Law & Order (1990) s16e19 Episode Script
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In the criminal justice system the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups, the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders.
These are their stories.
Table five is getting up.
Give me two seconds, all right? I'm waiting 20 minutes, and she just walked in.
Why can't she wait for table five? Fine.
I'll wait for table five.
Thank you.
Somebody call 911! Hurry! Twenty sets of eyes can't be wrong.
Male, maybe Hispanic.
Black hood, red baseball cap.
Anyone recognize him? Hood covered his face.
Is there any video? Not in the diner, but the red light cameras might have caught him running off.
Department of Transpo's pulling the tape.
Thanks.
Okay.
What do we got? One to the shoulder, one to the chest.
And Crime Scene pulled the slug that winged her out of the back wall of the cooler.
Still intact? Yeah, looks like it.
Small caliber.
Can you make sure Crime Scene gets that to Ballistics? Excuse me.
Detective Green, Detective Fontana.
How's your arm, miss Elaine Clemens.
It's just a graze.
I'll live.
Did you see the man who shot you? I turned my head, and it was over before I could turn around.
I can't help thinking if I'd just been standing a few inches further You weren't, so let's just concentrate on healing Detectives.
The victim's nephew's riling the crowd up outside.
Okay.
Nick.
This officer here's gonna take your information.
Thank you.
Guy with the smock, Carlos.
He's the cook here.
Carlos! Carlos! I'm Detective Green, this is Detective Fontana.
Listen, man, we're sorry about your uncle.
Now, did you see what happened? No, but I know what happened.
Damn dope dealers is what happened.
What dealers? What are you talking about? Puerto Rican guys from the neighborhood.
Why would they wanna shoot this place up? My uncle pepper-sprayed one of 'em the other day in front of his boys.
Well, who'd he pepper-spray? A wannabe punk named Prim.
And throwing out the garbage this morning, I saw his ass on the corner, glaring.
We called 5-0 on Prim, like, five times! Nada.
Do yourself a favor, stay out of this, and let us do our job, all right? Can I go? Yeah, but where can we find Prim? I got no idea.
All right, go.
But, Carlos, go be with your family, don't go looking for Prim, all right? We better find this guy Prim before this whole neighborhood turns into a war zone.
Hey is that our guy? That's him.
What's up, man? Why you following me? 'Cause you look guilty.
Turn around.
Hands up.
You got anything sharp in your pockets? Excuse me, sir.
Did you drop these? Did you? Ten decks of heroin within 1,000 feet of a school? That's "B" felony territory.
L told you those drugs wasn't mine! "B" felony, that's nine years, bro.
What is this? Y'all ain't even with Narcotics.
Man, sit your ass down.
You're right.
We're on Homicide.
As in the homicide of Oscar Morales.
You remember, the guy that pepper-sprayed you in front of his diner 'cause you were dealing drugs there? So, what happened? This old fool drop you in front of your friends and you got to represent, is that it? Not enough to shoot him.
Shoot him? Who mentioned anything about a shooting? Look, I got 15 guys who say I was on the corner when that shooting went down.
Fifteen of your boys and their hootchie-mamas isn't gonna make an alibi for you! I swear on my grandmother I ain't do this! Your grandmother ain't gonna cut it either.
Well, what if I said I seen who did? Would you negotiate with me for a minute? Why don't you tell us what you know, and we'll see if it helps your case.
I hear three shots.
I see a black kid with a hoodie and a red hat come stumbling out of the diner.
He was wearing a hat and a hood, and you still saw his face? I know the kid.
His name is Jeremy Miller Milner Something like that.
Dude's just a neighborhood hopper.
"Hopper"? What the hell is a hopper? He just hops along to get stuff.
Does whatever he has to do to make money.
You know, sweep storefronts, cop drugs, whatever.
Well, is there any indication that there's bad blood between this kid Jeremy and Morales? I don't know.
I only talked to the kid, like, three times.
So, where can we find this dude? He's been hanging out on the corner with us lately.
Said he was looking for a piece.
Guess he found one.
And what about my ten decks? If your information doesn't pan out, you have no idea the amount of trouble you're in.
Hey, Lou? Yes.
Prim's "hanging out on the corner" alibi checked out.
He was in front of the bodega across the street when the shots rang out.
The owner confirmed it.
What about the name he threw on us? This kid, Jeremy Miller.
He got collared two years ago for solicitation.
He's been in foster care most of his life.
Prim lD'd him as the shooter.
Anyone else ID? Witnesses saw a kid wearing a hood.
Did Ballistics get anything off the slug from the diner? There were no hits from IBIS.
So, is there any connection between our DOA Morales and this kid? Well, not so far.
And Morales doesn't have a history with street hustlers.
But that can mean he just never got caught.
Well, I don't know how much I trust a name coming from this guy Prim.
I mean, he's trying to work off, what, ten decks of dope? Look, if that kid's the shooter, he's on the street right now, he's 14, he's reckless, and he's got a gun.
All right.
Talk to the boy's foster parents.
We have no idea where he could be.
We did everything we could to parent him, but he came and went as he pleased.
Does he have any friends that we can talk to? No one.
Not anymore.
What does that mean? He had a younger sister, Emily.
She was born HIV positive, then developed full-blown AIDS.
She died two days ago.
Did Jeremy have HIV? His mother contracted it after he was born.
She died five years ago.
Did his sister live here, too? No, we couldn't accommodate her needs.
It's been that way with Jeremy all his life.
His sister's status has always kept them separated, but he's worked hard to keep in touch and to stay close.
Emily's the only person Jeremy really opened up to.
He must have been devastated.
He was, but not enough to go shoot people.
Do you know if Jeremy knew of a man named Oscar Morales? No.
Do you know if he ever spent any time at Mr.
Morales' diner at 175th and Broadway? That's near the hospital.
Where Jeremy's sister died.
Which hospital is that? Children's Healing House.
Where the other victim works.
We don't think Jeremy was aiming at Oscar Morales.
We think there's a possibility he was aiming at you.
Now, how much contact have you had with him? I'd see him here when he was visiting his sister.
But you're a hospital administrator, correct? Chairman of the hospital's Community Advisory Committee.
Well, then why do you think this kid would be gunning for you? I had to have security escort him out of the facility three weeks ago.
A floor nurse caught him disconnecting his sister's IV.
Assisted suicide? He said he was trying to take her home.
Or, as he said it, "Break her out".
Now, why would he want to break her out? When Emily's virus stopped responding to traditional medicines, her condition declined rapidly.
She was wasting away.
It was hard for us to watch, let alone a 14-year-old, but I had to have him barred from the facility.
Detective Green? Maybe of I allowed him supervised visits, that man would still be alive.
Ms.
Clemens, until Jeremy Miller is off the street, we think it's best that we put you into protective custody.
Is that really necessary? Well, by now he knows he went after the wrong target.
He might want to try and finish the job.
Hey, Joe, they just spotted him walking into the park across the street.
Ma'am, I need you to stay here with this officer, okay? He's on a bench in the park.
He's waiting for Clemens to leave the hospital.
There, next to the garbage can.
Threw his hood up about ten minutes ago.
Okay, make sure everybody knows that this kid is armed, all right? Got it.
Stay away from me! Now just take it easy, kid.
All we wanna do is talk.
Is that why you're drawing down on me? No, it's because you got that .
22 in your right pocket.
All right, listen, kid.
Now I want you to listen to me, okay? You can trust us.
My name is Detective Fontana, and this is Detective Green.
And we don't mean you any harm at all.
You wanna kill me.
I know you do.
No, no, not at all.
All we wanna do is talk with you.
Is that Spanish guy dead? Oh, you don't have to worry about him now.
I didn't mean to shoot him! I'm sorry! We now you are, man.
They did this.
The doctors.
That bitch Clemens! Okay, all right, that's exactly what we wanna talk about.
I could have saved her.
CHH killed her.
They murdered her! All right.
