Previously on 'Boston legal'
Clarice. You're applying for the assistant position?
I have skills.
Are you okay?
I walk down the street, anything I pass in pants,
I want to have sex.
How engaged are you?
Very.
It's called friends with benefits.
I have never had that kind of friend before.
Let me see your underwear, Denise.
Get out.
- I hear you're in heat. - It seems so.
I'm taking you to Nimmo bay.
What are you doing in my bed?
I'm gonna take you to my spa.
Almost as good as fishing.
- Who are we? - Denny Crane.
Alan Shore.
- Alan. - You sent for me, Shirley.
- I did. - I'm not surprised.
You've had that look about you all day,
showing a few cracks and creases in your wall de resistance.
Maybe I should botox.
So you wait till after hours, then summon me,
no doubt to go spelunking into your darkest, most loving place.
Alan, this is Vanessa Walker.
Interesting to meet you.
She's from our New York office.
She's handled cases all over the country,
many of them high-profile, as is the one that starts Wednesday.
Right, and what does this have to do with me and you?
She's of the impression she can't win this trial.
That's not completely accurate. I said it was a long shot.
And she's come to me
'cause, well, she's heard of you.
I've heard you're a bit of a miracle worker with the underdog.
I need somebody to first establish my client as an underdog,
not easy 'cause she's doctor,
and then keep her out of prison.
What did she do, your client?
She euthanized five patients.
- Allegedly. - I'm sure.
And she's going on trial here in Boston?
New Orleans.
This would be a road trip.
Her hospital lost all services after Katrina hit.
She had five patients faced with very painful deaths
if she didn't do something, so...
The flight will get you in tomorrow at 4.
You'll be using an office of local counsel while there.
I just heard.
New Orleans!
My penis is already packed.
Denny, I would love for you to join,
but this particular excursion is a rather serious one.
Maybe you and I could go another time.
Are you nuts?
That damn tornado wiped out half the place.
There's no time like the present.
Alan, we must seize the hookers, uh, the day.
You know, Denny, technically,
it wasn't so much a tornado as a hurricane.
And you're holding a kazoo.
Not just any kazoo, a trombone kazoo.
A go-to-New-Orleans-under-the-pretext-of-some-legal-case-to-play-with-a-Dixieland-band kazoo.
I only have two plane tickets.
Oh, gee, and I only have a Gulfstream.
I think Denny wants to come, Vanessa.
Denny Crane.
Down on the bayou.
The hospital was becoming toxic from human waste piling up,
rotting corpses.
What about the five patients who died?
They were in very bad shape.
I scrounged up some sedatives that the looters hadn't taken,
and I gave them enough to induce sleep.
I did what I could to manage their pain.
Alan, is this gonna take long?
Denny, this is the client.
- The trial starts tomorrow. - I know.
But I feel ready. Don't you?
Tell you what, why don't you head over to Bourbon street, check us in,
and I'll meet you there?
All right.
And if I'm not there, I'm, uh, out, uh, you know...
- Seizing the day. - Right. Shh...
Denny's going to get a jump on some...
research.
Dr. Follette, when doctors induce a patient's death,
they tend to say they're managing pain.
I understand that.
No doubt a jury will.
The problem here is,
our whole case comes down to your moral integrity.
It would therefore be my advice to just come clean with the jury
and admit you euthanized some suffering patients.
I managed their pain.
My phone keeps making that ringing noise,
and there's nobody there to pick it up.
Sorry.
Clarence, what are you doing?
Just reading. I'll get back.
You're reading up on title IX cases?
You've been doing that all week. What is going on?
I, uh... got kicked out of my gym.
It's an all-girls gym.
I started going, you know, as me instead of Clarice,
and I got expelled.
Well, if it's an all-girls gym...
They knew Clarice was really...
So I think I should have some kind of estoppel claim.
All my friends...
I'm lonely as Clarence.
I want to sue.
But it's an all-girls gym.
I want to sue.
So, Denise, any new year's resolutions?
- None. You? - Three, actually.
Eat right, exercise more, date you.
I, I'm sorry. What was that last one?
Date you.
I think enough time has elapsed since Daniel Post's death.
Thoughts?
Uh, okay.
- First, and don't take this the wrong way. - Okay.
I don't like you.
- Not at all? - Not really.
