Previously on "L.A. Law"...
STUART: What the hell are they doing here?
ANN: What does it look like? They're having dinner.
You think it's social? It couldn't be social.
We don't like your methods. We don't like the secrecy.
STUART: We've called this meeting to make our feelings clear.
Fine. I am passing the senior partnership temporarily over to Douglas.
-STUART: You can't do that.
-LELAND: I certainly can.
This bus accident is not the kind of case McKenzie Brackman takes on.
-Uh, D
-
-
-Uh
-uh
-uh. I'm sorry.
I don't mean to be abrupt.
We settled with the bus company for ,.
And here is a check made payable to the firm
-for $,.
-Oh.
My birthday isn't until Thursday.
Agreed, but since you seem to be particularly anxious about it,
I thought I'd take the opportunity
-to remind you everyday this week, big four
-oh.
-Thirty
-nine.
Look, in case you two are planning any surprise parties, forget it.
I am not celebrating this birthday.
Everybody quiet. I'm gonna go get Arnie now.
-Okay.
-Okay.
-Bye.
-Bye.
-[knocking on door]
-Arnie? Are you in there?
-It's me, Roxanne.
-ARNIE: Go away!
Arnie.
[door slams]
Damn it, Roxanne, enough is enough.
This has been going on for over a week.
I cannot take any more of this hostility.
I would think, under the circumstances,
I would get a little understanding.
The circumstances were that your wife was out there
organizing a surprise birthday party
to show you how much she loves you
while you were in here committing sex acts with a client.
Exactly. And do you have any idea what it's like for me
to have to cope with such a guilt?
-Oh, please.
-Think about it, Roxanne.
The easy thing to do would be to confess,
to cleanse my conscience and unload the burden.
But I don't. You wanna know why I don't?
Because it would hurt Corrinne too much,
and I couldn't bear the thought of doing that.
So I hold it all in,
suffering all the pain myself for her sake.
-You're incredible.
-Roxanne...
I wasn't gonna say this, but
-
-
I don't want you to worry...
but I'm sick.
What do you mean you're sick?
It's nothing to panic about yet, but I'm not well.
-I have satyriasis.
-Sata
-what?
Satyriasis. Abnormally excessive sexual compulsion,
probably caused by a small lesion on my hypothalamus.
Now, the doctors, they think it's treatable,
but I have to go through some more tests.
So right now, I'm just
-
- I'm trying to think positive.
-Satyriasis.
-I'm gonna b*at this.
With the support of my family and my friends,
I know I can b*at this.
Just be there for me, Rox.
Give me strength.
♪♪ [theme]
♪♪
All right. Lets get started, people.
We've got a full docket.
First up. As senior partner, I've taken the liberty
of setting up a few meetings with some of you this week
regarding various administrative matters.
Stuart, you and I will meet after we're done here.
Ann, I've got you slated for :.
Michael, : tomorrow, please.
-I'm not sure I'm free.
-You are. I confirmed with your secretary.
Jonathan, Tommy, I also have projects for you.
-which we can discuss later.
-Where did you send Abby? She was right
-
-
Abby's in court handling another matter I assigned her
under my authority as senior partner.
She'll be back by noon. Moving on.
-Shaw v. Gendler.
-Yeah, that's mine.
We represent the buyer of a house trying to rescind the sale.
-Trial starts today.
-What grounds for the rescission?
-It's haunted.
-Haunted?
-I beg your pardon?
-The house is haunted.
Two
-day trial at most. We should be finished up by Friday.
Grace. Where does your court
-martial stand?
-We go today.
-ARNIE: Where's the defense here?
The guy disobeyed a direct order during combat.
What bigger form of treason can there be?
Refusing to att*ck innocent civilians doesn't spell treason to me.
They weren't civilians. They were soldiers in the Panama Defense Force
-guarding General Noriega.
-You don't know that.
I certainly know that Noriega had to be captured.
-Not that way, he didn't.
-You got a better way, Ann?
It was an excellent surgical strike.
Oh, come on. We were looking for an excuse
to shatter the wimp image.
-That invasion was overkill.
-That's enough.
You wanna malign the United States of America?
Do it on your own time,
not during the staff meeting while I'm in charge.
We're adjourned.
Ugh.
What's up?
-I've decided to take you off the Mancuso trial.