All right, we're gonna look into that for you, but for right now, stay calm and please hand that gun over to me.
Tell that man's family I'm sorry.
I'll tell you what.
Why don't we all get together and sit down, and then you can tell him yourself, in person, how sorry you really are.
How's that? I'm so sorry.
Look, if a kid's determined to go, it doesn't matter what you say to him.
He was here to do another murder.
It's a dirty shame, but I'll sleep fine.
All right.
Lou, we got a suicide note.
Let's see.
"She was all I had and they took her away.
They killed her.
" "Elaine Clemens killed her.
" "Why was her head caved in?" Didn't the sister die of AIDS? Well, that's what Clemens told us.
But, "Why was her head caved in?" Maybe that's why he was trying to break her out of the hospital, because she was being abused.
Maybe.
Look, I understand wanting to put this to bed.
It was an ugly thing to witness.
I'm fine, Lieutenant.
No one is fine watching a But maybe we'll sleep better knowing the truth.
Emily Miller.
The medical report says her cause of death was pneumonia resulting from AIDS, but our intake, she does show some head trauma.
So what about her autopsy? I didn't get there yet.
Well, what are you waiting for? We had five homicides in the last two days.
Until you called half an hour ago, she was low priority, natural causes.
Come on, with head trauma? Hey, cause of death says complications from AIDS.
There's a dead kid in a park that would argue with you about that, so do you mind checking her head wound for us right now, please? Yeah, it's a contusion about five centimeters in diameter.
Blunt force? Most likely.
Enough to kill her? Not without an autopsy.
Well, what's your best guess, Doctor? Well, terminal AIDS patients can hemorrhage pretty easily.
A mild whack on the head could have killed her.
You know, we're gonna hand this body over to Rodgers.
That way we're not guessing, all right? Fellas, once in a blue moon, a kid comes in dead with an AIDS diagnosis.
So, it's not outrageous to accept the medical report.
Who reported the death? Um, Dr.
Andrew Copelan, Children's Healing House.
This is the first I've heard of a contusion on her head.
Emily Miller died of AIDS, which she had since birth.
When was the last time you saw her alive? The morning she died, on rounds.
What was her condition? Her breathing was labored, she was in a lot of pain.
From her head? Joint pain.
And from the sores in her mouth.
Was there anything peculiar about her condition? No.
Well, then how would you explain a bedridden kid with a head injury? I honestly can't.
She didn't complain of it when I saw her that morning.
What time was it when you saw her? Well, who could've been in her room between the time you saw her and when she died? Doctor? Is there something on your mind? No one in the hospital would have harmed that little girl.
Elaine Clemens told us that watching her die was an awful thing to witness.
It was.
So if you know somebody who might have put her out of her misery, you should tell us about that.
I'm an orderly.
We don't get involved much with patients past shuttling them around.
You were close to Emily Miller.
You used to read to her, you brought her a teddy bear.
It was my daughter's.
She'd grown out of it.
Look, I'm gonna cut to the chase.
You were on duty when Emily died, and you took a collar for a domestic assault.
That was ten years ago! I was a different person back then.
Emily died of AIDS.
With head trauma, being looked after by a guy who has a problem with his hands.
From drinking, which I don't anymore.
And I wasn't the last person in the room, okay? Who was? I could lose my job if Dr.
Copelan finds out.
Look, if I were you, I'd worry about losing the next 20 years of your life.
Emily was so sick, and she was crying all the time.
She asked if I'd sneak her old foster mother in to see her.
Why would you have to sneak her in? Three months ago, Child Services took her to court and had her charged with abuse.
And you let this woman in that child's room? You got it all wrong.
Pamela's a decent lady.
She loved that girl! That abuse charge was ludicrous! And it wasn't for physical abuse, it was because I stopped giving Emily her AIDS medication.
Why'd you do something like that? Because that medication was supposed to make her better, not worse! Well, the judge disagreed.
The judge didn't spend every night wiping the vomit from her mouth.
When I took Emily out of CHH five months ago, she could barely walk.
Seven years old, 36 pounds.
Off the meds, she started gaining weight, she could even play in the park! Well, how does that add up to an abuse charge? Dr.
Copelan went ballistic.
He said she couldn't ever be off the regimen because she was part of a drug trial to find a more effective pediatric AIDS cocktail.
Fontana.
Excuse me for saying so, but that sounds like a good thing.
But he acts more like a zealot than a doctor.
Look, Ms.
Henson, you're gonna have to come down to the station house with us until we sort this out.
M.
E.
's found a cause of death.
The head contusion was non-lethal.
The number of drugs she was on, she most likely slipped and fell from pain or fatigue.
These are AIDS drugs we're talking about, right? Her tox screen reads like an AIDS pharmacopoeia.
Calidrone, Nofolox, Thadnium, Drexenall, DZB.
At these dosages and these meds, she probably felt like she was being burned alive from the inside out.
So what'd she die of? Her bone marrow depletion resulted in a multi-organ system failure.
Liver, kidneys, all caused by very powerful medications with potentially lethal side-effects.
So, what are we talking about here? Are we talking about hospital mishap, accidental overdose, what? Bone marrow failure this drastic doesn't happen overnight, and it doesn't happen at all to a person her age.
And look at this.
Track marks? Intramuscular.
And that's not in a place where you'd draw blood.
She must have been administered some drug outside her treatment protocol.
And every drug I can identify is given orally.
Every drug in Emily Miller's system has been approved for my phase two protocols.
These drugs are given orally, correct? Yes.
Well, then why would there be track marks on her leg? Unless you were giving her something you didn't want anyone else to know about.
Maybe she was self-mutilating.
Some of the young girls do that.
She had organ failure, muscle wasting, anemia.
You understand there's still no viable drug cocktail to cure or eliminate the virus in children.
Why don't you tell us what she was allergic to? You were using this girl as a guinea pig because she was a foster kid and she couldn't complain about it.
I was giving her cutting-edge care.
Which led directly to her grave, am I correct? There's something you're not telling us.
Our autopsy report proves it.
Any other questions? Talk to my lawyer.
Dr.
Copelan's grant guidelines say that no more than three drugs shall be administered on any test subject during one daily cycle.
Emily Miller died with five in her system.
So Dr.
Copelan violated the grant protocols.
It's a civil matter.
Look, this was a voluntary trial, but how does an 8-year-old comprehend the risks? Well, who gave the doctor her informed consent? Some neutral advocate rubber-stamped the thing.
So, from a legal standpoint, she didn't have to understand the risks.
Look, should Dr.
Copelan have monitored her condition better? Absolutely.
But the DA's office'll say that's a question for civil court.
Hey, the M.
E.
's office called.
Her friend at the CDC said the mystery drug that was in Emily Miller was an experimental AIDS vaccine only for use in animals.
We're way out of civil court now.
That sick son-of-a-bitch.
Detectives, what now? You're under arrest for the murder of Emily Miller.
I was her doctor.
What are you talking about? Then you should have acted like it.
Make sure the children stay on the regimen.
You have the right to remain silent, you have the right to an attorney.
If you can't afford an attorney "Docket number 37874.
" "People v.
Andrew Copefan.
The charge is Murder in the Second Degree.
" How does your client plead? Apologies, Your Honor.
For a moment I thought we were in civil court.
Well, get your geographical bearings and enter a plea, Counselor.
Not guilty.
People on bail? The People request remand, Your Honor.
Mr.
Copelan acted with depraved indifference when he deviated from normal standards of care by using an experimental AIDS vaccine, which caused the death of an 8-year-old patient.
Dr.
Copelan is a highly regarded member of the medical community involved in cutting-edge care for who depend solely upon his treatments to live.
There is no hint of a flight risk.
Except for his contacts in AIDS clinics in Europe, South America, and three African countries where the U.
S.
has no extradition treaty.
Got it, Counselor.
Bail is set at $500,000, and the doctor will surrender his passport.
"LAV-60.