Well, most of the women I date don't like me, actually,
at least not at the beginning or the end,
but there is a middle part when things are great.
Think on it, sleep on it,
pray on it.
Let me know.
It's an all-girls gym.
Are you saying all these years you thought Clarice was really a woman?
Yes.
Maybe not biologically, but in every other way.
So you've known all along
that you've been dealing with a biological male?
Look, we all love Clarice,
as long as the male thing wasn't waved in our faces.
But when he shows up as a man...
So what? What's changed?
Well, what's changed is we'd have to let all men in.
He has been a member of this club,
a valued member for seven years.
You can't expect him to forfeit that just 'cause he changed his appearance.
Well, I'm sorry.
Well, then, we're suing you.
On what grounds?
Gender discrimination.
I should have known. Trombone section.
So what's Louisiana's pulse on assisted suicide?
Lousy.
The state is overwhelmingly against it,
and even if we tried to convince the jury on that issue,
we have another problem.
Me?
Is everything always about you?
Shirley didn't tell you that part?
These patients didn't ask to die.
What do you mean?
They wanted to be rescued.
They didn't ask to be pain-managed to another place.
There was no request on anyone's part to be put out of one's misery?
No, these patients were either in too much pain
or too incoherent to make any request.
You didn't tell me this.
Well, I'm telling you now.
Vanessa, you need to round up some doctors
who will say they would have done exactly what Dr. Follette did.
On what relevance can we admit them?
Standard of care.
You'll think of something.
We could always call him,
put him up there with his kazoo.
Find me those doctors, or we may have to.
Ready now!
The cheapest and most efficient way to do this,
if you're still serious, is to get injunctive relief.
Assuming your goal isn't about the money,
but to get back into the club.
- Am I right? - Yes.
Okay.
We take Sandy's deposition.
Then we go into court, and we try and get an order.
But here's where it gets a little tricky.
The club has no duty to Clarence.
Clarice is the one who had the membership.
What's the difference?
A big one, actually.
Bottom line, for the purpose of this lawsuit,
you will have to be Clarice again.
Okay.
Do not be calling the defendant a "ho."
May I ask, do you not like me
'cause I come off as kind of a slick snake oil salesman?
No, I've made my peace with that.
Is it 'cause I sometimes get a dopey baby Huey expression on my face?
That's actually kind of cute.
So what is it then?
What, that's it? You're giving up?
The way I dress?
No.
- My hair? - Getting closer.
The Elvis sideburns?
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
So that's it. You don't like me just 'cause of my sideburns.
It's not just the sideburns.
My nasal voice?
What is it? I've covered all the biggies.
Slick, cocky, dopey, narcissistic, nasally.
Oh, a lummox?
I think it's just the whole package.
I'm good in bed.
That's a nice line.
No, seriously. I'm really good.
I've had women loathe me,
yet still be unable to give up the sex.
The post-mortem evidence revealed
that five of the victims had died from a combination of morphine and midazolam.
Now these drugs are both pain killers, are they not, doc?
Yes, but administered together in high doses,
they're lethal.
They would most certainly result in death.
So this didn't strike you as an accidental overdose?
No. In my opinion,
the administer of these drugs intended for those patients to die.
Well, now, doctor, to be fair,
these were pretty dire circumstances.
Which is when a patient most needs to count on his doctor to fight for him.
There never comes a time when things get so tough, we just kill them.
Doctor, you're aware of
just how dire the circumstances were in that hospital after Katrina hit.
Yes.
No electricity, no water,
100 degree heat, no ventilation.
Can you state to a medical certainty
that those five patients were not terminal under those horrid conditions?
They could have survived.
17 other patients, many of them far less sick,
had already died of dehydration.
- Do you know that? - I do.
In excruciating pain.
- I wasn't there. I can't know. - You can't know?
Well, correct me if I'm wrong,
but when a person dies of dehydration,
the tongue swells and cracks,
the urine becomes highly concentrated and burns out the bladder,
while the stomach lining dries up, causing uncontrollable retching.
Finally, the brain cells dry out,
and the patient convulses until their heart seizes.
- Is that about right? - Yes.
And what if a patient starves to death?
Would that be equally as gruesome?
- Probably. - And sepsis?
- It would also be painful. - Thank you.
