Hate (Season 9, Episode 10)
Premise: A 16-year-old girl is beaten to death by the neo-Nazi friends she wanted to impress, and McCoy charges the white supremacist whose speeches inspired them with murder.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 9, Episode 10
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Rey Curtis (Benjamin Bratt)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Abbie Carmichael (Angie Harmon), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- Michael Cumpsty as Tom Willis, Paul Dawson as Derek Harland, Joshua Harto as Peter Stymons, Anna Belknap as Jessica Buehl, Jonathan Hogan as defense attorney Mr. Latimer
- Director
- Constantine Makris
- Writers
- René Balcer
Summary
The Investigation
“Hate” opens with a hate-group murder: a young couple finds 16-year-old Christina Osborne dying in a Manhattan park, beaten with a pipe, sticks and rocks and strangled with a dog’s choke chain. A penlight from her parents’ new print shop identifies her. The Osbornes, who moved from Philadelphia three months earlier, say she was lonely and eager for friends. Her bus pass turns up with a homeless person, and her knapsack is recovered from a dumpster near a travel agency.
Christina’s Philadelphia friend Lori Summers, who is Jewish, shows the detectives a flyer Christina sent her for a white-power gathering on a farm in Nuremberg, Pennsylvania. The paper matches stock from the family shop, pointing to part-time worker Jessica Buehl, who says she spent the weekend with her boyfriend, Derek Harland. A witness saw teens with a black van bearing a skull, and moths on Derek’s van place it in eastern Pennsylvania. His frightened mother admits he was gone all weekend.
State police pull Derek’s friends off the farm, and the detectives wait three hours for a later train home. Peter Stymons, whose ID says he is 18, admits Jessica lured Christina to the park and the group beat and hanged her for telling her Jewish friend about the farm, and he boasts of attacks on gay, Jewish and Black people. Stymons proves to be 15, and the judge suppresses his statement over the delay.
The Trial
Jessica, traced through the choke chain she bought, says Derek blamed the killing on a rule against traitors laid down by Tom Willis, a Long Island white supremacist who publishes a newsletter and tapes his speeches. Detective LaMotte’s undercover visit yields nothing, and a tape of Willis greeting Derek proves no conspiracy. McCoy instead charges Willis as an accomplice, arguing his calls for violence were commands, not protected speech, and the judge sends the issue to the jury.
Stymons, offered a juvenile sentence, and recruiter Jimmy Parnell testify that Willis never mentioned Christina but taught that traitors must be removed; Parnell adds that Willis once predicted Derek would kill someone. Carmichael warns McCoy he may be undermining the First Amendment. He confronts Willis with taped praise of hatred and argues in summation that the Constitution protects persuasion but not incitement.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury convicts both Derek Harland and Tom Willis of second-degree murder. In the closing scene, the prosecutors acknowledge that the Willis verdict may not survive appeal and that there are many more like him.
Why it stands out
- McCoy builds his case on free-speech precedent, quoting Schenck v. United States and a Felix Frankfurter opinion that speech in a context of violence can become a tool of force.
- Because the victim was one of the group’s own, prosecutors conclude the killing does not count as a bias crime for federal civil-rights purposes.
- A key confession is thrown out because detectives held a 15-year-old carrying a fake ID for three hours before taking him back to New York.