" "A live-attenuated virus vaccine" "meant to boost the immune response in people already infected with AIDS.
" The M.
E.
says it's what killed Emily Miller.
For use only on animals.
How close was it to use in humans? The manufacturer was close to applying for an FDA investigation, but the drug was still proving lethal in 8% of canine recipients.
And the girl's condition before taking this drug? She'd developed full-blown AIDS six months ago.
So, the defense'll say it was AIDS that killed her.
Which it would have, eventually.
But does that excuse experimenting on an indigent child? Any chance it's children, plural? Still checking, but so far no other kids have any signs of subcutaneous injections.
If it was killing dogs, he'd know it could kill a child.
That's depraved indifference murder.
Or an attempt to prolong her life.
An unapproved experimental drug crosses the line.
Just know that it's not a very sharply drawn line.
Unless he has a financial motive.
It's being tested in two vivisection labs, one in Costa Rica, one in the city.
Neither has ties to Dr.
Copelan and his field research, but there is a connection between the three.
Their benefactor, Randolph McGinnis.
He owns a stake in the manufacturing company.
He paid the doctor to test it on humans? He did recently give $50 million to Children's Healing House for pediatric AIDS research.
Andrew Copelan spent four years working with incurable children.
You don't lock the man up, you put a halo on him.
Your $50 million donation to Children's Healing House? That was his halo? Damn right.
LAV-60, Mr.
McGinnis.
Any idea how it came to be used on Emily Miller? You want me to implicate Dr.
Copelan? I can't, and I won't.
Any theories on how it might have gotten into Dr.
Copelan's possession? I need a club sandwich.
You want one? You threatened to void your $50 million donation to Children's Healing House if they didn't bring down their pediatric HIV mortality rate.
You e-mailed Dr.
Copelan an article from the American Medical Journal, which ranked his study second in the nation for pediatric mortality.
I thought he might be interested.
The subject line of the e-mail was "shape up.
" Did you threaten to pull the 50 million? No.
How do you explain "shape up"? A suggestion.
Any indication he'd take it to heart? By being reckless, you mean? There's a subsequent responding e-mail asking for suggestions as to how to accomplish the task.
You recall my response, "I'm not the doctor"? But you have a financial stake in LAV-60, don't you? You own a quarter of the company that's producing it.
on humans? On little girls? That is a sick accusation.
Emily Miller didn't administer that drug to herself.
I gave Andrew Copelan 50 million because he is a generous, caring physician.
A donation that was never in danger.
Talk to his Chairwoman of the Community Advisory Board.
And show yourself out.
Randolph McGinnis is a devoted patron.
Do you think it's possible that he pressured Dr.
Copelan to test.
LAV-60 on Emily Miller? I can't imagine him making that suggestion.
Well, how do you think the drug got into her body, Ms.
Clemens? I don't know.
You recently tendered your resignation.
Yes.
It's hard not to read into the timing.
I don't know a thing about LAV-60, or how it wound up administered to Emily Miller.
But something about her death bothers you.
Or why leave? Dr.
Copelan agonizes over watching these children waste away and die.
But recently, he's become progressively more obsessed.
How so? He works all hours of the night.
If there's any hint of a breakthrough anywhere in the world, he's on the first plane out.
Do you think his obsession made him overreach? The charts are all in order.
But these children, their deaths were similar to Emily Miller's.
And Dr.
Copelan signed each death certificate as AIDS.
Four children, all under the age of 10.
Where were they buried? Cemeteries around the city in donated plots.
Can we locate the parents? They were orphans or wards of the state.
Perfect fodder for experimentation.
No one I spoke to makes him Dr.
Frankenstein.
Of course he gave up a successful general practice to pursue research.
We won't know what he is until we see what these kids really died of.
Get an order to exhume.
Two of the children had tissue decomp too advanced fort testing, but in these two, no question the cause of death is similar to Emily Miller.
LAV-60? There's no sign of that drug or elevated white cells to indicate allergic reactions, but organ failure, anemia.
From the same drug cocktail? Completely different in each.
Cameron Gonzales' toxicology revealed six medications to treat suppressed immunity.
Curtis Redmond had five.
Both cocktails were the cause of death, but each child has a different cocktail.
Different across the board? Two drugs overlap.
Past that, they were given different meds.
So, Dr.
Copelan was mixing and matching the drugs? To see which worked better.
Both combinations were lethal.
Cameron Gonzales and Curtis Redmond were sick kids.
I was trying to stave off their death.
With a lethal combination of drugs? One child could be argued as an accident, but three now? This is making me sick to my stomach.
Mine, too.
These children have a fatal disease.
You can't blame my client for the inevitable conclusion.
A conclusion he hastened with lethal experimentation! How do you explain the presence of LAV-60 vaccine in Emily Miller's system? She had a fanatical stepmother we had charged with abuse.
Her brother shot himself in the head.
Both of them were in her room within a day of her death.
One of them administered an experimental AIDS vaccine? No sale, Doctor! Prison? That's what you think is appropriate? Yes.
For working to cure AIDS? And not just in the U.
S.
Our phase three trials will bring antiviral regimens to 80,000 HIV-infected kids in Nigeria alone.
Some of who don't even have running water! Man two.
Community service at your discretion.
Even without LAV-60, three kids outside Institute of Health protocols is depraved indifference.
Experimenting on foster children and orphans without oversight? You want that in front of a jury? You'll go to trial with just Emily Miller, Mr.
McCoy.
No way those other deaths will make it into evidence.
We'll see.
This evidence has no probative value except to paint my client as some mad scientist experimenting on foster children.
The two additional victims refute any claim that Emily Miller's death was accidental.
The pattern of conduct supports our theory of depraved indifference murder.
If there's a pattern here, I'd like to see it.
So would I.
Mr.
McCoy? Each additional child displayed the same symptoms of organ failure, the same progress of disease But not the same cause of death.
The exact same cause of death.
Over-dosage of AIDS-suppressing medications.
Emily Miller, Cameron Gonzales, and Curtis Redmond each died with five or more medications in their system.
Yet in only two instances was there any overlap in the specific drugs.
What they were overdosed with is immaterial.
They were overdosed! These are different children whose viral loads would flare at different times, in different ways, requiring different combination of medications.
There's nothing similar about them.
Except they had the same general diagnosis, were in the same treatment program, with the same physician.
They're coincidental only in that they all died.
But it's a clinical trial to develop an effective pediatric AIDS cocktail, Your Honor, and unfortunately, in this field, children die.
These are three AIDS patients who didn't die of AIDS.
If the autopsy results had more similarities, or a greater degree of crossover of the various drugs But as it stands, it doesn't pass the balancing test.
The deaths are out.
The defense made Copelan the saintly shepherd ministering to dying lambs.
I was looking for a connection between Dr.
Copelan and LAV-60, and I found an AIDS clinic in Costa Rica where they say he was a patient.
He might have been experimenting to find a cure for himself.
Dr.
Copelan has AIDS.
What's his status? They said he's a patient in the AIDS clinic.
They won't say more.
Is this clinic the same place they're testing this, uh, LAV-60? That's a pharmaceutical lab about 50 miles south.
They're not associated.
Still, awfully close quarters.
I don't think that'll cut it with a jury.
He overdosed three kids! Well, all you can produce is one.
His disease is further motive for depraved indifference murder! How common is it for an AIDS clinician to have the disease? It's why some people go into the field.
But most people in the field don't have a trail of bodies in their wake.
Jack, how do you counter the notion that this is a guy trying to save lives? One of them being his own.
It negates any argument for experimenting on unwitting subjects.
It's still a last-ditch effort to keep them out of their graves.
You're gonna have family members give consent every day in every cancer ICU in the nation.
Sometimes just to further science.
But where was the science here? What was the hypothesis being tested? Where were the monitored protocols? The word for willy-nilly, self-serving experimentation isn't science! It's desperation.
Is the clinic in Costa Rica going to provide the doctor's medical files? It'll take some work with the Justice Department, but it's possible.