And, doctor, when my client says
that those five patients were looking at that very type of excruciating death,
do you have any medical evidence to contradict that?
No, as I said, I wasn't there.
In fact, many doctors were not there.
In fact, most doctors were not there.
Most got the hell out.
Dr. Follette, on the other hand,
decided to stay and do whatever she could.
Which was, in this case, to give her patients lethal injections.
Doctor, the drugs she injected are commonly used together as an anesthetic.
You'll of course correct me if I'm wrong.
At that dosage, they are lethal.
- Always? - Almost always.
"Almost"?
We like to get it 'exactly' in a court of law, doctor.
Objection.
Nothing further.
Are you ready?
Ready for what?
Pat O'Brien's. I got some reservations.
Oh, my god, Denny, it's almost 10 o'clock.
We're at trial in the morning.
Hey, Alan, this is New Orleans,
the city that laughs in the face of death.
And right now they need a good laugh.
Let's go to Pat's,
and then we'll hit a few after-hours spots.
Denny.
I'm not gonna presume you were paying attention in court today, were you?
In and out.
You were hungover.
It happens.
From whatever you happened to notice,
how do you think it went?
I think...
you're trying this case as if you were in Boston,
and you're not.
What does that mean?
Up is down here, Alan.
Down is up.
That's how you try this case.
Penny for that thought.
Hi, Shirley.
You okay?
Yeah. No. Uh...
Jeffrey Coho asked me out.
Excuse me?
Yeah. In the last month, Alan Shore, Jeffrey Coho, Brad, still.
I must be doing something right with my hair.
Are you going to go out with him, Jeffrey?
Mm, I don't think so.
Honestly, I'm just not interested.
Although there is this rumor, Jeffrey started it that,
physically, a relationship with him could be...
quite rewarding.
Well, I'm sure you'll make the right decision.
Oh, hey, Brad.
Um, listen, I'm, uh...
I'm reluctant to ever involve myself in the personal lives of others,
unless, you know, I'm the one involved.
But I, I can't help but detect that you still harbor feelings for Denise,
do you?
Well, Shirley, that's a personal question.
Oh, no, I know, I know that, but the reason I ask is that I'm hearing
that Jeffrey Coho has set his little antennae on Denise.
And I thought,
if you were waiting for the appropriate amount of time to pass
after Daniel post's death,
just, just don't wait too long.
Okay?
Denny?
Denny, are you...
Well, I can see up is certainly down here.
Denny, I'm meeting Vanessa downstairs.
Will you be joining us in court today?
What?
I need to get to...
court.
They followed me home.
Have a good breakfast.
I'm coming, I'm coming!
Vanessa, I was just on my way to meet you.
I thought I'd come up.
Well, as you can see, down is up.
I found eight doctors willing to testify for Donna,
saying under similar conditions, they may have done the same thing.
- Really? - I've got a motion to amend our witness list,
and we're scheduled for chambers after this morning's session.
Did she sleep in your room?
You are not calling those witnesses.
They go directly to the medical decision-making of my client, sir.
- If we don't have... - Counsel, what your client did was against the law.
The fact that you found eight other doctors
who say that they, too, would have broken the law...
I'm sorry. Isn't the jury supposed to decide if a law was broken here?
We all know you plan to argue jury nullification,
which is also illegal.
I will not allow you to call witnesses in support of that unlawful endeavor.
I see somebody's got his mind made up.
Let me tell you something, Mr. Boston, Mr. New England, Mr. Out-of-towner,
let me tell you something about New Orleans.
Up is down?
You all think we're a city full of victims and looters.
We are neither, and as a person who grew up here,
I'm offended that the premise of your defense is that
these five victims needed to be put out of their misery by this outlaw.
- Outlaw? - That's what you are, doctor.
I sympathize with your plight that day.
I will do everything I can to ensure you get a fair trial,
but what you did was outside the law.
And I will not allow other doctors to testify
that they, too, would have broken the law. It's irrelevant.
But what if that were you lying in that hospital bed that day?
Then I wouldn't be here right now, would I?
Did any of the other members complain about Clarice?
No, I told you. They all loved her.
And we're still happy to have Clarice,
but as an all-girls gym, we can't take Clarence,
and I can't believe we're spending thousands of dollars to have this discussion.
Please just answer the questions, Sandy.