-What?
It makes more sense to let one of our own full
-time litigators handle it.
-I'm a good trial lawyer, Douglas.
-Of course you are.
But Michael, Victor, Ann,
Grace, Tommy, Jonathan,
even Abby have more experience.
Plus which your running off to court all the time
makes our tax department seem half
-assed,
and we can't have that, especially with the new regulations becoming law.
You can't just pull me off a case like this.
Yes, I can. I'm the senior partner.
This isn't a demotion. It's just that,
in order for this firm to function at its highest level,
we have to get everybody here doing what they do best.
-With you, its taxes.
-Well, I don't wanna do taxes for the rest of my life.
I'm sorry. My decision is final.
You're our only tax expert.
We need you more there than in court.
I trust to have recognized this and do what's best for the firm, that's all.
WOMAN: We'd been in the house about five weeks when we began to hear it.
-What exactly did you hear?
-It was this muted
-like moaning.
We first thought it sounded like a wounded animal.
But then as we listened,
it was a woman, a woman in pain.
C.J.: Did you and your husband both hear this?
Yes. That's the only reason I know I'm not crazy,
because Jimmy heard it, too.
It was this throaty, muted
-
-
like a woman trying to cry but she couldn't.
-Where were you when you heard this?
-We were in our bed.
We got up, and we looked all over the house,
and we didn't find anything.
But then as we walked back into the bedroom,
it got louder
-
-
not loud ever, but louder.
And when we got back to the bed, that's when we knew it.
-C.J.: Knew what?
-The sounds were coming from inside the bedroom.
-Was anyone else there?
-No, there was no one else in the entire house.
-You must have been scared to death.
-Objection.
I'm sorry. Did you ever hear any of these sounds again.
Yes, um, three more times over the next week.
We finally checked into a motel.
Jimmy looked up the history of the house,
because, well, we thought it was haunted.
C.J.: And what did your husband's investigation reveal?
That in , a woman by the name of Nancy Atkins
was stabbed to death in that very room.
The police never caught who did it.
-Did you know this when you bought the house?
-Of course not.
The only reason we found out at all was because we heard that moaning.
So now you want your money back.
There's something in there.
I know it sounds crazy,
and I'm not one to believe in ghosts.
But we slept in that bedroom, and we know for a fact
there's something in there.
Thank you, Mrs. Shore. That's all.
About a month after you moved in,
your husband got laid off from work, isn't that right?
-Objection. Relevance?
-This man took a new job
which paid him $ less a month.
They suddenly couldn't make the mortgage payment, and they wanted out.
We could make the mortgage payments.
-You tried to sell this place, have you not?
-Yes.
But with the collapse of the real estate market,
you can't get what you paid for it.
So you come up with this ghost story
in order to get rescission on the contract
-
-
We didn't come up the it. We heard what we heard. There is moaning in that house.
You were doing the moaning over its declining market value.
-SHORE: It happened.
-All right, Mr. Clipner.
Sorry. Did you see any ghosts?
-Well, we didn't see anything, but
-
-
-Thank you, ma'am.
Nothing further.
Kenners and Vermet definitely toed the army line.
Auerbach should be fairly sympathetic.
But other than that, the panel's pretty stacked.
-Colonel Massien?
-Fair judge, he's a good draw.
Renero is one of their top prosecutors, though.
They always use him for the big ones.
I'll see what the holdup is.
-Hang in there.
-Yes, sir.
You'll be running the show in there, right, Miss Van Owen?
No offense to Captain Danowitz. I know he's on my side.
But he's army.
And when all this is over, he still has to answer to them.
Well, I don't.
You'll get the best possible defense, Robert,
-I promise you that.
-Do you think we can win?
I don't know. They only need two
-thirds to convict.
And this is m*llitary court.
The code name for the operation was "Just Cause."
Our mission was to capture General Noriega,
bring him back to the United States for trial.
But specifically, sir,
what were you trying to do on the night of December , ?
I was in charge of Alpha Company
in the El Torio section of Panama City,
where there were about a thousand troops loyal to General Noriega.
Their communications were located in three buildings.
My orders were to knock 'em out.
And how did you proceed, Captain?
I deployed my men around the three buildings,
when suddenly, Lieutenant Braden's unit
became pinned down by sn*per fire.
