Law & Order1990

Ms. Sharkey:
Your Honor, my client is ten years old. She has teddy bears on her bedspread and a Big Bird piggy bank filled with pennies and she killed a child. It's so incongruous, it's almost inconceivable. Dr. Olivett has testified that because of her age and because of the way her brain works she simply couldn't appreciate that as she struck Aaron Polansky with a rock she was killing him. Jenny thought she could revive him with a one and a half volt battery. It speaks for itself. Mr. McCoy's position is to ignore the question of responsibility and brand Jenny Brandt a killer - she'll never change, we have to put her away. People change, if anyone can change it's a child. And Dr. Olivett has emphasized that this will not happen in a state mental hospital. Mr. McCoy's solution is a solution of last resort. Please, don't give up on her Judge.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
Jenny got dealt a lousy hand. I look at her with pity and regret. But Jenny Brandt is trouble. She battered Aaron Polansky's head and stuffed him in a pipe. Ms. Sharkey wants us to believe that she didn't appreciate what she did, I don't agree. Jenny daydreams about killing small boys. She even had a trial run with a cat but ultimately what she could or could not appreciate is irrelevant. Jenny is a loaded gun, she is a cocked fist with a rock and she needs to be stopped before she kills again. Dr. Olivett talks about sending Jenny to a state institution like it's a death sentence that turns the world upside down. Aaron Polansky got a death sentence! Jenny would get treatment. Now everybody knows state psychiatric care could be better. But letting Jenny get away with murder won't help this girl. How will she ever appreciate that her actions have consequences if there are none? And how many children will she kill before the adult criminal justice system can take over? Do we have to wait and see? Ms. Sharkey would like us to cross our fingers and hope. Hope that it won't happen again. I have my own kind of hope. I hope the state doctors can find a way to fix this girl, I hope that it takes six months. But until they do, we can't afford Ms. Sharkey's brand of hope, we need to protect the Aaron Polanskys of this world from Jenny Brandt.