Burden (Season 8, Episode 20)
Premise: The death of a 12-year-old quadriplegic boy puts his strained family under suspicion until the trail leads to his doctor, who defends the killing as an act of mercy.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 8, Episode 20
- 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
- John Hickok as Dr. Lyle Semenko, John Procaccino as Joe Sutter, Maryann Plunkett as Lois Sutter, Heather Matarazzo as Stephanie Sutter, Gerry Bamman as defense attorney Stan Gillum, J. K. Simmons as Dr. Emil Skoda
- Director
- Constantine Makris
- Writers
- David Shore & I.C. Rapoport
Summary
The Investigation
“Burden” opens when paramedics fail to revive 12-year-old Michael Sutter, paralyzed from the neck down since a car crash two years earlier, and suspect he was smothered. His mother, Lois, says she was alone with him all afternoon except for a quick trip for a newspaper. His care has drained the family: Lois gave up her social work job and his father, Joe, stopped taking overtime. The detectives discover that Lois has been seeing her dance teacher, Peter Gilbert, who says she was with him that afternoon. Lois then admits she left Michael with his teenage sister, Stephanie, who says she walked out on him to play video games with a friend.
The M.E. then finds that Michael ate poison hemlock root about two hours before he died, which would quietly stop his breathing. At the hospital where he had dialysis that day, a roommate says Joe sprinkled a seasoning he called cinnamon on the boy’s lunch, and Joe’s boss recalls him wishing he had never revived his son after the crash. Hemlock grows beside a parkway job Joe worked on. Curtis, speaking of his own wife’s multiple sclerosis, presses Joe gently, but Joe denies it and is arrested.
The Trial
Joe’s boss and others turn supportive, and candy striper Martha McSorley says she stayed in the room during lunch. A coworker, though, places Dr. Lyle Semenko, Michael’s physician, at the unattended food cart, even though Semenko told police he was out of the building. His former New Jersey hospital let him go after his patients died at 14 times the usual rate, and hemlock turns up in his car. The prosecutors link him to an estimated 17 deaths and refuse a plea, but the judge bars any mention of the earlier cases.
Defense lawyer Stan Gillum calls the killing a mercy the Sutters wanted. Joe concedes on cross that, knowing what lay ahead, he would not have saved Michael, and Lois admits Stephanie once wished her brother dead. Semenko testifies with calm certainty that he only did what the parents could not, until McCoy asks why he let Joe face a murder charge; Semenko says he expected Joe to be cleared and did not want to lose his license.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury acquits Semenko of murder and first-degree manslaughter but convicts him of manslaughter in the second degree, and donations for his appeal pour in. The prosecutors then learn that Joe asked for Semenko to take over his son’s care, and that Lois worked part-time at the New Jersey hospital during five of Semenko’s suspicious deaths. The prosecutors conclude the parents knew exactly what kind of doctor he was, though they could not even win a murder verdict against Semenko himself.
Why it stands out
- Paramedics believe 12-year-old quadriplegic Michael Sutter was suffocated, which makes his parents and sister all suspects.
- The defense likens Semenko to Jack Kevorkian, while the jury never hears about the string of earlier patient deaths that the prosecutors attribute to him.
- The final twist suggests the parents sought out the doctor knowing his record.