After discussing the situation with Lieutenant Braden,
I ordered him to use the t*nk and take out the sn*pers.
-And were these orders carried out?
-No. He refused.
And when I repeated the order, he again refused.
And this is while you were under enemy fire.
Yes, sir.
After that, I gave the order to his platoon sergeant
who carried it out.
The sn*per fire was suppressed,
after which I had Lieutenant Braden taken into m*llitary custody,
where I preferred charges for disobeying a direct order.
Thank you, sir.
Captain Jaworski, did Lieutenant Braden
offer any reason for his behavior?
He claimed there were non
-combatants positioned inside the building.
Where were you, sir, at this time?
I was at the C.P. two blocks away.
So when Lieutenant Braden told you he saw civilians,
you don't know that to be false, do you?
Panamanian Defense soldiers often dress up as civilians.
I'm familiar with the tactics of the PDF, Captain.
But we are talking about a civilian neighborhood.
Are you telling this panel
there were no innocent people around?
No, I'm telling this panel
that there were enemy soldiers entrenched
in that neighborhood,
some of whom were spraying us with machine g*n fire.
So you started leveling buildings
even though the Geneva Convention says
you have a duty to minimize civilian casualties.
We took measures to ensure that civilians cleared the area.
ANN: What measures were those, Captain?
-a*tillery missions.
-a*tillery missions.
That means you shelled them.
The bombardment was meant to discourage them from remaining in the area.
ANN: But we're talking about massive bombardment.
You shelled them.
Isn't it possible that these people were too scared to move?
-I have no idea.
-So just went in with your tanks anyway.
-My men were under fire, Counselor.
-You were under sn*per fire,
and you respond by ordering your tanks to destroy an entire civilian neighborhood.
I am the one who has to write the letters
to their mothers and fathers telling them their son is dead.
What about the Panamanian families?
-Who writes to them?
-Objection.
-Counsel
-
-
-You give no warning to evacuate.
-You just start shelling.
-It was a w*r, lady.
It wasn't a w*r until we invaded.
You don't know. You weren't there.
Lieutenant Braden was there.
He was looking at the innocent people you ordered him to k*ll.
Ms. Van Owen, that's enough.
All right, let's adjourn for this afternoon.
We'll reconvene at : tomorrow morning.
We'd been pinned down for about minutes.
There were maybe of us on foot
about feet from the building.
I was positioning my t*nk when the order came in.
But, Lieutenant, you refused to execute that order.
Yes, ma'am.
Could you tell the court why?
As I was looking through my night scope,
I saw many civilians in the area.
All unarmed.
There were women and old people.
And what did they appear to be doing?
They appeared to be running for their lives, ma'am.
Did any of them fire at you or your men?
No, ma'am.
And I's this what you reported to Captain Jaworski?
Yes, ma'am. He just told me to carry out the order.
-But you refused.
-I would have k*lled too many innocent people.
-I just couldn't do that.
-Thank you, Lieutenant.
You were under machine g*n fire, were you not?
In my opinion,
there were many more civilians than there were sn*pers.
In your opinion.
As part of your training in preparation
for the invasion of Panama City,
you were told that Panamanian soldiers
often dressed up like civilians.
-Isn't that correct?
-Yes, sir.
And yet here you are in combat, suddenly deciding which is which.
I know what I saw. Those people weren't soldiers.
Well, why don't you describe those distinctions for us, Lieutenant?
I saw them. They were in a panic.
Is it possible these were PDF soldiers
in a panic in the face of the overwhelming firepower?
I didn't believe that to be the case, sir.
You didn't believe that to be the case.
So, based on your hunch,
you decided to disobey a direct order.
-Those people
-
-
-Answer the question.
Isn't that what happened?
Yes, sir.
Thank you, Lieutenant. That's all.
-You wanted us?
-Ah, you're both here. Great.
A copy of our liability insurance policy
together with an assignment memo.
I need the research by A.M. tomorrow.
Copy of our lease, also attached to an assignment memo.
I need your research by the end of the day.
Ann Kelsey is waiting for me to Shepherdize some cases through Westlaw.
You tell her the senior partner took you off her case
and put you on his.
Mary Jane, tell Mike Kuzak I'm ready for him now.
MARY JANE: Yes, Mr. Brackman.
-Hello, Rox.
-Hi.