Well, you may get the records, but you're gonna have to fight like hell to get them into your case in chief.
New York public health laws prohibit disclosure of confidential HIV-related information.
One exception is a compelling need to disclose during a criminal proceeding.
The exception was intended for medical urgency so a rape victim could seek treatment if her attacker had the disease.
If Dr.
Copelan was over-medicating children in an attempt to cure his own illness, it proves his depravity.
That's not medical urgency.
The only way these records are compelling to the prosecution is as a means to prejudice the jury against my client.
Firsthand knowledge of treatment argues compellingly against unintentional or accidental overdosing.
His status undercuts his defense.
That's not what the legislature had in mind when they included the exception.
Your Honor, the prejudice held against a person afflicted with AIDS, it doesn't carry the stigma it did when the law was enacted.
The law's been revised many times since, and the privacy aspect's remained the same.
It's not coming in.
All we've got is Dr.
Copelan giving Emily Miller five drugs when the protocol was three.
Do you think we can convince a jury that's murder? Yes.
How long did you keep Emily off Dr.
Copelan's AIDS treatment regimen? Close to four weeks.
What was the result? A vast improvement.
She stopped throwing up, she could walk without using a cane.
She even began smiling.
What happened when you told Dr.
Copelan? He yelled at me.
He said Emily needed to be on her meds, end of story.
Did you question his logic? Absolutely.
That's when he called in Child Services to take Emily away.
No further questions, Your Honor.
Where did you attend medical school, Ms.
Henson? I never went to medical school.
Then on what basis did you stop administering Emily's drug regimen? She was getting sicker.
A mother knows, even a foster.
Can you tell me what mumbala khan is? It's a healing root.
Is it true that you took Emily off Dr.
Copelan's regimen in favor of putting her on mumbala khan? No.
Once Emily was off the regimen, I wanted to find a less painful way of boosting her immune system.
By administering an unproven herbal remedy that doesn't have FDA approval? I was trying to improve her health.
But isn't it true the day she was taken from your care a CD-Four count measured Emily's T cells at their lowest level in a year? Yes.
I was told that.
A situation from which Emily never recovered, correct? You can't say that I killed Emily.
I did everything I could to help her.
His regimen was making her miserable.
Knowing what you do now, do you think if you'd kept her on it, Emily might be here today? Objection! Ms.
Henson is not a doctor! Nothing further.
As the chairman of infectious diseases at East End Hospital, I've overseen 3,400 AIDS cases in the last 15 years.
Dr.
Roth, are you familiar with the drugs Calidrone, Nofolox, Thadnium, Drexenall, and DZB? Any three of these can comprise what's commonly called an AIDS cocktail.
Why is there a limit of only three? Well, each drug has the potential to cause life-threatening side-effects.
Was Emily Miller a candidate for these five drugs? No one is.
No further questions, Your Honor.
Isn't it true that the five drugs given to Emily by Dr.
Copelan are proven life-sustaining medications for AIDS patients? Yes.
Are there any other available treatments that could have saved Emily Miller's life? Not to my knowledge.
So medically, these drugs were Emily Miller's last hope for survival? In limited combination, as laid out by the Institute of Health.
How can you be sure only a limited combination could prove effective? Well, we can't even be sure of that.
So regardless of the medications given to Emily Miller, she would have eventually died of AIDS? All patients with AIDS eventually die of the disease.
No further questions.
But there is such a thing as mercy at the obvious end stages of life.
You work with children, Doctor? I have.
Have you worked with the elderly? Yes.
Do you find a difference in how aggressively you treat a patient disease versus a child, say, under 10? Objection, relevance! Withdrawn.
I'm done, unless Dr.
Roth has something more to add.
I just got off the phone with Davis Erlanger, the director of that vivisection lab that tests LAV-60? He just discovered some of their supply missing.
Before the trial, he said he'd never heard of Copelan.
Why is he calling now? Changed his tune? We just didn't notice a problem until a sudden spike in our canine mortality.
Here.
It's been diluted practically to water.
How many other bottles were diluted? Uh, eight so far.
When I spoke to you before the trial, you said you never heard of Dr.
Copelan.
I was certain that he'd gotten his sample from Costa Rica, and I just didn't wanna get our lab involved.
How do you know him? Well, he contacted me about six months ago for a sample of LAV-60.
For what purpose? He said he wanted to test it on himself.
I said, "Hell no.
" We'll subpoena you.
You tell that lie on the stand, it's perjury.
Lam not lying.
I didn't give it to him.
I just didn't wanna get our lab involved.
Well, you are now.
No one touches anything in this lab until a crime unit's been through.
Dr.
Copelan, we've heard police testimony that your fingerprint was found at a pharmaceutical testing laboratory on a medicine bottle containing a diluted dosage of the AIDS vaccine LAV-60.
How do you explain that? I was the one who stole the drug.
Replaced the contents with water.
LAV-60, wasn't that drug found in Emily Miller's toxicology screen? Yes, it was.
Because I administered it to her.
A potentially lethal, experimental medication that hasn't been approved by the FDA? She was in the end stages of her AIDS.
It was her last hope.
Was she the only person you administered this drug? I also gave it to myself.
To treat my own disease.
I have AIDS.
How did you contract HIV? Four years ago, returning to my hotel after doing research in a small village in lmo state, in Nigeria, our car blew a tire and flipped three times.
I suffered a deep laceration to my left arm and required a transfusion.
The hospital I was taken to didn't have means to properly test blood.
The transfused blood was infected with HIV.
And last year, I developed full-blown AIDS.
Do you think this has affected how you treat patients? L think I have even more compassion than I did before.
What about your attitude toward AIDS research in general? I have a greater sense of dedication.
Are you a fanatic, Doctor? Of course not.
Do you regret your course of action with Emily Miller? I was trying to save her life.
Unfortunately, I failed.
A heart-wrenching story, Doctor.
But doesn't it prove that you used Emily Miller as a guinea pig to test a dangerous treatment in the hope that it would be beneficial to you? Absolutely not.
Why was she the only one to receive the drug? It had to do with the timing of her decline, and when I acquired the drug.
Using Emily Miller wasn't more deliberate? Isn't it true that the mutation pattern of her virus is an exact mirror of yours? I don't know.
Your T cell count from the onset of AIDS is the exact same as Emily Miller's, only staggered back one year.
That suggests that your virus was mimicking hers, doesn't it, Doctor? I see a coincidence.
Sixteen CD4 plus counts in evidence for both you and Emily Miller.
If she scored a 316, a year later, so would you.
If she scored 420, a year later, so would you.
I guess there were similarities.
Didn't that make her a perfect candidate to test out future drug treatments for yourself? She wasn't a lab rat.
She was a patient in my care.
Then why didn't you tell your colleagues about your treatment of your patient? Because they would have objected.
I didn't wanna sit back and watch her die.
Did your experimentation on your patient yield any results? I'm afraid not.
Did you record any data? Publish any findings? All I learned was that the drug was fatal to her.
Which I deeply regret.
But apparently not fatal to you.
So, you must have learned something from experimenting on Emily Miller, or why administer it to yourself? How many people have you watched wither away and die, Mr.
McCoy? You didn't want to suffer her fate, so you pushed her treatment until it was lethal, isn't that true, Doctor? How many nights have you sat by a dying child's bedside, praying that a treatment might work? But for the child, Doctor, or for yourself? I did what I thought was right to save a young girl from a wasting hell.
Did I hope it might help my chance of survival? Yes, I did.
For Emily, for me, for thousands of others.
Yes, Mr.
McCoy, I admit that.
In the matter of the People v.
Andrew Copefan, on the count of murder in the second degree, how do you find? We find the defendant, Andrew Copelan, not guilty.
They wouldn't convict a dying man.
Maybe they figured if Emily'd survived, Dr.
Copelan would have won a Nobel Prize.
Maybe they're right.
