The long-running crime drama continues its 14th
series. This week, a Gulf War veteran is arrested

on suspicion of murdering an anti-war protestor.
In court, the man claims to have undergone
extreme emotional disturbance, having recently
lost his son in Afghanistan.

A young anti-war protestor named Brian Teague is
found strangled to death in the street, the victim of
a ‘choke hold’ that could be the hallmark of a killer
with military training. The only other clue is a
button in Teague’s stomach, which he may have
torn off his assailant during the struggle.
It does not take long for detectives Briscoe and
Green to establish that the impetuous Teague had
been arrested numerous times for his anti-war
activities. On the day he died, he was seen
arguing with Kenny Silver, a postman, before
being arrested for abusing a policeman. Teague
was released shortly after, only to find his car had been vandalised. He then used a pay phone in a bar to call for a tow truck, and was last seen going to hail a cab.
The detectives interview Ron Gibbons, an army veteran who admits he trashed Teague’s car because of a bumper sticker proclaiming “France is right”, but insists he did not kill him. The cops focus their attention on the veterans’ bar that Teague visited, where they learn that the victim got into a second altercation with Kenny Silver,
whom he accused of damaging his car. The case against Silver gathers pace when the cops realise that, as a Gulf War veteran, he would have been trained in the choke hold that killed Teague. The ME then confirms that the button in the victim’s stomach comes from a postal worker’s uniform, and Silver is duly charged with murder.
Probing deeper into the case, ADA Southerlyn then turns up the surprising news that Teague and Silver had clashed for the first time several months earlier, at a community meeting where Silver had
tried to get a street renamed in honour of his son, who had recently died in Afghanistan. The prosecution gains a further breakthrough when Silver’s best friend, Ron Gibbons, is forced to admit that he saw him leave the bar in pursuit of Teague. Minutes later, he found a shell-shocked Silver in the street, crying “what have I done?” Silver’s lawyer, Leon Chiles, is determined to paint a picture of Silver as a decorated veteran who was “goaded beyond endurance by a young hothead”. He mounts an audacious ‘extreme emotional disturbance’ (EED) defence, arguing that Teague’s insulting comments about Silver’s dead son pushed him over the edge. “Teague got right up in Kenny Silver’s face and trashed everything that man believes in – everything that his son sacrificed his life for,” Chiles says. But McCoy insists that, by waiting 20 minutes before following Teague, Silver pre-meditated his crime. “Kenny Silver didn’t snap,” he says. “He made a choice.”
Unfortunately, such a highly charged, political case threatens to divide the jury. In court, Chiles describes Teague as a “militant dedicated activist” with little thought for how his insensitive words outraged veterans like Kenny Silver. The defendant, meanwhile, gives a moving account of his confrontation with Teague. “I just wanted him to say he was sorry for what he said about my son,” he explains.
The judge allows the jury to consider the EED defence – which means that Silver will face a lesser charge of manslaughter as well as murder.
To McCoy’s dismay, the jury clears Silver of murder, and struggles to reach a verdict on manslaughter. The veteran prosecutor is confident that, with more time, the jury will find Silver guilty, but he admits that Chiles has used some devastating tactics. “Chiles has them debating the war instead of the murder of Brian Teague,” he says. With the outcome seemingly impossible to call, which way will the jury go?