Unreasonable Doubt (Dead Zone)
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| “Unreasonable Doubt” | |
|---|---|
| The Dead Zone episode | |
 The jury |
|
| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 5 |
| Guest stars | Blu Mankuma Jim Byrnes Esme Lambert Patricia Mayen-Salazar Dexter Bell Manoj Sood Kirsten Williamson Alex Diakun Kett Turton Wanda Cannon Julia Arkos Dean Marshall Eric Keenleyside Tom Scholte Adrien Dorval Geoff Adams Doron Bell Jonathon Ndukwe Dion Johnstone |
| Written by | Michael Taylor |
| Directed by | Robert Lieberman |
| Production no. | 1005 |
| Original airdate | 14 July 2002 |
| Episode chronology | |
| ← Previous | Next → |
| "Enigma" | "The House" |
| List of The Dead Zone episodes | |
"Unreasonable Doubt" is the fifth episode of the USA Network original series the Dead Zone, based on the novel of the same name by Stephen King.
[edit] Plot Synposis
Johnny and Bruce check Johnny's mailbox, and find a jury summons, from which Johnny sees a vision of eleven jurors voting guilty while Johnny, as Juror #12, seems undecided.
Johnny reports to the Penobscot County Superior Courthouse, where he encounters one of the jurors from his vision, a man named Vic Goodman, and sees a vision of Vic talking to a male prisoner across a glass partition. In the courtroom, Johnny is interviewed by the judge, public defender, and prosecutor after the other eleven jurors have been selected; the judge deems Johnny fit to serve, and appoints him as Juror #12.
From Wednesday to Friday, the jurors observe the trial of 17-year-old high school junior Carl Winters, who is accused of armed robbery and the murder of convenience store clerk Noonian Soong. The prosecutor presents his opening argument; Emily Tager testifies that she ran for her life after hearing gunshots; the prosecutor shows security footage that indicates that Winters had a gun in his belt at the store; the public defender argues that Tager had not heard gunshots, but breaking bottles; finally, the judge implores the jurors to "consider the evidence" and "render a verdict."
On Friday evening, the jurors retire to the jury room to begin deliberations. Juror #11 professes to be a fan of Johnny's, and gives him a business card that gives Johnny a vision of the man running an occult website called ObscureTruth.com. The jurors become acquainted, some of them clashing over personality quirks, while other are more amiable. Johnny sees a vision off of Juror #2 of the girl being accosted by two male assailants. Juror #11 nominates Johnny as jury foreman, but Juror #1 is elected instead, and calls for an immediate vote; while all of the other eleven jurors vote guilty, Johnny picks up Winters' keychain and sees a vision of the teenager being stabbed to death in prison, and subsequently votes not-guilty.
Johnny argues that while he may not believe Winters is innocent, they must consider all of the evidence before returning a guilty verdict. Juror #7 agrees on the condition that Johnny explain what has given him reasonable doubt; while Johnny explains the need for certainty, he picks up the witness statement given by 75-year-old Walter Beckly, and sees a vision of Winters and his two friends entering the convenience store on the night of Soong's murder. He also sees a third car at the scene — a Chrysler sedan — in addition to Winters' convertible and the econo car in the lot.
Johnny explains that the discrepancy between Beckly's statement and his testimony is enough to warrant a thorough review of the evidence. Jurors #3 and #8 agree that the discrepancy is significant, but Juror #7 gets irritated with Johnny's "nightclub act." Juror #7 then hands Johnny the gun that was used to commit the murder and demands to know who actually killed Soong. Johnny takes the weapon and sees a vision of the murder, though he can't see the killer's face.
Juror #7 insists that the security footage showed Winters with the gun in the store, but Johnny corrects him by pointing out that no evidence ties Winters to the murder weapon, which had been found in a dumpster, and the footage could not show which gun Winters had been carrying; Winters had claimed that the gun he had was a toy that he could not find later. Remembering his previous vision off Goodman, Johnny appeals to Juror #10 to consider the possibility that his brother was innocent; when Juror #1 calls for another vote, both Johnny and Goodman vote not-guilty.
The judge visits the jurors to hear Jurors #1 and #7 make an argument against Johnny for jury-tampering; the judge finds the argument baseless and sees the disparity in Beckly's statement as sufficient to warrant further deliberation. The jurors order Thai take-out for dinner, and when Johnny passes a bottle of water to Juror #7, he sees a vision of the man on a basketball court as an SUV rolls past. Juror #6 insists that Johnny and the judge are crazy, and Juror #7 claims that, as a black man on a jury deliberating a case against a black teenager, he has a responsibility to send the message that "actions have consequences," and that part of that responsibility is sending "Winters to prison for the crime he committed."