Arnie's in probate all afternoon, Corrinne.
I'm not even sure he's coming back to the office today.
I know. I came to talk to you.
In private?
Okay.
What's up?
I think Arnie's having an affair.
-Excuse me?
-Something's wrong.
I can just feel it with him.
For the last week,
he's been completely solicitous...
like he's feeling guilty.
I know it's unfair for me to come to you like this.
Is he having an affair?
Not to my knowledge, no.
So I'm just being paranoid.
Nothing's happened. I'm just being paranoid?
Roxanne?
I don't think it's appropriate for me
to talk about Arnie's personal life.
Oh, my God.
Corrinne?
This isn't an easy conversation, Michael.
The time spent by this firm, mainly by you,
on Earl Williams' m*rder defense
translates to a bill of $,,
a bill which to date remains unpaid.
Yeah, well, he's obviously having a difficult time right now.
-He never got his job back.
-I know. I ran an assets check.
He is, however, still living in a house
valued at $,.
I had Abby go after that house.
-You what?
-She got the prejudgment attachment yesterday morning.
You son of a bitch, why wasn't I told
-
-
Because you would have helped Earl oppose our motion.
Your damn right I would have helped him.
-I know you like this man, but
-
-
-That's not the point!
You went behind my back, Douglas!
-Hear me out, Michael.
-I will go into court myself
-
-
Hear me out!
I have no intention of chasing Earl out of his house.
But the assets check revealed he's extremely deep in the red.
He could sell his house to pay off those other debts,
in which case we'd be left with nothing.
This way we're protected.
And by securing the prejudgment,
the banks are more convinced of our solvency,
giving me a better sh*t at getting a loan
we desperately need for expansion.
I want that attachment dissolved immediately.
Do you hear me?
That want happen until he can guarantee the debt.
Time's up on you, Douglas.
I'll organize the lynching myself.
You're no senior partner.
Not even for six weeks.
[door opens]
[door slams]
And would you describe for the court
exactly what a parapsychologist is, Doctor Lewen?
Well, briefly, I specialize in psychical research
-
-
paranormal or psychic occurrences.
-Ghosts.
-Yes, ghosts.
I'd like to call your attention, Doctor,
to the residence located
at Oriel Drive in Los Feliz, California,
the home which is the subject of this proceeding.
Did you ever have cause to investigate this residence?
Yes, I did. In , I was called by the owners of the house,
because they suspected the presence of a supernatural being.
? So these were people other than my clients?
Yes, yes. These would be the people
who eventually sold the home to the defendant.
Thank you. And did your investigation confirm
the presence of a ghost in this house?
Well, we definitely detected the electromagnetic energy, yes.
-Yes, we did.
-I'm sorry, Doctor,
you've lost me with that one.
Inside every house, there's an electromagnetic field.
In very simple terms,
this
-
- this field can absorb the emotional energy expended
in that environment.
In cases of extreme emotional intensity,
this field can almost, well, record it...
then play it back.
That playback, if you will,
would be what we call a ghost.
So if a gruesome m*rder occurred in this field,
is there a chance it would be recorded electromagnetically?
Oh, absolutely.
And judging from my investigation of this house,
the emotional energy of that m*rder
is, in fact, still present here.
The house is haunted?
In layman's terms, yes, the house is haunted.
Thank you, Doctor. That's all.
Did you see any apparitions in this house?
No. And nothing showed up on infrared.
But the Geiger countings were off the chart.
Uh
-huh. Did you hear the moaning?
Personally, no. But two sets of owners has.
It was a ghost on playback.
Probably hopped right out of the VCR.
-C.J.: Objection.
-I'll tell you this, Mr. Clipner,
I conduct over investigations of ghost sightings every year,
the majority of which I dismiss.
This one, I did not.
Like Mrs. Shaw said, there is something present in that house.
Last year, you investigated a ghost in a San Diego house
where strange singing had occurred, didn't you?
-Objection.
-Credibility.
Overruled.
And you concluded there was a ghost in that one, too.
There was a psychic presence, that's correct.
And you identified this ghost.
I didn't have enough data to form a conclusion
-
-
-But you had an opinion, Doctor.
-Yes, I did.
And in your opinion, Doctor, who was doing the singing?
-Elvis Presley.
-[crowd chuckles]
Nothing further.
