Episode 16

<--   8 February 2005   -->

Alice and Nancy shop for groceries. Nancy loses her shopping cart and finds it being led away by a middle-age woman. Nancy is suspicious of the woman, who insists that she took the cart by mistake. Alice leaves for work but Nancy insists on staying behind to follow the woman.
Alice enters Old City Hall with Lewis Okenla. Lewis is a private security guard who has been accused of assault for using excessive force while trying to apprehend a shoplifter. Lewis tells Alice that his family in Nigeria were all police officers and he always believed being a cop was his future, but now he’s not so sure. Alice reminds Lewis that he was only trying to apprehend a shoplifter...he was only trying to do his job.
James walks with Phyllis Coyne, an extremely volatile middle-aged woman, and Phyllis’ youngest daughter Cathy. Phyllis is charged with assaulting her daughter’s abusive boyfriend. Phyllis tells James that staying with abusive men is a trend in their family. “It all goes back to their father. I hope the bastard’s dead, but if he isn’t he should be made to come here and see the misery he’s caused.” When Phyllis rounds the corner and sees Leanne and her boyfriend Brent, she’s not able to keep her emotions in check: “This is just he what wanted. To get you away from your family and to have you totally dependent on him.” Leanne and Brent scream back.
Anil Sharma chases Zona into Bail Court asking for a favour but Zona won’t listen. Inside the frenetic court room, Anna-Lynn is trying to contend with Duke and Wade Cassidy, two brothers arrested for drunk driving who are having too good a time in custody. Alice enters just as her client Yuri Koslov is being brought forward. Yuri is a PhD student at the University of Toronto who is charged with assaulting his roommate and six police officers. Alice is suspicious of the charges because the bookish exchange student Yuri is very badly beaten. “I don’t suppose it says there why they needed that many officers to subdue him,” Alice wonders. According to the allegations, Yuri began ranting incoherently about the Virgin Mary - but Yuri doesn’t remember and just wonders aloud about who will be feeding his “animals”. Although Anna-Lynn objects, Alice fights to have the matter traversed to Mental Health Court. Later, when Alice visits Yuri in a cell, Yuri is completely incoherent.
Elliot meets in a cell with Buddy “Metal” Balls, an aging hippie charged with assaulting a man at a homeless shelter. Buddy is representing himself in the trial and just wants Elliot around for “guidance”. Basically Buddy admits to the assault but says he was trying to teach the man about “respect” - Buddy has “some points to make about civilized behaviour.” But Buddy isn’t much interested in talking about the trial, instead he hits Elliot up for information about Elliot’s mom, as Buddy and Ronnie used to date and Buddy insists that he’s Elliot’s father. Elliot can barely contain his terror at this notion. Also Buddy is quite happy staying in jail because of the easy access to drugs - “it’s like I died and went to pharmaceutical heaven.”
Back at the grocery store, Nancy watches the woman who stole her cart use one of her daughters as a decoy so she can steal another cart. Nancy barges into the family’s van and is shocked by what she sees - the van is their home. Nancy stays to give the family advice about how to get back on their feet, telling them stories of her own family’s immigration from Vietnam.
Clint Whelan, the shoplifter Lewis assaulted, is on the witness stand. Clint is in prison orange as he’s currently serving time for another crime. On direct Clint insists that he did nothing wrong. On cross, Alice tells the court about Clint’s extensive criminal record in an attempt to prove that he was stealing a bottle of mouth wash when Lewis apprehended him. Later, Lewis’ boss takes the stand for the Crown, arguing that he was shocked by Lewis’ use of force. On cross, Alice gets the boss to admit that Lewis was under threat of being fired if he let anymore shoplifters get away. When Alice puts Lewis on the stand, Crown Kaye eviscerates him and Lewis is not able to convincingly justify his use of force. It is clear that Lewis over-reacted to the situation and he is convicted and now unable to become a police officer.
Menon has Leanne’s boyfriend Brent on the stand, who insists that Phyllis randomly attacked him with a plunger in an attempt to get revenge over something Brent simply didn’t do. Phyllis can’t keep her composure while Brent is on the stand. On cross, James asks Brent about his history of confrontation with Phyllis, setting up Phyllis’ claim of self-defense. When Leanne testifies on direct, she explains that Phyllis became angry when she saw Leanne getting out of the shower and noticed all the bruises covering Leanne’s body. Leanne denies that the bruises came from Brent, but when James cross-examines her, her explanation of where the bruises came from is shaky. When Phyllis takes the stand, she tells James about her own history of dealing with domestic violence at the hands of her former husband. Clearly this experience has had a disastrous affect on Phyllis and her relationship with her daughters - Phyllis hates herself for not throwing her husband out years earlier than she did. On cross, Menon asks why Phyllis didn’t call the police if she felt herself truly in danger from Brent, and Phyllis can’t quite answer the question. Phyllis gets a conditional discharge but wonders whether she’ll ever be able to salvage her relationship with Leanne, who leaves with Brent.
In a trial court, Buddy admonishes Judge Fraser when Fraser calls him by his proper name “Lloyd Fairchild”. Elliot explains that Buddy will only respond to his street name. Crown Kaye interviews Rick St. Eustace, the chef at the shelter who witnessed Buddy’s thrashing. On Buddy’s opportunity to cross-examine, he only wants to know why Rick doesn’t use enough cheese in the macaroni and cheese - “You put just enough in to tease us with the smell. And that’s just cruel, man.” Elliot steps in and just as he’s getting Rick to admit that the victim was large and threatening, Buddy cuts him off, insisting that Elliot should try to show some respect. Buddy takes the stand himself later and puts up an equally feeble attempt at defending himself, continuing to basically prevent Elliot from assisting him in any way. Judge Fraser gleefully convicts Buddy but lets him out of jail on time served, noting that it’s probably punishment enough given how much Buddy seems to enjoy jail.
Alice talks with Yuri’s former girlfriend Brigette Neely, who explains that Yuri has been flustering under the pressure of finishing his biochem thesis and that Yuri is lonely and isolated in his studies. Brigitte became concerned recently when she noticed Yuri start writing on his walls. Alice is positive now that Yuri has suffered some kind of psychotic episode. Dr. Neuman confirms this in Mental Health Court. Still furious that Yuri is charged with assault police, Alice loses her temper when she spots a representative from the police association in the gallery of the courtroom - she thinks the police are trying to cover their liability for indiscriminately beating a man suffering from a mental illness: “I don’t know, Your Honour... you do all this good work in here trying to bring an enlightened approach to dealing with mental illness and six storm troopers are allowed to undermine the whole thing.” Later, alone in Yuri’s lab, Alice feeds some helpless rabbits and wonders aloud whether they’ll ever see Yuri again.