Oh, she's answering the questions, Mr. Peanut.
- Clarice... - Excuse me. What did he just...
'Cause the real answer here isn't so much in the facts but the feelings.
You're emotional, child. We can hear it in your voice.
- Clarice... - This is a fragile, emotional woman.
I know it.
You know I know it.
- Clarice... - 'Cause I've been there.
I was there when your marriage ended.
Whose shoulder were you crying on, girl?
- Yours. - Damn right.
So you just throw me out?
What, you got your life on track, so you just throw me out?
You walked!
I did not walk, ho!
- I'm sitting right here! - Clarice!
You might be sitting here now,
but I don't know who the hell that man is.
How do you think that feels, Clarice,
when your best friend just goes poof and disappears?
You just decide you want to be some guy who's so shy he doesn't even speak?
You quit this friendship, not me.
You quit this friendship.
I last spoke to my husband the morning before Katrina hit.
And he was in the defendant's hospital?
Yes.
He had undergone a procedure to amputate both his legs.
He had advanced diabetes, and well, he was very overweight.
And what did you two talk about on the phone?
Oh, he was barking orders about how I should get ready for the storm.
If you can imagine it,
here the man has had both his legs cut off,
and he's telling me how to fight a hurricane.
But that was Elliot.
A fighter.
And when was the next time you heard from Elliot, Mrs. Babineaux?
I never heard from him again.
I lost contact after the storm hit, and I couldn't get to the hospital.
Ten days later, I found out he was dead.
And did you learn how he died, ma'am?
No.
No, that was three weeks later
when the police detective told me what she did.
Mrs. Babineaux,
the defendant claims that under the circumstances...
My husband survived Vietnam and prostate cancer.
He'd have battled this, too.
He never would have given up,
but she decided he didn't even deserve the chance.
Ma'am, if you had been there,
and the doctors convinced you
that, in fact, your husband would die over the next two days...
She couldn't convince me of anything.
She wasn't even my husband's doctor.
But suppose you were convinced,
and the choice was between two days of suffering
versus a more humane end to the pain,
which would you choose?
Of course, I would choose the latter,
but I don't accept your hypothetical.
I told you,
my husband was a survivor, and it wasn't her call.
She had never even met my husband.
Where was your husband's treating physician? Do you know?
He'd left.
He got out.
A lot of doctors fled, but Dr. Follette...
she chose to stay.
I wish she hadn't.
Will she consider a plea?
Never.
And the fact that you ask, Alan, I don't think you really get it.
Why does everybody say that?
You know, I wish people,
instead of watching 30 seconds of coverage,
saying "isn't it awful?" and then changing the station,
I wish they'd turn their televisions off, sit in the dark for a minute
and truly try to imagine what it must have been like.
For her testimony, you can't protect her.
The district attorney will come hard. She's gotta fight back.
We can't protect her.
She's ready.
Now let's address your closing.
- Are you ready? - No.
I don't know what to say, frankly.
Well, you better figure that out.
Why are you dressed like a nun?
I was thinking about what Sandy said,
and it's true.
She is my best friend.
I'm gonna drop the lawsuit and go back to the club.
But many of those girls like girls. Know what I'm saying?
They probably like me in that girlie way.
I gotta send a message I'm there platonic, all celibate-like.
That way no signals get mixed.
I see.
Were signals getting mixed before with Sandy?
Sandy's heterosexual.
She likes men.
She even liked her deadbeat bony-assed husband
till she smartened up.
It's all platonic between me and Sandy.
And if that's all it is, then...
- Then what? - Well.
Are you interested in Sandy?
Take off the habit, Clarice.
This here's a contract between me and God, bitch.
Yeah, take off the habit!
Clarence, do you have feelings for Sandy?
Look...
you have nobody else to talk to, okay?
You might as well fill me in.
I tried to be me with her.
She didn't want that.
She just wants to be with Clarice.
All Clarice is is Clarence.
Not the alter ego,
but the ego that's just too shy to come out.
I think she would like Clarence,
and I think you should ask her out.
Oh, no, no. I, I could never do that.
Yes, you can.
That's where you were headed.
That's the reason you went back to that club as Clarence,
so Sandy could meet you,
and maybe you two could go out.
Don't lie to me in a nun suit, Clarence.
I gave them the injections to relieve their suffering.