I have been a journalist for theMiami Tribune
for the last seven years.
-And you had been assigned to Panama City?
-Yes,
specifically to investigate General Noriega's involvement
with Miami drug trafficking.
Miss Dawson, could you tell us what transpired
that night, December , ?
Yes, I was interviewing one of my sources in El Torio,
and suddenly the sky just lit up with fire.
It was explosions from American g*nf*re.
-What did you do?
-Well, we made it to a Catholic church.
It was the only brick building around,
and people knew that it wouldn't burn.
But the rest of the town was just gutted.
C.J: What did you see that night, Miss Dawson?
Mostly, I saw American m*llitary
and American tanks,
I saw members of the Panamanian Defense Force fighting back.
I saw people running for safety.
There were civilians in the area.
This was a residential neighborhood, Counselor,
people lived there.
GRACE: And were civilians k*lled?
Many were k*lled. Thousands more were injured.
The gentleman that I interviewed that night...
He was k*lled.
He was a civilian.
When did you find out that he had been k*lled?
Two months later, when I had to identify his body.
He had been dug up from a mass grave.
What do you mean, ma'am, when you say his body was dug up?
There was more and more information that
the dead civilians were being rounded up by American troops
and buried in mass graves.
To cover up the fact that innocent lives had been lost,
they dumped them into these big pits
and buried them.
One of the mass graves was found.
They found rotting bodies
in the Jardin de Paz cemetery
stuffed into plastic garbage bags.
GRACE: Who put them there?
DAWSON: The U.S. Army admitted to doing it.
No identification, no notification to the families.
Our m*llitary k*lled innocent civilians
and stuffed them into garbage bags.
GRACE: How many civilian casualties resulted
from the United States invasion of Panama?
Three hundred have been confirmed dead,
but other reports say maybe twice that.
-We'll probably never know.
-Why is that ma'am?
-In my opinion?
-Yes.
Because the army is engaged in a massive cover
-up.
They k*lled a lot of innocent people.
They trampled an entire town and left over , people homeless.
And I don't think they want the people back here to know about that.
GRACE: Thank you, Miss Dawson. I have nothing further.
Do you have any knowledge our m*llitary was trying to k*ll civilians?
No. And I don't believe they were.
-They were after Noriega's men.
-That's right.
And did you ever see an American soldier directly sh**t a civilian?
Directly at them? No. But with all the
-
-
Thank you, ma'am. And to your knowledge,
it is possible that Panamanian Defense Forces did occupy the building
Lieutenant Braden was ordered to target, right?
It's possible, yes. But that's
-
-
And ma'am, just so I can be clear on your predisposition here,
you've written various articles prior to this event
extremely critical of the United States m*llitary presence
in Panama, right?
Yes, that's right.
Thank you, Miss Dawson. That's all I have.
-What the hell is this?
-This is you moving out, that's what it is.
-Corrinne, I don't
-
-
-You're sleeping around.
And this marriage is over.
Hold on a second.
You have no idea how much you disgust me.
I'm only more disgusted with myself for getting taken in by you.
I don't know what you're talking about.
Shut up! You just shut up!
God, I hate you! I
-
-
Go back to bed, honey. Go on.
-Why are you yelling?
-Just go back to bed right now, okay?
I'll be there in a minute.
Oh, God.
What have I done to her?
I let her get attached to you.
I let her love you.
-Oh, God.
-Corrinne, let me explain.
No , Arnie, just get out.
Get out! Just get out now!
♪♪
Roxanne! You betrayed me!
No! She suspected you were having an affair
-
-
And you confirmed it!
No! All I did was refuse to lie!
It was an impossible situation.
Well, you won't ever have to face it again.
-You're fired.
-What?
Nobody does what you just did to me.
-You ruined my life.
-You did this to yourself.
-Can't you recognize
-
-
-I said you're fired!
I don't want to hear anything else from you.
Just pack your crap and get the hell out of here.
Everybody everywhere in this country
wanted to get General Noriega.
So when we invaded Panama a little over a year ago...
and finally flushed him out,
we all cheered.
But some of the cheering stopped
when it became clear exactly what our m*llitary had done.
In violation of the Geneva Convention, we disregarded the safety
of innocent people
and used overwhelming firepower
to flatten a civilian neighborhood,
k*lling women, children,
making , people homeless.
