Born Bad (Season 4, Episode 9)
Premise: A 13-year-old foster child is kicked to death on a Manhattan street, and the 14-year-old charged with killing him mounts a defense claiming he was genetically born to be violent.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 4, Episode 9
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Mike Logan (Chris Noth)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Ben Stone (Michael Moriarty), ADA Claire Kincaid (Jill Hennessy), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- Wil Horneff as Chris Pollit, Maria Tucci as Helen Brolin, Helen Gallagher as Flo Bishop, James Madio as Andy, Lily Knight as Tori Lasky, Carolyn McCormick as Dr. Elizabeth Olivet
- Director
- Fred Gerber
- Writers
- Michael S. Chernuchin & Sally Nemeth
Summary
The Investigation
“Born Bad” opens when a priest who runs a shelter finds a badly beaten boy dying on a Manhattan sidewalk. Briscoe and Logan first assume he was a street hustler, but the medical examiner finds no sign of sexual activity, and a full stomach of meat, potatoes and string beans suggests a home-cooked meal. A school bus pass leads to a guidance counselor who identifies him as John Lasky.
Johnny’s mother, Tori, is in rehab and lost him to foster care after her boyfriend, Zack, beat him. His foster mother, Flo Bishop, did not report him missing, and her other boys, Chris Pollit and Andy, say he vanished after a movie. Zack’s girlfriend tells the detectives she heard boys trying a key in the apartment door that night and saw Johnny run off, and that equipment had been stolen there weeks earlier. Played against Chris, Andy admits that he, Johnny and Chris had burglarized the apartment, that Chris spent the proceeds on clothes, and that Chris kicked Johnny savagely when they argued.
The Trial
Defense attorney Helen Brolin asks that the case be sent to Family Court, and Flo Bishop describes the abuse and neglect Chris suffered. Kincaid sees a damaged child, but at the hearing the prosecution brings out that Chris once kicked a boy unconscious at Spofford and shot a deli owner in an armed robbery, and Judge Kershan keeps the case in adult court. Brolin then argues that Chris is not responsible because his XYY chromosome makeup, she claims, inclines him toward violence.
Dr. Olivet concludes that Chris knows right from wrong and that science has found no link between the XYY pattern and crime, a view a psychiatrist repeats at trial, and on cross-examination the defense’s geneticist concedes that the lab’s study is unfinished. Chris’s mother, now pregnant, testifies that he was violent from early childhood, and on cross-examination she is asked whether her unborn child should be locked up too. After hearing himself described as genetically defective, Chris insists on pleading guilty, calling himself a freak. Stone fears the boy has given up hope, but Schiff tells him to take the plea.
Spoiler, the ending: Chris pleads guilty to second-degree murder, saying he would kill again and wants no one’s help. He will stay in a juvenile facility until he turns 18 and then go to Attica.
Why it stands out
- The defense rests on the discredited theory that an extra Y chromosome makes men prone to violence.
- Stone wins a guilty plea but questions it, worried that the trial convinced the teenage defendant he was beyond help.
- Law & Order: UK later remade this story as “Unloved.”