CONVICTION: Following Orders {Recap}

Conviction keeps hitting hard cases and keeps making me wonder and what point is something too real for fiction.

The case this week involves a man – Leo Scarlata – who is not as smart as the average citizen, who was convicted of setting fire to his family restaurant that ultimately killed one man and injured another. Because the client for CIU was now allowed to argue diminished capacity (saying that the man couldn’t fully understand what he did), he’d been in jail for fifteen years.

In the last few years a documentary filmmaker (Christian Campbell) has been using Leo’s case to make a point about the number of inmates who are below what is considered normal IQ.

CONVICTION – “A Simple Man” –
HAYLEY ATWELL, JASON FURLANI

Before finding out that Leo had been told to follow a direction that lead to the fire (his sister-in-law changed his chore list to put cat litter in with the cooking oil), the filmmaker hits too close to home for all of the CIU team.

Hayes (Hayley Atwell) is leery of the press after her last time in front of a camera, Tess (Emily Kinney) reveals a secret about her life, Maxine and Sam tussle over how they each responded to the last case, all of which put the unit on edge.

But what hit me the most if how easy it was for Leo’s sister-in-law to have him follow a new direction to disastrous results. Are there so many people that fail to think before they act that this case is normal?

I think I’d rather it to be the exception rather than the rule.

Conviction airs Mondays at 10PM/9PM Central on ABC.