Did I know that it could possibly hasten their death?
Yes, but they were gonna die anyway.
Do you make room for the possibility
that any of those five patients could have survived?
Well, I suppose anything's possible, but the reality was,
they were looking at dehydration, sepsis, toxic shock.
They were gonna die in almost unimaginably painful ways.
I just couldn't let that happen.
Can you tell us what those days were like?
Well, we had no electricity.
By Tuesday, when the levees broke,
the water started to pour into the hospital.
We were without generator power by then.
And the heat,
it was probably 110 degrees.
We had no drinking water.
The hospital was like a death camp. It smelled like it.
Human waste, decomposing bodies.
And the patients...
they knew.
They knew they were dying.
And they were in agony.
And there was nothing we could do.
And what was the lowest point?
The lowest point was when we realized nobody was coming.
We were clinging to the idea that help was on its way,
but we heard on the radio, which was our only source of information,
we heard that nobody was coming.
So those people who could get out,
including medical personnel, did.
The rest of us stayed to at least try to make the patients comfortable.
These five patients, were they coherent?
Two were, three weren't.
And did you get consent before hastening their deaths?
They consented to being medicated.
In fact, they were begging for it.
But did they consent to dying?
They were dying no matter what, Mr. Mersel.
So you decided to speed it up without telling them?
Many doctors would have done exactly as I did.
Many also condemn what you did.
None that were there.
You hear Ms. Georgina Babineaux talk about her husband's will to live?
He was 320 pounds.
There was no one to lift him, even if we could get him out.
So you decided to play God.
I decided to play doctor.
By ending his life.
By ending his suffering!
All right, I think both sides have made their points.
Jeffrey Coho, how are you?
- Well... - I'm not interested.
So you're asking Denise Bauer out, I hear.
- Where did you hear that? - From Denise.
The last time I checked, you were asking me out.
Yeah, and you stiffed me.
I was kidnapped.
Don't tell me you take that personally.
Shirley, it took a lot of courage for me to put myself out there like that.
Now I get enough rejection around here
without signing up for more.
I was kidnapped.
So let's reschedule Denise?
Dinner?
Denise, listen, I, uh...
Well, I'm just gonna say it, okay.
I would like to start seeing you.
I mean, I never stopped. I know you know...
I just don't date engaged women.
But now that you're not engaged anymore,
and you and I were very compatible together.
Brad, um, I'm not gonna date any man
unless I think there's a chance for a serious relationship.
And you see no such chance with me?
None.
Could I ask why?
Our values. Our politics.
Look, when we did actually go out to dinner, it's not like the conversation exactly flowed.
Maybe we should just be the other then.
Friends with benefits?
Only if nobody finds out.
If anybody does, it's over.
What are you doing?
We should be in court.
Or with hookers.
I'm just trying to imagine what it must have been like.
In that hospital, in this city.
Think of it, Denny. Water pouring down the streets.
I bet the fishing was good.
The truth is, I can't imagine it, not really.
Of course you can't. That's the whole point.
You keep trying to apply norms here.
You think you should be able to relate or get other people to relate.
What happened here was off the radar, man.
Yours, mine.
Denny, I think you're absolutely right.
Of course I'm right.
Let's go get the hookers.
This isn't a complicated case.
The defendant lethally injected five people,
causing their deaths.
Might they have died anyway?
Maybe.
So what?
That doesn't give this doctor the right to take the law,
and more importantly, their lives into her hands.
Physician-assisted suicide isn't even lawful in this state.
To kill a patient without his consent,
do I really need to stand here and argue the illegality of that?
And even should you be inclined to engage in the moral debate
defense counsel would like you to,
you have to apply the law as it stands today.
And as it stands today, when you knowingly, intentionally
cause the death of another human being,
that's murder.
No matter how bad things get, this is still the United States of America,
not some third-world nation,
and we don't permit people to kill other people.
If we forgive that kind of lawlessness,
if we tolerate that kind of anarchy, we cease being...
the United States of America.
I read an article in the New York Times magazine not too long ago.
It was about how the elephants in Africa are going mad.
Raping rhinoceroses, killing people,
attacking one another, stampeding without provocation.
These intelligent, sensitive giants have become very, very disturbed.
And the cause, they believe,
is overwhelming, unrelenting trauma, stress.
