The veteran crime drama continues its 14th
season. This week, police investigate a hit-andrun

accident that left a homeless man dead. But
the driver of the vehicle escapes a manslaughter
charge when it transpires the victim was already
fatally injured in a beating, and detectives must
begin their search for the killer all over again.
Detectives Briscoe and Green are on the trail of a
driver who knocked down and killed a homeless
man. The decomposition of the body suggests
that it was kept in a refrigerated environment for
several hours before being dumped in a park. After
a number of enquiries, the detectives identify the
victim as Alan Fisher, a schizophrenic man who
had been living rough for two years.
Shattered glass from the car that hit Fisher leads
Briscoe and Green to a luxury Aston Martin
owned by Carrie Salter, a high-powered publicist.
Salter denies being in an accident, and her car
proves to be in perfect condition – prompting
Green to wonder if it has undergone some
emergency repairs. “How many body shops do
you think are authorised to repair this puppy?” he
asks Briscoe. Their investigation leads to a
mechanic who confirms that he fixed Salter’s car
as good as new after she claimed to have hit a
deer. Salter’s guilt is confirmed when Briscoe finds
spots of blood in her garage – which is cold
enough to have preserved Fisher’s body.
Presented with the evidence, Salter confesses
that she hit Fisher with her car, before ignoring his
cries for help. Her lawyer, Sanford Rems (Dylan
Baker, ‘Spiderman 2’, ‘Happiness’), wins
permission from the judge to have the victim
autopsied by an independent examiner. The
pathologist reveals that Fisher actually died from a
bleed in his brain caused by a beating he had
received hours earlier. The victim apparently
walked away from the fight without realising the
extent of his injury. “Miss Salter hit someone with
her car who was already fatally injured,” he
concludes. With no evidence that the car accident
exacerbated Fisher’s injuries, Salter is allowed to
walk free on a lesser charge of tampering with
evidence.
The case lands back on Briscoe and Green’s
desk and they are tasked with finding the real
killer. Their line of questioning leads them to a
homeless man who identifies a fellow down-andout
as the guilty party. The suspect, Max Edgars,
soon breaks down under questioning and admits
that he got into a brutal altercation with Fisher
simply because he would not share an orange.
Edgars is represented by Erica Gardner (Kate
Burton, ‘Grey’s Anatomy’), the head of a legal aid
charity. Gardner attempts to make an ambitious
‘necessity defence’, claiming that the laws of
survival on the street are fundamentally different
to those practised within ordinary society. “Life on
the street is tough, so that gives your client the
right to commit murder?” is McCoy’s incredulous
take on her argument.
In court, Gardner has some success in
demonstrating that society treats the homeless
as an underclass, and questions whether they
should be judged by the same values. Her views
find some sympathy from Southerlyn, while an
uneasy Branch orders McCoy to cut a deal.
Gardner, however, is determined to let the jury
decide. “People need to realise that we are all just
two steps away from becoming Max Edgars,”
she says. On the stand, Edgars’s heart-rending
testimony threatens to sway the court, and
McCoy finds he must put aside his own sympathy
to present the cold hard facts of the case.