Or they figured a vaccine that could save their own lives one day mattered more than a kid who was dying anyway.
These are their stories.
Table five is getting up.
Give me two seconds, all right? I'm waiting 20 minutes, and she just walked in.
Why can't she wait for table five? Fine.
I'll wait for table five.
Thank you.
Somebody call 911! Hurry! Twenty sets of eyes can't be wrong.
Male, maybe Hispanic.
Black hood, red baseball cap.
Anyone recognize him? Hood covered his face.
Is there any video? Not in the diner, but the red light cameras might have caught him running off.
Department of Transpo's pulling the tape.
Thanks.
Okay.
What do we got? One to the shoulder, one to the chest.
And Crime Scene pulled the slug that winged her out of the back wall of the cooler.
Still intact? Yeah, looks like it.
Small caliber.
Can you make sure Crime Scene gets that to Ballistics? Excuse me.
Detective Green, Detective Fontana.
How's your arm, miss Elaine Clemens.
It's just a graze.
I'll live.
Did you see the man who shot you? I turned my head, and it was over before I could turn around.
I can't help thinking if I'd just been standing a few inches further You weren't, so let's just concentrate on healing Detectives.
The victim's nephew's riling the crowd up outside.
Okay.
Nick.
This officer here's gonna take your information.
Thank you.
Guy with the smock, Carlos.
He's the cook here.
Carlos! Carlos! I'm Detective Green, this is Detective Fontana.
Listen, man, we're sorry about your uncle.
Now, did you see what happened? No, but I know what happened.
Damn dope dealers is what happened.
What dealers? What are you talking about? Puerto Rican guys from the neighborhood.
Why would they wanna shoot this place up? My uncle pepper-sprayed one of 'em the other day in front of his boys.
Well, who'd he pepper-spray? A wannabe punk named Prim.
And throwing out the garbage this morning, I saw his ass on the corner, glaring.
We called 5-0 on Prim, like, five times! Nada.
Do yourself a favor, stay out of this, and let us do our job, all right? Can I go? Yeah, but where can we find Prim? I got no idea.
All right, go.
But, Carlos, go be with your family, don't go looking for Prim, all right? We better find this guy Prim before this whole neighborhood turns into a war zone.
Hey is that our guy? That's him.
What's up, man? Why you following me? 'Cause you look guilty.
Turn around.
Hands up.
You got anything sharp in your pockets? Excuse me, sir.
Did you drop these? Did you? Ten decks of heroin within 1,000 feet of a school? That's "B" felony territory.
L told you those drugs wasn't mine! "B" felony, that's nine years, bro.
What is this? Y'all ain't even with Narcotics.
Man, sit your ass down.
You're right.
We're on Homicide.
As in the homicide of Oscar Morales.
You remember, the guy that pepper-sprayed you in front of his diner 'cause you were dealing drugs there? So, what happened? This old fool drop you in front of your friends and you got to represent, is that it? Not enough to shoot him.
Shoot him? Who mentioned anything about a shooting? Look, I got 15 guys who say I was on the corner when that shooting went down.
Fifteen of your boys and their hootchie-mamas isn't gonna make an alibi for you! I swear on my grandmother I ain't do this! Your grandmother ain't gonna cut it either.
Well, what if I said I seen who did? Would you negotiate with me for a minute? Why don't you tell us what you know, and we'll see if it helps your case.
I hear three shots.
I see a black kid with a hoodie and a red hat come stumbling out of the diner.
He was wearing a hat and a hood, and you still saw his face? I know the kid.
His name is Jeremy Miller Milner Something like that.
Dude's just a neighborhood hopper.
"Hopper"? What the hell is a hopper? He just hops along to get stuff.
Does whatever he has to do to make money.
You know, sweep storefronts, cop drugs, whatever.
Well, is there any indication that there's bad blood between this kid Jeremy and Morales? I don't know.
I only talked to the kid, like, three times.
So, where can we find this dude? He's been hanging out on the corner with us lately.
Said he was looking for a piece.
Guess he found one.
And what about my ten decks? If your information doesn't pan out, you have no idea the amount of trouble you're in.
Hey, Lou? Yes.
Prim's "hanging out on the corner" alibi checked out.
He was in front of the bodega across the street when the shots rang out.
The owner confirmed it.
What about the name he threw on us? This kid, Jeremy Miller.
He got collared two years ago for solicitation.
He's been in foster care most of his life.
Prim lD'd him as the shooter.
Anyone else ID? Witnesses saw a kid wearing a hood.
Did Ballistics get anything off the slug from the diner? There were no hits from IBIS.
So, is there any connection between our DOA Morales and this kid? Well, not so far.
And Morales doesn't have a history with street hustlers.
But that can mean he just never got caught.
Well, I don't know how much I trust a name coming from this guy Prim.
I mean, he's trying to work off, what, ten decks of dope? Look, if that kid's the shooter, he's on the street right now, he's 14, he's reckless, and he's got a gun.
All right.
Talk to the boy's foster parents.
We have no idea where he could be.
We did everything we could to parent him, but he came and went as he pleased.
Does he have any friends that we can talk to? No one.
Not anymore.
What does that mean? He had a younger sister, Emily.
She was born HIV positive, then developed full-blown AIDS.
She died two days ago.
Did Jeremy have HIV? His mother contracted it after he was born.
She died five years ago.
Did his sister live here, too? No, we couldn't accommodate her needs.
It's been that way with Jeremy all his life.
His sister's status has always kept them separated, but he's worked hard to keep in touch and to stay close.
Emily's the only person Jeremy really opened up to.
He must have been devastated.
He was, but not enough to go shoot people.
Do you know if Jeremy knew of a man named Oscar Morales? No.
Do you know if he ever spent any time at Mr.
Morales' diner at 175th and Broadway? That's near the hospital.
Where Jeremy's sister died.
Which hospital is that? Children's Healing House.
Where the other victim works.
We don't think Jeremy was aiming at Oscar Morales.
We think there's a possibility he was aiming at you.
Now, how much contact have you had with him? I'd see him here when he was visiting his sister.
But you're a hospital administrator, correct? Chairman of the hospital's Community Advisory Committee.
Well, then why do you think this kid would be gunning for you? I had to have security escort him out of the facility three weeks ago.
A floor nurse caught him disconnecting his sister's IV.
Assisted suicide? He said he was trying to take her home.
Or, as he said it, "Break her out".
Now, why would he want to break her out? When Emily's virus stopped responding to traditional medicines, her condition declined rapidly.
She was wasting away.
It was hard for us to watch, let alone a 14-year-old, but I had to have him barred from the facility.
Detective Green? Maybe of I allowed him supervised visits, that man would still be alive.
Ms.
Clemens, until Jeremy Miller is off the street, we think it's best that we put you into protective custody.
Is that really necessary? Well, by now he knows he went after the wrong target.
He might want to try and finish the job.
Hey, Joe, they just spotted him walking into the park across the street.
Ma'am, I need you to stay here with this officer, okay? He's on a bench in the park.
He's waiting for Clemens to leave the hospital.
There, next to the garbage can.
Threw his hood up about ten minutes ago.
Okay, make sure everybody knows that this kid is armed, all right? Got it.
Stay away from me! Now just take it easy, kid.
All we wanna do is talk.
Is that why you're drawing down on me? No, it's because you got that .
22 in your right pocket.
All right, listen, kid.
Now I want you to listen to me, okay? You can trust us.
My name is Detective Fontana, and this is Detective Green.
And we don't mean you any harm at all.
You wanna kill me.
I know you do.
No, no, not at all.
All we wanna do is talk with you.
Is that Spanish guy dead? Oh, you don't have to worry about him now.
I didn't mean to shoot him! I'm sorry! We now you are, man.
They did this.
The doctors.
That bitch Clemens! Okay, all right, that's exactly what we wanna talk about.
I could have saved her.
CHH killed her.
They murdered her! All right.
All right, we're gonna look into that for you, but for right now, stay calm and please hand that gun over to me.
