Inherent Bias (Season 24, Episode 18)
Premise: A rookie basketball star is shot in a tunnel at Madison Square Garden, and the case against her former business partner divides Riley and Shaw over what each saw him throw into the East River.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 24, Episode 18
- Detectives
- Det. Vincent Riley (Reid Scott), Det. Jalen Shaw (Mehcad Brooks)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Nolan Price (Hugh Dancy), ADA Samantha Maroun (Odelya Halevi), DA Nicholas Baxter (Tony Goldwyn)
- Guest stars
- Michael Potts as defense attorney Kenneth Lowell, Isaiah Johnson as Darius Cain, Charlie Semine as Bruce Theobald, Marianna Gailus as Cameron Adler, Christian Shupe as Greg Dawson
- Director
- Néstor Carbonell
- Writers
- Art Alamo & Jolie Huang
Summary
The Investigation
“Inherent Bias” opens with a postgame press conference at which Cameron Adler, a white rookie star for New York’s WNBA team, waves off questions about a scuffle with rival Nia Moore. Minutes later a hooded, masked gunman shoots her in an arena tunnel and escapes through service corridors. Moore owns a 9mm but was on her team bus. Adler’s girlfriend, Rachelle Jones, who objected to Adler playing up a white-hero, Black-villain rivalry, was at her law firm. Adler’s parents point to her ex-boyfriend, sportscaster Greg Dawson, who sent her racist texts but was drunk at his hotel bar; he saw her arguing with a man outside her building.
Ride records lead to Highest Score, a licensed marijuana grow house Adler started, and to her business manager, Bruce Theobald, who was on a train to Connecticut. He steers the detectives to Darius Cain, her college physical therapist, who won the cannabis license through a city program favoring people with past marijuana convictions but also has convictions for aggravated assault and attempted murder; Adler bought him out a week earlier. Shaw tells Riley he hopes Cain is not the killer. When they approach, Cain runs and throws something into the East River. Riley is sure it was a gun; Shaw says Riley had the better view. Arena facial-recognition scans place Cain at the Garden, and his jeans carry Adler’s blood.
The Trial
Defense attorney Kenneth Lowell blames racial bias for the charge. Cross-examining Theobald, he says Cain’s violent convictions came from fighting to survive in prison after a marijuana sentence, accuses Theobald of misrepresenting that record, and claims Adler meant to fire him, which Theobald denies. Lowell cites studies finding facial recognition misidentifies people of color, notes there is no footage of Cain inside, and presses Riley on eyewitness error and three unidentified people who came through the employee entrance. Cain testifies that he grabbed a hard drive from Theobald’s desk and that this, not a gun, is what he threw.
Hearing that, Shaw tells Riley the object he saw was flat and rectangular, like a hard drive, and suggests Riley saw what he expected to see; Riley insists it was a gun. A lesser plea or dropping the charges is raised, but with jeopardy attached the trial goes on. Lowell calls Shaw as a defense witness, and on cross Price brings out that Shaw never raised his doubt in his report and had said he did not want Cain to be guilty. Shaw later confronts Riley for passing that remark to Price and says jurors will judge their clashing accounts by looking at the two men.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury convicts Cain of second-degree murder, and he is led away protesting his innocence.
Why it stands out
- Shaw returns after missing the previous two episodes while sick, and ends up testifying for the defense against his own partner’s account.
- Michael Potts guest stars as defense attorney Kenneth Lowell.