Be it poachers shooting at them
and their families or land development squeezing and destroying their habitats,
profound and irreversible changes to everything they know about their world,
everything about what it means to be an elephant.
And it's driving them mad.
Elephants aren't being elephants anymore.
Up is suddenly down.
That's what New Orleans was like
during and in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina.
Up suddenly became down. Down was up.
This wasn't the United States of America that week.
It wasn't the third world. It was utter chaos.
The set of norms and logic that we apply to everyday life were gone
and everything was wrong.
A friend of mine told me that when he was finally able
to get out of the city three days after the hurricane,
he drove by a body lying on the sidewalk right up the road here,
a body of a man partially clothed being eaten by an alligator,
and my friend wasn't shocked. He wasn't even surprised.
He was just fleeing.
This was not the United States of America, nor anyplace else for that matter.
During that horrendous week,
the United States of America was nowhere to be found.
My client, Dr. Follette, was to be found.
She was there.
When the storm hit
and when the devastating effects started to become clear
and then dire and then desperate,
she stayed.
Even when so many others around her were leaving,
she stayed with those five patients,
each facing an inevitable, imminent and excruciating death
surrounded by pain and suffering and degradation
unfathomable to those of us who were not there.
She stayed and helped and cared and watched
as those five patients slipped quietly into the good night.
In a setting that was punishing,
cruel and unusual,
her actions were humane.
Like those elephants in Africa,
so many people, during that terrible time of chaos and desperation,
seemed to lose...
themselves,
seemed to lose their innate sense of humanity.
Dr. Follette never did.
She never did.
So you're dropping the lawsuit just like that?
Yes.
No.
On one condition.
That, uh...
You...
You have dinner with me.
Why?
Because...
Because I would like to ask you...
Out.
"Out" like on a date?
Clarice is me.
Clarence.
I'd love to have dinner with you.
Really?
Really.
Denise, tonight, 10 o'clock, my place?
You're on.
Denise.
Jeffrey, I've been thinking,
I don't want to have a relationship with you.
You're just not what I'm looking for in a partner.
But do you know what the term "friends with benefits" means?
You slut.
One condition, nobody finds out.
If anybody does, it's over.
Shirley, what is this "friends with benefits"?
Have you heard of that?
It's basically an arrangement for casual sex. Why?
I, uh, just overheard Denise and Jeffrey Coho making such an arrangement.
Really?
Should we intervene?
He's a partner. She's an associate.
They're both also two consenting adults.
We stay clear.
"Friends with benefits."
I can't keep up.
Would you ever make such an arrangement?
No!
Would you?
Of course not.
Thank you.
For believing what you said.
Let's just hope it's what the 12 people in the jury room believe.
Can I ask you a question?
I want you to be honest with me.
Okay.
Can you and I get naked in a jacuzzi tonight?
When Shirley made the offer, it came with two disclaimers,
you and you.
What offer?
She invited me to join Crane, Poole & Schmidt Boston.
And you accepted?
Mm, I could still change my mind.
It was my idea, that offer.
I'm a big fan of diversity.
I date midgets, you know? Ask him.
And their mothers.
Jury's back.
Mr. Foreman, have you reached a verdict?
We have, your honor.
What say you?
"In the case of Orleans parish vs. Follette"
"on the charges of murder in the first degree"
"we find the defendant Donna Follette"
"not guilty."
Ladies and gentlemen and of the jury, thank you for your service.
You're dismissed, and this court is adjourned.
I don't believe it.
Neither do I.
Thank you.
Still undefeated.
You won the day, Denny.
Up is down.
You won it.
And you didn't want to bring me along.
Using the hooker in the "up is down" demonstrative was a deft touch.
It's all in the details.
I tried closing my eyes again.
To imagine.
I couldn't.
Nobody could, I suppose, unless they were there.
I was there.
Well, I flew over it in my Gulfstream.
Doesn't that count?
To some.
Can we talk about something else?
What?
Vanessa.
Oh, she's nasty,
in a prudy, puritanical, judgmental way.
On a scale of one to ten, what do you give my chances?
A minus-two.
Denny Crane! Loves a challenge!
May old acquaintances be forgot.
And replaced with new ones.
Happy new year, my friend.
Looking up.
It's gonna be the best one you'll have.