Tell that man's family I'm sorry.
I'll tell you what.
Why don't we all get together and sit down, and then you can tell him yourself, in person, how sorry you really are.
How's that? I'm so sorry.
Look, if a kid's determined to go, it doesn't matter what you say to him.
He was here to do another murder.
It's a dirty shame, but I'll sleep fine.
All right.
Lou, we got a suicide note.
Let's see.
"She was all I had and they took her away.
They killed her.
" "Elaine Clemens killed her.
" "Why was her head caved in?" Didn't the sister die of AIDS? Well, that's what Clemens told us.
But, "Why was her head caved in?" Maybe that's why he was trying to break her out of the hospital, because she was being abused.
Maybe.
Look, I understand wanting to put this to bed.
It was an ugly thing to witness.
I'm fine, Lieutenant.
No one is fine watching a But maybe we'll sleep better knowing the truth.
Emily Miller.
The medical report says her cause of death was pneumonia resulting from AIDS, but our intake, she does show some head trauma.
So what about her autopsy? I didn't get there yet.
Well, what are you waiting for? We had five homicides in the last two days.
Until you called half an hour ago, she was low priority, natural causes.
Come on, with head trauma? Hey, cause of death says complications from AIDS.
There's a dead kid in a park that would argue with you about that, so do you mind checking her head wound for us right now, please? Yeah, it's a contusion about five centimeters in diameter.
Blunt force? Most likely.
Enough to kill her? Not without an autopsy.
Well, what's your best guess, Doctor? Well, terminal AIDS patients can hemorrhage pretty easily.
A mild whack on the head could have killed her.
You know, we're gonna hand this body over to Rodgers.
That way we're not guessing, all right? Fellas, once in a blue moon, a kid comes in dead with an AIDS diagnosis.
So, it's not outrageous to accept the medical report.
Who reported the death? Um, Dr.
Andrew Copelan, Children's Healing House.
This is the first I've heard of a contusion on her head.
Emily Miller died of AIDS, which she had since birth.
When was the last time you saw her alive? The morning she died, on rounds.
What was her condition? Her breathing was labored, she was in a lot of pain.
From her head? Joint pain.
And from the sores in her mouth.
Was there anything peculiar about her condition? No.
Well, then how would you explain a bedridden kid with a head injury? I honestly can't.
She didn't complain of it when I saw her that morning.
What time was it when you saw her? Well, who could've been in her room between the time you saw her and when she died? Doctor? Is there something on your mind? No one in the hospital would have harmed that little girl.
Elaine Clemens told us that watching her die was an awful thing to witness.
It was.
So if you know somebody who might have put her out of her misery, you should tell us about that.
I'm an orderly.
We don't get involved much with patients past shuttling them around.
You were close to Emily Miller.
You used to read to her, you brought her a teddy bear.
It was my daughter's.
She'd grown out of it.
Look, I'm gonna cut to the chase.
You were on duty when Emily died, and you took a collar for a domestic assault.
That was ten years ago! I was a different person back then.
Emily died of AIDS.
With head trauma, being looked after by a guy who has a problem with his hands.
From drinking, which I don't anymore.
And I wasn't the last person in the room, okay? Who was? I could lose my job if Dr.
Copelan finds out.
Look, if I were you, I'd worry about losing the next 20 years of your life.
Emily was so sick, and she was crying all the time.
She asked if I'd sneak her old foster mother in to see her.
Why would you have to sneak her in? Three months ago, Child Services took her to court and had her charged with abuse.
And you let this woman in that child's room? You got it all wrong.
Pamela's a decent lady.
She loved that girl! That abuse charge was ludicrous! And it wasn't for physical abuse, it was because I stopped giving Emily her AIDS medication.
Why'd you do something like that? Because that medication was supposed to make her better, not worse! Well, the judge disagreed.
The judge didn't spend every night wiping the vomit from her mouth.
When I took Emily out of CHH five months ago, she could barely walk.
Seven years old, 36 pounds.
Off the meds, she started gaining weight, she could even play in the park! Well, how does that add up to an abuse charge? Dr.
Copelan went ballistic.
He said she couldn't ever be off the regimen because she was part of a drug trial to find a more effective pediatric AIDS cocktail.
Fontana.
Excuse me for saying so, but that sounds like a good thing.
But he acts more like a zealot than a doctor.
Look, Ms.
Henson, you're gonna have to come down to the station house with us until we sort this out.
M.
E.
's found a cause of death.
The head contusion was non-lethal.
The number of drugs she was on, she most likely slipped and fell from pain or fatigue.
These are AIDS drugs we're talking about, right? Her tox screen reads like an AIDS pharmacopoeia.
Calidrone, Nofolox, Thadnium, Drexenall, DZB.
At these dosages and these meds, she probably felt like she was being burned alive from the inside out.
So what'd she die of? Her bone marrow depletion resulted in a multi-organ system failure.
Liver, kidneys, all caused by very powerful medications with potentially lethal side-effects.
So, what are we talking about here? Are we talking about hospital mishap, accidental overdose, what? Bone marrow failure this drastic doesn't happen overnight, and it doesn't happen at all to a person her age.
And look at this.
Track marks? Intramuscular.
And that's not in a place where you'd draw blood.
She must have been administered some drug outside her treatment protocol.
And every drug I can identify is given orally.
Every drug in Emily Miller's system has been approved for my phase two protocols.
These drugs are given orally, correct? Yes.
Well, then why would there be track marks on her leg? Unless you were giving her something you didn't want anyone else to know about.
Maybe she was self-mutilating.
Some of the young girls do that.
She had organ failure, muscle wasting, anemia.
You understand there's still no viable drug cocktail to cure or eliminate the virus in children.
Why don't you tell us what she was allergic to? You were using this girl as a guinea pig because she was a foster kid and she couldn't complain about it.
I was giving her cutting-edge care.
Which led directly to her grave, am I correct? There's something you're not telling us.
Our autopsy report proves it.
Any other questions? Talk to my lawyer.
Dr.
Copelan's grant guidelines say that no more than three drugs shall be administered on any test subject during one daily cycle.
Emily Miller died with five in her system.
So Dr.
Copelan violated the grant protocols.
It's a civil matter.
Look, this was a voluntary trial, but how does an 8-year-old comprehend the risks? Well, who gave the doctor her informed consent? Some neutral advocate rubber-stamped the thing.
So, from a legal standpoint, she didn't have to understand the risks.
Look, should Dr.
Copelan have monitored her condition better? Absolutely.
But the DA's office'll say that's a question for civil court.
Hey, the M.
E.
's office called.
Her friend at the CDC said the mystery drug that was in Emily Miller was an experimental AIDS vaccine only for use in animals.
We're way out of civil court now.
That sick son-of-a-bitch.
Detectives, what now? You're under arrest for the murder of Emily Miller.
I was her doctor.
What are you talking about? Then you should have acted like it.
Make sure the children stay on the regimen.
You have the right to remain silent, you have the right to an attorney.
If you can't afford an attorney "Docket number 37874.
" "People v.
Andrew Copefan.
The charge is Murder in the Second Degree.
" How does your client plead? Apologies, Your Honor.
For a moment I thought we were in civil court.
Well, get your geographical bearings and enter a plea, Counselor.
Not guilty.
People on bail? The People request remand, Your Honor.
Mr.
Copelan acted with depraved indifference when he deviated from normal standards of care by using an experimental AIDS vaccine, which caused the death of an 8-year-old patient.
Dr.
Copelan is a highly regarded member of the medical community involved in cutting-edge care for who depend solely upon his treatments to live.
There is no hint of a flight risk.
Except for his contacts in AIDS clinics in Europe, South America, and three African countries where the U.
S.
has no extradition treaty.
Got it, Counselor.
Bail is set at $500,000, and the doctor will surrender his passport.
"LAV-60.
" "A live-attenuated virus vaccine" "meant to boost the immune response in people already infected with AIDS.