We didn't warn anybody.
We just went in blasting.
Lieutenant Braden couldn't.
I know I'm not army,
an you probably look at me and think,
"How can she possibly understand m*llitary?"
And maybe I don't.
But my father fought in World w*r II,
and I grew up listening to his stories
and feeling his pride at having risked his life
to protect the values of this country.
And I grew up always believing
we were the good guys.
But I'm not so sure we were the good guys that night in Panama.
And I don't believe I'm the only one in this room
with doubts.
Lieutenant Braden turned to his conscience that night.
For his sake right now,
I'm asking you to turn to yours.
Thank you.
The Geneva Convention does not apply here.
Panamanian soldiers were present in that building,
making it a legitimate m*llitary target.
Of course it was a tough call, but Captain Jaworski made that call.
And Lieutenant Braden willfully disregarded it.
While in combat with his men under enemy fire,
Lieutenant Braden disobeyed a direct order.
I'm m*llitary.
Any m*llitary has to have discipline
where the chain of command is honored.
The second it's not,
as soon as junior officers are entitled
to call the sh*ts and say,
"This order I'll obey, but this order I won't,"
then we won't have much of an army, will we?
We put and
-year
-olds in combat with massive weapons.
Now, we can have them in the middle of a battle,
weighing international law
and pondering their own interpretation
of the Geneva Convention,
or they can just follow orders.
It's not a tough call, gentlemen.
You just have to decide
whether you wanna win wars
or lose them.
Let's just admit it was a big mistake.
Which has to be corrected now.
Letting him be senior partner for one more day
-
-
Now, hold on.
He directed Abby to put an attachment on Earl Williams' house.
That's not the way we do business.
Well, letting our bill for a half
-million dollars go uncollected
is not the way we do business either.
Leland, I just got a call from Olympic and Rourke, our landlords.
It seemed Douglas stopped payment in the rent check
-and he's trying to break our lease.
-What?
He's Al Haig on the loose, Leland. You have to stop him.
-I can't believe he'd do that.
-Well, believe it.
The guy thinks he's immortal. He's been like that
ever since he started seeing Vanna White.
-[buzzer sounds]
-STUART: You gotta do something.
-Yes.
-Woman:Perry Littlefield from Valentine Insurance
ison three, he says it's urgent.
Yes, Perry.
What the hell's with Douglas Brackman, Leland?
-What do you mean?
-I mean the guy's demanding
we cover you on the Rosalind Shays verdict.
Leland, that judgment was for punitive damages.
We don't have to pay you a nickel.
-I'll look into it, Perry.
-Please do.
Also, you tell Brackman I ran his little bluff by my lawyers,
and they said we don't need Rosalind Shays help in any of this,
so the fact that you're sleeping with her now doesn't scare me.
-[phone slams]
-[dial tone]
-[speaker off]
-Set up a partners meeting.
I lived in the house practically a year, I never heard anything.
You never heard any moaning or the sounds of a woman in pain.
Come on, this whole thing is a ridiculous ploy
to try and get out of a deal they wish they hadn't made.
Thank you, Mr. Gendler. I have nothing further.
When you bought the house, you knew about Nancy Atkins' m*rder, didn't you?
Didn't stop my from buying it.
Why didn't you tell my client and his broker about it?
-'Cause it didn't matter.
-Oh, no, sir.
You withheld that information because you feared it would matter.
There is nothing haunted about the house.
When you lived in that house,
why did you sleep in the downstairs bedroom?
It's a three
-bedroom house, I had a choice.
Yes, but the master bedroom, the only one with a private bath
is upstairs.
Why didn't you choose that one?
I hated the wallpaper.
C.J.: You were afraid of that room.
You were afraid, because Nancy Atkins was stabbed to death there.
-Give me a break.
-You were afraid she might cry out to you.
-I wasn't afraid.
-Or maybe she did speak to you.
Maybe that's why, after only a year,
you had to get out.
I wasn't afraid of anything.
No, you just hated the wallpaper.
[man chuckles]
I have nothing further, Your Honor.
Closing arguments tomorrow, :.
Your Honor, I'd like to do my closing tomorrow night
at the house in Nancy Atkins' bedroom.
-I beg your pardon.
-This case turns
on whether it's reasonable for my client
to believe the house is haunted.
