Sequestered

Well-wishers continue to lay candles

and messages of support and hope

outside Governor Bennett’s Bel-Air residence

since his eight-year-old son Nicholas

was kidnapped seven days ago.

Governor Bennett! Governor.

They found a body.

It’s him.

Yes!

Yeah.

Shots? Yeah!

Um... Hey, when you’re done with them, can you get me a drink?

A beer. Yeah. Hang on a sec.

Thank you. It’s called a gay bar. For gay people.

Here you go. Oh, hey, thank you, man.

Thank you. All right. No problem.

Hey, Kyle.

You like that, faggot?

Oh.

To me.

Let’s pretend to burn one.

There it is. There it is.

What time is it? About 5:30.

I gotta go, man. I got all the money. I’m out of here, man.

You’re just gonna play and take our money?

Hey, man, that’s the game.

Pundits seem to be split as the trial of Malcolm Miller

comes to a close.

As you all know, Malcolm Miller is accused of the kidnapping

and murder of Nicholas Bennett.

The eight-year-old son

of Governor Mark Bennett, last year.

In just a few hours, famed attorney Henry Pritchard

will make his closing arguments for the defense.

Sorry, boss.

Been awake all night again, I see.

Yeah, I-- You know, it’s this case.

I’m going to sleep for a month once it’s over.

Hm. That makes two of us. Yeah.

Come on. Okay.

[REPORTERS ASKING QUESTIONS]

I just want to say we are looking forward

to laying out our reasoning one final time

before the jury begins deliberations.

We’re confident our client will be found innocent,

because he is.

See you all at the end of the day.

Mr. Pritchard, one last question please.

All rise. The Honorable Judge Weiss is now presiding.

You may be seated.

I’m afraid I have bad news.

You may have noticed that Juror Number Two is not here.

He was assaulted last night

and is currently recovering in the hospital.

I’m appointing an alternate juror to take his place,

and out of an abundance of caution,

I will be sequestering the 12 of you to a hotel

for the remainder of the deliberations.

The LAPD has assured me that none of you are in danger.

They have strong evidence that Juror Number Two was targeted

because of his sexual orientation.

And while we are all concerned for him,

we are at the end of an extraordinary

and very public case, one that demands a verdict.

The sequester will only last until you have that verdict.

In the meantime, there will be

no outside contact with the world,

that includes TV, cell phones and the internet.

Your meals will be provided for you

and you will have a single five-minute call each evening,

and that call will be monitored.

Your job is to deliberate,

to come to a consensus as demanded by the justice system.

The 12 of the accused’s peers either find Malcolm Miller

innocent or guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Godspeed, and through you may justice be served.

Dad, you gotta call before you just show up in my office.

This is some pretty interesting shit here.

It’s pretty sloppy police work, but what would you expect

from the San Francisco Police Department?

These are confidential. You could get me in trouble.

Far be it for me to try to make more trouble for you,

keeping the scumbags out of jail.

Spoken like a true ex-cop.

What’s up, Dad? Uh...

How are you? How’s the knee? Still going to physical therapy?

Well, these young kids, they don’t know what the hell

they’re talking about with their Pilates crap and the--

The big giant purple rubber bands.

When I was just coming up, they, you know,

pulled the bullet out, taped you up, sent you back on the job.

Yeah, and you walked, uh,

50 miles to and from school uphill both ways.

Yeah, and I had to cut the crusts on my own sandwiches.

Hey, Danny, there is a Sophia on line one for you.

Sophia who? You know what? Never mind.

Just send her to voicemail.

Dad, I’m super busy. What’s going on?

Oh, okay. Well, we’ll have to take a rain check

on this lunch that we scheduled.

Ah, shit. Dad, I completely forgot.

You’ve got a lot on your plate. Breakfast tomorrow.

I-I got a meeting. I can push it.

You don’t have to do that. No, no, no, it’s done. 7:30.

Wherever you want. My treat.

Where do you think? The usual greasy spoon.

All right. 7:30. I’ll hold my breath.

Yeah, okay.

Sorry, Pop. It’s all right.

Danny, this is, uh, Sophia Russo,

one of the witnesses from the trial.

Sorry I didn’t give you my last name.

I didn’t know if it was appropriate to call

with the jury deliberating, but it’s why I’m calling.

Listen, Malcolm was a friend,

and it killed me to testify against him.

Can you just call me back when you get this?

818-121-8791.

I really have to talk to you.

Hey, I’m not here. Do your thing.

Uh, hi, Sophia. This is Danny Firmin calling you back.

I’m sorry I missed you. Um, I’d love to talk to you.

Please call me at my office. Thank you.

Okay. So I know that no one here

expected to deliberate this case trapped in a hotel,

but let’s try to ignore that and just do our job.

So would anyone like to suggest where we should begin?

Why don’t we start from the beginning?

Outlining the facts, what we can agree on. Go from there?

Sounds good to me--

Maybe we should start at the part where one of us

was jumped outside a bar last night and beat?

They still haven’t found the guy.

I heard Kyle’s on a defibrillator.

It’s called a ventilator.

Yeah, whatever.

It’s bullshit. He just got banged up a bit.

A head wound, that’s all. Wait a minute. How do you know?

I made the bailiff tell me when he said I was gonna be stuck

with you lovely people for God only knows how many days.

And on that note, if we get to a consensus today,

we get to leave today. That’s the carrot.

So unless there are no other questions...

Maybe we make this easy on ourselves,

if at this point we all think he’s guilty.

Oh, yeah. Uh, we really need

to get into it before we start voting.

Oh, I’m sorry. Are you the foreman now?

I mean, come on, guys. The writing is on the walls.

Only an idiot would think this guy didn’t do it.

Is it too late to get Kyle back? What is that supposed to mean?

It means that we liked Kyle

because he was capable of critical thought.

Which is important when you’re deliberating

whether or not to send a man to Death Row.

That actually happens during the sentencing trial.

I understand our legal system.

Well, since you think he’s innocent,

please, by all means, tell me why.

Hell, yeah, we about to have a catfight.

We will get into that, Marisa, once we establish the facts.

Right. Let’s do just that.

Malcolm Miller,

former caretaker of the governor’s son.

The man accused of kidnapping and murdering him

for an $80 million ransom.

A ransom that still hasn’t been found.

How are you holding up?

I should have testified.

I could’ve convinced them. I know I could’ve.

Malcolm, Henry Pritchard is...

one of the top defense attorneys in the country.

It’s not about what you would’ve said,

it’s about how the prosecution would’ve twisted your words.

If Pritchard thought it was better not to testify,

than, trust me, it was. Anyway, I came down to tell you

that the jury’s been sequestered.

Is this because the one of the jurors was beat up last night?

Yeah.

One of the older inmates said this could be good for me.

That you could spin this as being a jury tampering.

That we could get a retrial.

Unfortunately, uh, that’s unlikely.

But, I mean, we should push for it.

Don’t we want a second chance at trying the case?