Presumed Innocent

I am a prosecutor.

I'm a part of the business of accusing...

...judging...

...and punishing.

I explore the evidence of a crime...

...and determine who is charged...

...who is brought to this room...

...to be tried before his peers.

I present my evidence to thejury...

...and they deliberate upon it.

They must determine what really happened.

If they cannot...

...we won't know if the accused deserves to be freed or to be punished.

If they cannot find the truth...

...what is our hope ofjustice?

Where's Nat?

Burying a goldfish.

That he forgot to feed. Kid's gotta learn responsibility.

He's nine.

When you were nine, you fed the animals on the block...

...and made dinner, did everyone's homework...

...and, in your spare time, you practiced law.

I didn't practice law until I was ten.

Listen to this.

"ln their first face-to-face debate, Nico Della Guardia...

"...appeared to throw Raymond Horgan off stride...

"...with an opening swipe at the prosecuting attorney's...

"...twelve-year tenure as 'an uninterrupted retreat from reality...

"'...and slow-motion surrender to thugs, punks and hand-wringing liberals."'

The guy's unbelievable.

I'm finally starting to get used to that rug on Della Guardia's head.

Don't eat standing up. Sit down.

Food goes down easier. It has the help of gravity.

Oh, God.

Yet another lawyer.

I won't be home till late. I got a game after school.

Like his father, he doesn't come home till he has to.

If Raymond loses this election, I could be home a lot.

Rick, I looked this over last night.

Top count, max.

It's a first offense!

No plea to anything but the A-1 felony. Period.

On all of them?

All of them.

And no promises on the sentence.

-Good morning. -Good morning.

This is for you.

Someone put it under the door last night.

I found it when I came in.

Mr. Big Cheese wants to see you now.

I'll be right along.

He said "now," now.

What's wrong?

Carolyn Polhemus was murdered last night.

Her cleaning lady found the body this morning.

Some creep got into her place and strangled her.

It looks like she was raped. He tied her up...

...he beat her with some instrument and strangled her.

No weapon. No sign of forced entry.

Unless you want me here, I'm supposed to meet the coroner.

That's all right. Go on, get out of here.

I can hear Della Guardia now.

"lf Raymond Horgan can't protect his own attorneys, how can he protect citizens?"

Tommy Molto's secretary said he wasn't coming in today.

Some fucking Acting Head of Homicide he turned out to be, the little creep.

I should have fired him when we fired Nico.

If I had balls, I'd do it now.

I want you to handle this case personally.

I will assign it to somebody.

Who will you assign it to? Homicide?

Tommy Molto? For Christ's sake!

Della Guardia would love that. Molto would tip him off on everything.

They're so close you can see Molto's nose sticking out of Nico's bellybutton.

Listen to me.

What a waste.

Beautiful, sexy gal. Hell of a lawyer.

That's her ending. That's her au revoir.

The first thing we got to think about...

...is what the public thinks in the middle of an election.

Take charge of this one for me, okay?

If you care about my health.

You're the only around here I can trust.

Greer's a good investigator, but I'd prefer someone I'm used to working with.

Lipranzer.

Whatever you want.

Just catch me a bad guy.

So, I'm here.

What the hell was she doing with a B file?

Bribery of elected officials. The case number is on her computer.

But the case itself isn't among the papers in her files.

Why? Did she take it home? What?

Maybe it was taken?

Check the apartment. What do you got here?

Bunch of pictures of a dead lady.

-No weapon found, yet? -Nada.

It's a weird one.

She was strangled by the ropes but by the way he tied her...

...it's like he put himself between her legs and pumped...

...so they tightened up like he was trying to let his weight strangle her.

Like he was trying to fuck her to death.

Look at the next one.

Check the computer for sex offenders and cross match on Carolyn's name...

...or this business with the ropes.

Find out which of the creeps she put away is out on parole.

I never did understand why you put her in charge of rape and all that sicko shit.

She wanted it. And she was good.

Yeah, too good, maybe.

I'm not grabbing this, yet.

You worked with this broad.

She wouldn't leave her fucking door and windows wide open.

She was drinking with him. She gave him a glass of beer, like she was entertaining.

-Fingerprints on the glass? -Yeah.

Greer sent it down to the lab.

You mean somebody she let in opened the windows so it looked like a break-in?

She wasn't going to let some sex maniac she sent to jail in for a beer.

On the other hand, we're talking Carolyn.

Mac...

...tell me what Carolyn Polhemus was doing with a bribery file.

I had no idea Carolyn was interested in crimes above the waist.

It's on her computer, but not on mine or the department's.

That makes no sense.

Why don't you ask Raymond?

Ready for something else?

Molto's left.

His secretary came back from lunch and found his desk cleaned out.

Exercise?

Masturbation.

The refuge of the lonely housewife.

Missed the 8:35. I tried to call, but you weren't here.

Nat had dinner at Josh's, and I was at the university.

I tried to get in a little extra time on the mainframe.

Get anything done?

Who am I kidding?

Still working on my dissertation at my age. It's ridiculous.

You were the best mathematician in your class.

Second best just made full professor at MIT.

All I've made are beds.

And now, the Channel Six local news.

Carolyn Polhemus, assistant prosecuting attorney in Raymond Horgan's office...

...was found brutally murdered in her Southside apartment.

Police are about to release a statement about the circumstances of her death....

You hear?

Eugenia was thrilled to be messenger of bad tidings.

Yeah, I'll bet.

From top to bottom we are riddled with cruelty.

We must expose and punish it...

...especially when inflicted upon the impotent and the ignored.

You sound like a woman with a mission.

I am.

The murder of Ms. Polhemus--

You have a suspect?

We have diddly-shit.

So Dan Lipranzer and Rusty Sabich will work night and day for two weeks...

...to catch Raymond a killer. That's the strategy.

You're in charge of this investigation?

Raymond insisted I take it on.

With 1 50 lawyers, they couldn't find one who didn't fuck her to put in charge?

Did you tell Raymond?

This is a conflict of interest. Is that professional?

Barbara, I'm Raymond's chief deputy.

You are so predictable.

It's your way of reliving the whole thing.

She's dead and you're still obsessing.

Rusty.

Nico.

She was just....

-Splendid. -That's it. Very good.

Raymond's pressing hard on that case, I imagine.

Raymond presses hard on every case, Nico.

You know who would've been hard to beat? You.

You would've been tough. Very tough.

You are really something. Where's Tommy Molto?

Molto?

I thought he'd come to the funeral of his favorite colleague.

You must really have him scrambling.

Judge.

Who's that with Raymond?

I'm told that's her ex-husband.

I didn't know she had one.

Teaches college someplace.

Carolyn Polhemus worked for me.

I hired her...

...over the objections of...

...many of our prosecutors who felt shejust didn't have the stuff.

I see those prosecutors here today...

...along with thejudges she defied...

...and the defense attorneys she defeated.

Why are they all here?

They're here because Carolyn Polhemus stood for something.

She stood forjustice.

The Prosecutor's Office, under my leadership...

...has a conviction rate of over 91 percent.

Mr. Della Guardia, or...

...as he is known to those of us who have had to work with him, "Delay"--

There's food here for 1 00 people.

A lot of no-shows.

They smell a loser.

-Good speech. -What the hell is happening with Carolyn?

Everything's in the works.

I reassigned her cases, and this afternoon I gotta deal with Molto's stuff.