And the only way for the jury to properly gauge that
-is to go see it at night.
-I object.
Ms. Lamb, this is a very strange request.
But this also happens to be a very strange case,
and under these circumstances, I think it would behoove us all to go take a look.
-You've gotta be kidding.
-I'm not kidding.
: tomorrow night, the jury will meet here,
and we'll go over there together.
[crowd murmuring]
Members of the panel, have you reached a verdict?
Yes, sir, we have.
Under Article , Article ,
and Article ,
we find the defendant,
Second Lieutenant Robert Braden,
guilty of all charges.
[crowd murmuring]
Anything on sentencing, Major?
Mr. President, the government will be seeking
the maximum allowable confinement at hard labor.
-JUDGE: Ms. Van Owen.
-Your Honor, before sentencing,
I'd like the panel to hear from Lieutenant Braden.
Sirs...
I went into ROTC at school because it helped pay for tuition.
I knew that it meant that I had a debt to my country,
and maybe someday I'd even have to go to w*r and die for my country.
And I was prepared to do that.
I am still prepared to give my life for my commanding officers
or for the men who serve under me.
I was ordered to blow up innocent people.
To take out sn*per fire,
I was ordered to destroy a civilian building.
I said no to that.
And under the same circumstances, I'd say no again.
no matter what my government's trying to prove.
[sighs]
-What are you doing?
-Arnie fired me.
-Why?
-It's not important.
I'm just not working here anymore.
Would you like to work for me?
Gee, Douglas that's
-
- that's very nice
-
-
I'll raise you $ a week effective now.
That breaks the secretarial cap. See, I'm already in the top
-
-
You wouldn't be a secretary. I need an assistant
to help me with office management.
I'm talking about a big promotion, Roxanne.
More money, more power.
If you find me too impossible to work for, you just quit.
What's not to try?
[sighs]
Thanks for agreeing to see me.
-What do you wanna say?
-That I'm sorry.
That what I did was unforgivable.
It only happened once. It's the only time
it's ever happened since we've been married.
And that doesn't make it any less excusable,
but this is not a pattern, Corrinne.
I promise you.
I also want to say that I can't picture my life
without you and Chloe in it,
and I'll do anything to fix this.
I've hired a lawyer. The divorce papers will be filed
probably by the end of next week.
Don't you think that's a little rash?
Marrying you was rash.
Corrinne, this was one stupid slip.
-It doesn't mean that I wanna r
-
-
-No.
That's who you are.
That's what you are.
I feared it going in, so did you.
Now, maybe if I weren't a parent,
it would have been okay to take a chance on you.
But to be so reckless with my little girl's life,
I'm certainly not going to make that mistake again.
Give me one more chance, Corrinne, please.
I'm following the advice of a former lawyer of mine.
a very good lawyer.
Walk away from the problem. Get on with your life.
This is my new attorney.
You call him.
From now on, you don't call me.
Lieutenant Braden,
this board has a great deal of sympathy for you.
Your service record indicates you're both an outstanding officer
and a fine young man.
Furthermore, there are some serious questions about the performance
of our own m*llitary in Panama.
And the ratio of Panamanian civilians dead
to every American k*lled in action
makes it hard to believe that we really did try our best
to minimize civilian casualties as required by the Geneva Convention.
And this business of policing up civilian bodies
and wrapping them in garbage bags
and dumping them in mass graves
without any notification of the families
-
-
If that's true, well, it's a disgrace,
pure and simple.
And as officers and as soldiers,
we should be both shocked and embarrassed.
But of all the sins committed that night, Lieutenant,
by far the most dangerous and far
-reaching was yours.
You disobeyed a direct order in combat.
For soldiers to disobey their lawful superiors while under enemy fire,
well, there can be few greater threats to our national security.
Therefore, Lieutenant Braden,
it is the decision of this board
that you be confined at hard labor
for a period of ten years.
Such sentence to be carried out
at the United States Disciplinary Barracks,
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
-You have no right to pull
-
-
-If I fire a secretary, she stays fired!
-I don't need you rehiring her!
-All right, one thing at a time.
First, what the hell are you doing breaking our lease?
DOUGLAS: I exploited a favored nations clause with Jonathan's help
to break the contract.
With the downtown glut of office space,
many buildings are offering free rent,
-some up to two years.