" The M.
E.
says it's what killed Emily Miller.
For use only on animals.
How close was it to use in humans? The manufacturer was close to applying for an FDA investigation, but the drug was still proving lethal in 8% of canine recipients.
And the girl's condition before taking this drug? She'd developed full-blown AIDS six months ago.
So, the defense'll say it was AIDS that killed her.
Which it would have, eventually.
But does that excuse experimenting on an indigent child? Any chance it's children, plural? Still checking, but so far no other kids have any signs of subcutaneous injections.
If it was killing dogs, he'd know it could kill a child.
That's depraved indifference murder.
Or an attempt to prolong her life.
An unapproved experimental drug crosses the line.
Just know that it's not a very sharply drawn line.
Unless he has a financial motive.
It's being tested in two vivisection labs, one in Costa Rica, one in the city.
Neither has ties to Dr.
Copelan and his field research, but there is a connection between the three.
Their benefactor, Randolph McGinnis.
He owns a stake in the manufacturing company.
He paid the doctor to test it on humans? He did recently give $50 million to Children's Healing House for pediatric AIDS research.
Andrew Copelan spent four years working with incurable children.
You don't lock the man up, you put a halo on him.
Your $50 million donation to Children's Healing House? That was his halo? Damn right.
LAV-60, Mr.
McGinnis.
Any idea how it came to be used on Emily Miller? You want me to implicate Dr.
Copelan? I can't, and I won't.
Any theories on how it might have gotten into Dr.
Copelan's possession? I need a club sandwich.
You want one? You threatened to void your $50 million donation to Children's Healing House if they didn't bring down their pediatric HIV mortality rate.
You e-mailed Dr.
Copelan an article from the American Medical Journal, which ranked his study second in the nation for pediatric mortality.
I thought he might be interested.
The subject line of the e-mail was "shape up.
" Did you threaten to pull the 50 million? No.
How do you explain "shape up"? A suggestion.
Any indication he'd take it to heart? By being reckless, you mean? There's a subsequent responding e-mail asking for suggestions as to how to accomplish the task.
You recall my response, "I'm not the doctor"? But you have a financial stake in LAV-60, don't you? You own a quarter of the company that's producing it.
on humans? On little girls? That is a sick accusation.
Emily Miller didn't administer that drug to herself.
I gave Andrew Copelan 50 million because he is a generous, caring physician.
A donation that was never in danger.
Talk to his Chairwoman of the Community Advisory Board.
And show yourself out.
Randolph McGinnis is a devoted patron.
Do you think it's possible that he pressured Dr.
Copelan to test.
LAV-60 on Emily Miller? I can't imagine him making that suggestion.
Well, how do you think the drug got into her body, Ms.
Clemens? I don't know.
You recently tendered your resignation.
Yes.
It's hard not to read into the timing.
I don't know a thing about LAV-60, or how it wound up administered to Emily Miller.
But something about her death bothers you.
Or why leave? Dr.
Copelan agonizes over watching these children waste away and die.
But recently, he's become progressively more obsessed.
How so? He works all hours of the night.
If there's any hint of a breakthrough anywhere in the world, he's on the first plane out.
Do you think his obsession made him overreach? The charts are all in order.
But these children, their deaths were similar to Emily Miller's.
And Dr.
Copelan signed each death certificate as AIDS.
Four children, all under the age of 10.
Where were they buried? Cemeteries around the city in donated plots.
Can we locate the parents? They were orphans or wards of the state.
Perfect fodder for experimentation.
No one I spoke to makes him Dr.
Frankenstein.
Of course he gave up a successful general practice to pursue research.
We won't know what he is until we see what these kids really died of.
Get an order to exhume.
Two of the children had tissue decomp too advanced fort testing, but in these two, no question the cause of death is similar to Emily Miller.
LAV-60? There's no sign of that drug or elevated white cells to indicate allergic reactions, but organ failure, anemia.
From the same drug cocktail? Completely different in each.
Cameron Gonzales' toxicology revealed six medications to treat suppressed immunity.
Curtis Redmond had five.
Both cocktails were the cause of death, but each child has a different cocktail.
Different across the board? Two drugs overlap.
Past that, they were given different meds.
So, Dr.
Copelan was mixing and matching the drugs? To see which worked better.
Both combinations were lethal.
Cameron Gonzales and Curtis Redmond were sick kids.
I was trying to stave off their death.
With a lethal combination of drugs? One child could be argued as an accident, but three now? This is making me sick to my stomach.
Mine, too.
These children have a fatal disease.
You can't blame my client for the inevitable conclusion.
A conclusion he hastened with lethal experimentation! How do you explain the presence of LAV-60 vaccine in Emily Miller's system? She had a fanatical stepmother we had charged with abuse.
Her brother shot himself in the head.
Both of them were in her room within a day of her death.
One of them administered an experimental AIDS vaccine? No sale, Doctor! Prison? That's what you think is appropriate? Yes.
For working to cure AIDS? And not just in the U.
S.
Our phase three trials will bring antiviral regimens to 80,000 HIV-infected kids in Nigeria alone.
Some of who don't even have running water! Man two.
Community service at your discretion.
Even without LAV-60, three kids outside Institute of Health protocols is depraved indifference.
Experimenting on foster children and orphans without oversight? You want that in front of a jury? You'll go to trial with just Emily Miller, Mr.
McCoy.
No way those other deaths will make it into evidence.
We'll see.
This evidence has no probative value except to paint my client as some mad scientist experimenting on foster children.
The two additional victims refute any claim that Emily Miller's death was accidental.
The pattern of conduct supports our theory of depraved indifference murder.
If there's a pattern here, I'd like to see it.
So would I.
Mr.
McCoy? Each additional child displayed the same symptoms of organ failure, the same progress of disease But not the same cause of death.
The exact same cause of death.
Over-dosage of AIDS-suppressing medications.
Emily Miller, Cameron Gonzales, and Curtis Redmond each died with five or more medications in their system.
Yet in only two instances was there any overlap in the specific drugs.
What they were overdosed with is immaterial.
They were overdosed! These are different children whose viral loads would flare at different times, in different ways, requiring different combination of medications.
There's nothing similar about them.
Except they had the same general diagnosis, were in the same treatment program, with the same physician.
They're coincidental only in that they all died.
But it's a clinical trial to develop an effective pediatric AIDS cocktail, Your Honor, and unfortunately, in this field, children die.
These are three AIDS patients who didn't die of AIDS.
If the autopsy results had more similarities, or a greater degree of crossover of the various drugs But as it stands, it doesn't pass the balancing test.
The deaths are out.
The defense made Copelan the saintly shepherd ministering to dying lambs.
I was looking for a connection between Dr.
Copelan and LAV-60, and I found an AIDS clinic in Costa Rica where they say he was a patient.
He might have been experimenting to find a cure for himself.
Dr.
Copelan has AIDS.
What's his status? They said he's a patient in the AIDS clinic.
They won't say more.
Is this clinic the same place they're testing this, uh, LAV-60? That's a pharmaceutical lab about 50 miles south.
They're not associated.
Still, awfully close quarters.
I don't think that'll cut it with a jury.
He overdosed three kids! Well, all you can produce is one.
His disease is further motive for depraved indifference murder! How common is it for an AIDS clinician to have the disease? It's why some people go into the field.
But most people in the field don't have a trail of bodies in their wake.
Jack, how do you counter the notion that this is a guy trying to save lives? One of them being his own.
It negates any argument for experimenting on unwitting subjects.
It's still a last-ditch effort to keep them out of their graves.
You're gonna have family members give consent every day in every cancer ICU in the nation.
Sometimes just to further science.
But where was the science here? What was the hypothesis being tested? Where were the monitored protocols? The word for willy-nilly, self-serving experimentation isn't science! It's desperation.
Is the clinic in Costa Rica going to provide the doctor's medical files? It'll take some work with the Justice Department, but it's possible.
