Denial (Season 8, Episode 2)
Premise: Blood in a cheap hotel room leads to two college sweethearts who deny their newborn son ever lived, until his body is found in the middle of their trial.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 8, Episode 2
- 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
- Mags Chernock as Christina Talbert, Zach Chapman as Tommy Horton, James Rebhorn as defense attorney Charles Garnett, Benjamin Hendrickson as Warren Talbert, Jan Maxwell as Sarah Talbert, J. K. Simmons as Dr. Emil Skoda
- Director
- Christopher Misiano
- Writers
- Story: René Balcer; Story & teleplay: David Shore
Summary
The Investigation
“Denial” starts when a housekeeper at the Carrington Hotel finds a room soaked in blood. It was registered with a credit card belonging to architect Warren Talbert, who was at the opera that night and says the card is missing. The card also paid for a stack of philosophy books, pointing the detectives to Talbert’s 17-year-old daughter, Christina, an honors student at Hudson University, and her pre-med boyfriend, Tommy Horton. One lawyer, Charles Garnett, represents both.
A fraternity brother’s remark about Christina’s weight and lab traces of amniotic fluid point to a birth. Christina claims an early miscarriage, but the M.E. puts the pregnancy at seven or eight months. Unable to get a medical exam ordered, the police search the couple’s rooms on the stolen-card complaint. In Christina’s closet they find a dress stained with meconium, showing the baby was born alive, and in her desk blank prescription forms taken from her gynecologist, which she used to obtain a drug that induces labor. Both students are charged with murder.
The Trial
The judge admits the dress but throws out the prescription forms, weakening premeditation. A psychiatrist finds Christina ruled by her mother’s approval but fit for trial. McCoy offers Horton a manslaughter plea to testify against Christina, and the judge removes Garnett as his lawyer over the conflict. Horton turns the deal down and testifies that they left the baby alive on the bed for the maid to find, then went back to a fraternity party and danced.
Mid-trial, a gas company crew digs up the infant at a construction site, wrapped in a Carrington towel. He was strangled. Talbert’s firm worked on the site, and he admits burying the boy, saying the baby died in his car on the way to a hospital, though off the record he says he found it already dead in the trash. He will testify against Horton only if his daughter is cleared. McCoy refuses, gives him immunity, and has him jailed for contempt when he still will not talk. Called by the defense, Mrs. Talbert repeats her husband’s story but cannot say whether he or her daughter is to blame.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury finds both Christina Talbert and Tommy Horton not guilty of second-degree murder. With no one held responsible for the baby’s death, the prosecutors decide to release Warren Talbert from jail rather than pursue obstruction or evidence charges against him.
Why it stands out
- This episode begins J. K. Simmons’s recurring role as Dr. Emil Skoda, which lasted until 2004.
- The prosecution has no body until a gas company crew unearths the baby partway through the trial.
- A search warrant issued for supposedly stolen books turns up the key forensic evidence, though the judge suppresses part of it.