In the jury room, Johnny touches one of the slugs taken from the crime-scene and sees a vision of Tager in the convenience store as Winters and his two friends enter. Winters' friends accost Tager while Soong tries to get them out of his store by pointing out that they're being videotaped; Tager flees the store as one of the kids spray-paints over the video-camera. Winters uses the distraction to shoplift two quart bottles of beer, but Soong catches him and causes him to drop the bottles (and his keychain), shattering them on the floor. Johnny also notices a lurking shadow in the back of the store.
In the jury room, Johnny picks up the murder weapon as well, and has a vision of the murder from Soong's point-of-view, though he can't see the killer's face; he does see that Winters' car was leaving the parking lot as the killer left the store, meaning that Winters was not the gunman. Conceding that his visions are not evidence, Johnny asks Juror #1 to get the security footage from the bailiff. The jurors watch the video again, which displays the same events that Johnny saw up to the moment that Winters' friend spray-painted the video-camera. When they reverse the tape to before Tager entered the store, however, Juror #9 notices movement in a convex mirror, confirming that the shadow Johnny saw had been another person in the store.
Juror #1 calls another vote; this time, only Jurors #2 and #7 vote guilty, while everyone else allies with Johnny. Juror #7 defends his guilty vote against the rest of the jury, but Johnny questions Juror #2, who is basing her entire guilty vote on her belief that Tager was correct when she said she heard gunshots. Johnny then picks up Tager's testimony, and sees a vision from Tager's point-of-view of the encounter with Winters' friends in the convenience store; he sees Winters exit the store after the sonuds of the two broken bottles (which Tager took for gunshots).
In the jury room, Johnny concedes to Juror #2 that Tager must have been terrified after having been accosted; he admits that he understands her desire to empathize with Tager (based on his previous vision of Juror #2), but that it is not right to convict Winters for a murder he may not have committed based on the unreliable testimony of a terrified witness. Juror #7 explodes that Johnny has fed them "shadows and broken bottles" to put them "in a trance," but Juror #2 changes her vote as well to leave Juror #7 as the lone guilty vote.
As he rants that he won't change his vote, Juror #7 pokes Johnny in the chest, giving him a vision of the basketball court as the SUV rolls past, a gun emerging from the back window that opens fire; Juror #7 scoops up a child who has been shot. Back in the jury room, Juror #7 demands that "the man is guilty," and Johnny asks if Juror #7 is talking about Winters, or "the gangbanger who almost killed [his] son." Shocked, Juror #7 faces the fact that he brought his own past and bias into the jury room.
The next day, the jury announces that it has found Carl Winters not-guilty on all charges. Johnny sees Juror #8 and #2 heading out for breakfast before Winters and his family passes, and Winters nods his appreciate to Johnny and Goodman. Juror #11 asks if Johnny could see who the real murderer was, and Johnny tells Goodman that he'll have to give a description of Chrysler "sedan from the late sixties" to Walt so that they can track down Soong's killer.
[edit] Trivia
- The opening sequence of the child on the Big Wheel is an homage to the 1980 Stanley Kubrick film the Shining, which was also adapted from a Stephen King novel.
- The plot of the episode is a tribute to the 1957 Sidney Lumet film 12 Angry Men.
- Juror #11, otherwise known as "Fan Man" (played by Adrien Dorval), returned in the "documentary" that appeared at the beginning of the second-season premier "Valley of the Shadow."
- Juror #8 mentions Boston Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martinez facing off against the New York Yankees. While Martinez did pitch for the Red Sox against the Yankees on Friday, July 19, 2002 (five days after the episode aired), the game did not unfold as described; Boston won 4-2, not 2-1, and Martinez was not perfect through eight — he walked Derek Jeter, the second batter of the game.
- Juror #7 tells Johnny that he shares a name with Bonanza character Ben Cartwright.
- Juror #9 does an impression of Austin Powers' classic "ca-raa-zy, baby" line.
- Juror #7 refers to the Chris Rock stand-up special Bigger & Blacker.
- According to shooting script and an article on USA Network's website, the Pakistani clerk is named Noonian Soong, after the cyberneticist who created the androids B-4, Lore, and Data in the Star Trek: The Next Generation universe. Nicole de Boer (Sarah Bannerman) joined the cast of that show's spin-off, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, in 1998.
- Winters calls Noonian Soong "Apu," in reference to the recurring Indian Kwik-E-Mart clerk from The Simpsons.
- Juror #2 mentions the now-defunct Curse of the Bambino.
