What I’ve always loved about legal dramas is the random bits of knowledge you discover about the complexities of the law. Little loopholes those of us who have never gone to law school give us hope that those who do will never give up using those tools to fight for justice. Chicago Justice managed to pull that off again this week to keep not one, but two crafty killers behind bars. It’s unfortunate that the Insanity defense put in place to protect the truly ill is so readily abused, but it’s comforting to know there are those willing to fight for the truth.
Dawson and Nagel find the recently pregnant body of Julia Keys dumped in a warehouse, sans baby. Her ex-boyfriend Ryan Matthis not only had no idea that Julia was dead, he had no idea that she was pregnant. The investigators are confused when DNA on Julia’s body matches David Zaccharia, a serial killer Stone put in prison eight years ago. Stone had to work out a plea deal with Zaccharia so that he would give up the location of all the bodies he buried, and has been in prison ever since. The only explanation is that a relative of Zaccharia’s killed Julia. His long-lost daughter is a good candidate. Julia’s friend from maternity yoga, Dawn Osbourne, cut the baby out of Julia because she was faking her own pregnancy. Dawn had an accident as a child that left her unable to ever bear children, but neglected to notice that Julia’s baby was dead when she started to take care of it.
Taking care of a dead baby does seem like a viable consideration for the insanity defense, but there is a new strategy that defense attorneys are using now. Dawn never even knew that she was the product of rape, and that David Zaccharia was her father. Yet that doesn’t stop her from using the insanity defense with David’s testimony to claim that her genes made her do it. The good news is that Dawson and Nagel put a stop to this rather quickly. Dawn kept a book on how to perform a C-section, which means her violent act was premeditated. Stone gets two for the price of one when David Zaccharia makes a fatal mistake trying to use Dawn’s testimony to free himself. Dawn lied under oath about being responsible for the death her father was convicted for. Taken as the truth, it makes Zaccharia’s plea deal null and void, which means he can be tried for the other murders he was connected to. The cherry on top is that he can be tried in another state with the death penalty, since that’s where his bodies were found.
Nagel finds something to relate to with this case. Not only is she a mother herself, she contemplates the idea that she could have inherited her addiction from her father. Though there are studies that say certain people can be prone to addiction if members in their family have one, it’s not a certainty. She had a rough couple months after being shot on the job which led to the disintegration of her marriage. Now she can’t convince a social worker she should get partial custody of her child.
Should Nagel be allowed custody of her child?
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