no record; he is arrested at his parents’ Upper East Side home with an injured hand.
The Trial
Defense attorney Thorpe calls it panic in the face of a threatening stranger, and bail is set at $2 million. Maroun, on the anniversary of her sister Christina’s death, promises Sonya she will fight for her father. When Price floats a manslaughter plea, Maroun suggests the defendant is getting gentler treatment because he is rich and white; McCoy says the optics count, and the murder charge stays. The judge bars character witnesses for the victim. The medical examiner describes a shattered skull, ribs broken by kicks and no defensive wounds on the smaller, sober Stanton.
The defense then switches to an insanity plea based on cannabis-induced psychosis, and even the People’s psychiatrist finds it possible, noting that today’s concentrates can be 80 to 90 percent THC. Price favors second-degree manslaughter; McCoy notes that the legal age is 21 and holds off on a plea. Price, who no longer sees a murder case, hands first chair to Maroun. Erickson testifies that he hallucinated and believed Stanton would kill him, and Maroun’s cross-examination draws a warning from the judge. After she questions Erickson’s guidance counselor and comes away frustrated, Price gently asks whether the case reminds her of her sister’s.
Spoiler, the ending: Maroun has breakfast with her mother, Zara, and they talk about Christina, whose killer was never arrested. Maroun then pleads Erickson out to second-degree manslaughter, telling Price that without a believable motive the jury would not have convicted him of murder.
Why it stands out
- Maroun’s family history comes to the fore: the case falls on the anniversary of her sister Christina’s death, and Nicole Ansari-Cox appears as her mother, Zara.
- Price steps down to second chair partway through the case because he does not believe the murder charge fits, leaving Maroun to lead the trial.
- The case sets Stanton’s four-year prison term for selling marijuana against the legal dispensary purchase that the defense blames for his killing.