Carrier (Season 8, Episode 17)
Premise: The accidental shooting of a teenage girl at a party leads detectives to a young man accused of deliberately infecting girls with HIV, and McCoy pushes a case that tests medical privacy.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 8, Episode 17
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Rey Curtis (Benjamin Bratt)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Jamie Ross (Carey Lowell), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- Jason Hayes as Kenny “Twist” Stark, Glynnis O’Connor as defense attorney Anne Paulsen, Heather Burns as Lana Madison, Susan May Pratt as Leslie Crowell, Spencer Riviera as Billy Fields
- Director
- J. Ranelli
- Writers
- David Black
Summary
The Investigation
“Carrier” begins when Lenore Kiley and her husband return from an anniversary trip to find the wreckage of an unapproved party in their apartment and their daughter, May, shot dead in her bedroom. Prints on the .22 belong to Max Paris, a small-time dealer who brought it, but a girl he met there vouches for him all night. She points to May’s boyfriend, Billy Fields, who says the gun went off while he and May handled it, moments after she told him she had tested HIV positive. A friend backs him up, the M.E. confirms the wound fits and that May was infected, and Billy’s case ends in a deal.
A note in May’s schoolbook leads to Lana Madison, who says she, May and a Spence student, Grace Leonard, all dated an older man called Twist. Lana is now HIV positive, Grace has died of AIDS-related pneumonia, and Twist once bragged of infecting as many girls as possible. Health officials have linked several infected girls to one man but will not name him, so Ross persuades Judge Kaplan to unseal the name over privacy objections. The detectives find Kenny Stark in bed with a young woman, telling her he does not use condoms.
The Trial
Stark is charged with murdering Grace and trying to kill Lana and others, and he is held without bail. Schiff fears the case will look like an attack on people with AIDS, and a longtime political backer threatens to turn on him. Stark’s parents hire Anne Paulsen. Judge Hoyt lets the case go forward if intent can be shown, but after Stark’s girlfriend, Leslie Crowell, reveals that Lana once publicly vowed to make him pay, Hoyt suppresses Stark’s health records, dismisses the charges and stays his order 48 hours for an appeal.
Stark’s parents refuse to help, although an insurance note suggests they learned of his illness the previous spring, and McCoy’s bluff with that evidence fails. A weekend delay buys two more days. Leslie then innocently mentions that Stark told her he was sick and insisted on condoms to protect her. McCoy drops the murder count and argues to an appellate panel that this warning, together with the remark overheard at the arrest, proves Stark meant to infect the other woman.
Spoiler, the ending: The appellate court reverses the dismissal. Stark has meanwhile been hospitalized with pneumocystis pneumonia, and Paulsen accepts a plea of three to nine years, with the prosecutors backing placement at a prison with good medical care. His parents expect him to live only a week or two. In the final scene, Lana is holding steady and Leslie has tested negative.
Why it stands out
- McCoy tests the limits of the right to privacy by seeking a murder charge against an HIV-positive man.
- The case moves through three rulings on medical confidentiality: an order unsealing a name, a suppression and dismissal, and an appellate reversal.
- The proof of intent comes from the girlfriend Stark tried to protect, whose loyal account shows he knew he was sick.