-I don't wanna move!
DOUGLAS: We're not moving.
But the thr*at of moving alone was enough
to allow me to negotiate a new deal here.
I cut our monthly payments by %
and got the first six months rent free.
Now, that adds up to a savings of $, immediately
plus another $, over the next ten years.
I see. But what were you doing with our insurance carrier?
Threatening them with a suit?
Telling them of my relationship with Rosalind Shays.
I merely pointed out that, since Rosalind is now sympathetic to us,
they couldn't count on her help in defending against an action brought by us.
They're still denying coverage,
but they have agreed to kick in , for defense costs.
-You're kidding.
-No, I'm not.
They knew we could run that much up in litigations costs easy.
An do there's a very real chance they could lose.
As for rehiring Roxanne, Arnold.
I did that in part to prevent an extremely viable lawsuit
that she could have against us.
For what? Why was she fired?
-Personality differences.
-DOUGLAS: Right.
And Michael, securing our debt with Earl Williams did impress the bank.
With that $, security,
along with the projected savings in rent
and the kick
-in by the insurance company,
Brentwood Federal was moved to give us brand
-new line of credit,
which I've used in part retroactively to pay out the partnership bonuses
that we thought we'd have to forego this year.
Checks for all of you.
$,? How?
How did you do this?
By showing the bank that we were a half a million more solvent
-than they thought we were.
-They made the loan?
This is fantastic, Douglas.
That's very good, Douglas. Yeah, that's very good.
Hello, senior partner.
Okay. We've all had a look.
Ms. Lamb, you wanna make your statement before we go?
Yes. Could everybody find some wall space
or maybe sit on the bed or something?
I don't really have a statement.
I just wanted us all to come here,
take a look, see where it happened.
Good God, she was sleeping right over there.
And it was somewhere, from somewhere,
my clients heard those awful sounds.
The thing is,
Nancy Atkins couldn't scream the night she was m*rder*d,
because the k*ller plunged his Kn*fe straight into her throat,
severing her larynx and cutting her vocal cords.
But that wasn't the fatal wound.
He continued to stick his Kn*fe into her arms, her legs.
Seventeen times, she was stabbed.
There was so much blood, it seeped through these planks
and dripped into the kitchen.
Coroner said she had to have suffered.
She couldn't scream. She tried.
But with her vocal cords cut, she could barely make a sound.
Some people believe that, to this day,
right here,
Nancy Atkins still tries to cry out help.
[crowd clamoring, screaming]
WOMAN: Let's get out of here!
All right, we'll buy back the house at the same purchase price,
but we're not covering closing costs or the points.
Hey, they could hit you with punitives. You saw how scared they were.
Your guys won't be paying commission, C.J.
That'll more than cover all the incidentals.
Come on, we're making 'em whole.
-Let's finish this.
-Well, okay.
I'll draft the settlement. This is so ridiculous.
[engine starts]
[shrubbery rustling]
It's false evidence, you know.
It's is good as lying to the court.
We could get disbarred.
I never said anything about how or why the lights went out.
Nobody even asked me. [chuckles]
Wasn't a normal circuit breaker, for God's sake.
It was an old
-fashioned fuse box.
Here. I couldn't get the thing back in.
I cut my finger trying. Mmm.
-Did you get him to settle?
-Full purchase price.
You were absolutely perfect.
Isn't this the fuse that controls that light?
Yeah.
Thank you for everything, Miss Van Owen.
I'm not giving up, Robert.
The appeal will be filed tomorrow.
-So don't you give up.
-Yeah.
[knocking on window]
-Lieutenant.
-Major.
I'm sorry about the sentence.
I think what you did was wrong,
but I also think with , soldiers in the Persian Gulf,
the panel had to make an example of you.
Would you go on record with that?
It's only an opinion, Counselor.
Hmm.
[sighs] Let's go, sir.
We're proud of you, son.
Okay.
♪♪ [theme]
05x11 - Rest In Pieces
Watch/Buy Amazon
High-powered law firm of McKenzie, Brackman, Chaney and Kuzak handles both criminal and civil cases, but the office politics and romance often distract them from the courtroom.
High-powered law firm of McKenzie, Brackman, Chaney and Kuzak handles both criminal and civil cases, but the office politics and romance often distract them from the courtroom.