Well, you may get the records, but you're gonna have to fight like hell to get them into your case in chief.
New York public health laws prohibit disclosure of confidential HIV-related information.
One exception is a compelling need to disclose during a criminal proceeding.
The exception was intended for medical urgency so a rape victim could seek treatment if her attacker had the disease.
If Dr.
Copelan was over-medicating children in an attempt to cure his own illness, it proves his depravity.
That's not medical urgency.
The only way these records are compelling to the prosecution is as a means to prejudice the jury against my client.
Firsthand knowledge of treatment argues compellingly against unintentional or accidental overdosing.
His status undercuts his defense.
That's not what the legislature had in mind when they included the exception.
Your Honor, the prejudice held against a person afflicted with AIDS, it doesn't carry the stigma it did when the law was enacted.
The law's been revised many times since, and the privacy aspect's remained the same.
It's not coming in.
All we've got is Dr.
Copelan giving Emily Miller five drugs when the protocol was three.
Do you think we can convince a jury that's murder? Yes.
How long did you keep Emily off Dr.
Copelan's AIDS treatment regimen? Close to four weeks.
What was the result? A vast improvement.
She stopped throwing up, she could walk without using a cane.
She even began smiling.
What happened when you told Dr.
Copelan? He yelled at me.
He said Emily needed to be on her meds, end of story.
Did you question his logic? Absolutely.
That's when he called in Child Services to take Emily away.
No further questions, Your Honor.
Where did you attend medical school, Ms.
Henson? I never went to medical school.
Then on what basis did you stop administering Emily's drug regimen? She was getting sicker.
A mother knows, even a foster.
Can you tell me what mumbala khan is? It's a healing root.
Is it true that you took Emily off Dr.
Copelan's regimen in favor of putting her on mumbala khan? No.
Once Emily was off the regimen, I wanted to find a less painful way of boosting her immune system.
By administering an unproven herbal remedy that doesn't have FDA approval? I was trying to improve her health.
But isn't it true the day she was taken from your care a CD-Four count measured Emily's T cells at their lowest level in a year? Yes.
I was told that.
A situation from which Emily never recovered, correct? You can't say that I killed Emily.
I did everything I could to help her.
His regimen was making her miserable.
Knowing what you do now, do you think if you'd kept her on it, Emily might be here today? Objection! Ms.
Henson is not a doctor! Nothing further.
As the chairman of infectious diseases at East End Hospital, I've overseen 3,400 AIDS cases in the last 15 years.
Dr.
Roth, are you familiar with the drugs Calidrone, Nofolox, Thadnium, Drexenall, and DZB? Any three of these can comprise what's commonly called an AIDS cocktail.
Why is there a limit of only three? Well, each drug has the potential to cause life-threatening side-effects.
Was Emily Miller a candidate for these five drugs? No one is.
No further questions, Your Honor.
Isn't it true that the five drugs given to Emily by Dr.
Copelan are proven life-sustaining medications for AIDS patients? Yes.
Are there any other available treatments that could have saved Emily Miller's life? Not to my knowledge.
So medically, these drugs were Emily Miller's last hope for survival? In limited combination, as laid out by the Institute of Health.
How can you be sure only a limited combination could prove effective? Well, we can't even be sure of that.
So regardless of the medications given to Emily Miller, she would have eventually died of AIDS? All patients with AIDS eventually die of the disease.
No further questions.
But there is such a thing as mercy at the obvious end stages of life.
You work with children, Doctor? I have.
Have you worked with the elderly? Yes.
Do you find a difference in how aggressively you treat a patient disease versus a child, say, under 10? Objection, relevance! Withdrawn.
I'm done, unless Dr.
Roth has something more to add.
I just got off the phone with Davis Erlanger, the director of that vivisection lab that tests LAV-60? He just discovered some of their supply missing.
Before the trial, he said he'd never heard of Copelan.
Why is he calling now? Changed his tune? We just didn't notice a problem until a sudden spike in our canine mortality.
Here.
It's been diluted practically to water.
How many other bottles were diluted? Uh, eight so far.
When I spoke to you before the trial, you said you never heard of Dr.
Copelan.
I was certain that he'd gotten his sample from Costa Rica, and I just didn't wanna get our lab involved.
How do you know him? Well, he contacted me about six months ago for a sample of LAV-60.
For what purpose? He said he wanted to test it on himself.
I said, "Hell no.
" We'll subpoena you.
You tell that lie on the stand, it's perjury.
Lam not lying.
I didn't give it to him.
I just didn't wanna get our lab involved.
Well, you are now.
No one touches anything in this lab until a crime unit's been through.
Dr.
Copelan, we've heard police testimony that your fingerprint was found at a pharmaceutical testing laboratory on a medicine bottle containing a diluted dosage of the AIDS vaccine LAV-60.
How do you explain that? I was the one who stole the drug.
Replaced the contents with water.
LAV-60, wasn't that drug found in Emily Miller's toxicology screen? Yes, it was.
Because I administered it to her.
A potentially lethal, experimental medication that hasn't been approved by the FDA? She was in the end stages of her AIDS.
It was her last hope.
Was she the only person you administered this drug? I also gave it to myself.
To treat my own disease.
I have AIDS.
How did you contract HIV? Four years ago, returning to my hotel after doing research in a small village in lmo state, in Nigeria, our car blew a tire and flipped three times.
I suffered a deep laceration to my left arm and required a transfusion.
The hospital I was taken to didn't have means to properly test blood.
The transfused blood was infected with HIV.
And last year, I developed full-blown AIDS.
Do you think this has affected how you treat patients? L think I have even more compassion than I did before.
What about your attitude toward AIDS research in general? I have a greater sense of dedication.
Are you a fanatic, Doctor? Of course not.
Do you regret your course of action with Emily Miller? I was trying to save her life.
Unfortunately, I failed.
A heart-wrenching story, Doctor.
But doesn't it prove that you used Emily Miller as a guinea pig to test a dangerous treatment in the hope that it would be beneficial to you? Absolutely not.
Why was she the only one to receive the drug? It had to do with the timing of her decline, and when I acquired the drug.
Using Emily Miller wasn't more deliberate? Isn't it true that the mutation pattern of her virus is an exact mirror of yours? I don't know.
Your T cell count from the onset of AIDS is the exact same as Emily Miller's, only staggered back one year.
That suggests that your virus was mimicking hers, doesn't it, Doctor? I see a coincidence.
Sixteen CD4 plus counts in evidence for both you and Emily Miller.
If she scored a 316, a year later, so would you.
If she scored 420, a year later, so would you.
I guess there were similarities.
Didn't that make her a perfect candidate to test out future drug treatments for yourself? She wasn't a lab rat.
She was a patient in my care.
Then why didn't you tell your colleagues about your treatment of your patient? Because they would have objected.
I didn't wanna sit back and watch her die.
Did your experimentation on your patient yield any results? I'm afraid not.
Did you record any data? Publish any findings? All I learned was that the drug was fatal to her.
Which I deeply regret.
But apparently not fatal to you.
So, you must have learned something from experimenting on Emily Miller, or why administer it to yourself? How many people have you watched wither away and die, Mr.
McCoy? You didn't want to suffer her fate, so you pushed her treatment until it was lethal, isn't that true, Doctor? How many nights have you sat by a dying child's bedside, praying that a treatment might work? But for the child, Doctor, or for yourself? I did what I thought was right to save a young girl from a wasting hell.
Did I hope it might help my chance of survival? Yes, I did.
For Emily, for me, for thousands of others.
Yes, Mr.
McCoy, I admit that.
In the matter of the People v.
Andrew Copefan, on the count of murder in the second degree, how do you find? We find the defendant, Andrew Copelan, not guilty.
They wouldn't convict a dying man.
Maybe they figured if Emily'd survived, Dr.
Copelan would have won a Nobel Prize.
Maybe they're right.
Or they figured a vaccine that could save their own lives one day mattered more than a kid who was dying anyway.