A young lawyer is devastated when a rape victim he cross examined at trial commits suicide right before his eyes.

SYNOPSIS:

The year is 1981. The place is the gritty and drug infested South Bronx--the poorest neighborhood with the highest crime rate in the country at a time when the Spider-man rapist is terrorizing not only women in the Bronx, but the entire city.

Abandoned by his father when he was just a baby, raised by a devoted mother and a Sicilian stepfather who was a brutal disciplinarian, Nick Mannino, just two years out of law school, is working for the NYC Legal Aid Society as a criminal defense attorney. Thus far, he has a perfect record-seven straight acquittals. We first meet him in the Teaser weeping into his hands after the body of a teenage girl fell crashing on to the hood of an NYPD police car. “What did I do? What did I do?” he asks.

The pilot flashes back a week when Nick, a complicated character, wakes up in bed with a bloodshot eye--the result of a fight he had the night before in a disco parking lot. “What’s with you lately?” his buddy asks.

Back at the office we meet Amy, a young black woman and friend of Nick’s, who has her own troubles. Her brother is sick from an unknown disease, and her white boyfriend just called them quits. She has a deep affection for Nick and admires his court room skills. We are unsure how Nick feels in return. He has a girlfriend, Eleanor, born into a rich Atlanta family and currently an assistant district attorney in Manhattan whose mother does not approve of Nick.

Other characters include, David Perez, a disabled Vietnam vet and one of Nick’s supervisors. He has quite the temper, evident by the broken chair over a recent decision rendered by a callous judge. Sheila Schoenfeld is the complex supervisor. She is bright and caring, and concerned about Nick. He is working too hard and losing weight. He has just won his seventh trial and is immediately about to pick a jury in the rape case.

Nick’s life gets more complicated with help from his uncle Rocco, who is a capo in a New York crime family, currently at odds with a Bronx mafioso who seems to be muscling in on his action. Rocco is Nick’s godfather and despite Nick’s efforts to distance himself, Rocco remains in his life to Nick’s constant disapproval and dismay.

Nick copes with his anger issues by training in a boxing gym where he is quite the talent as well.

Nick’s secretary, Brenda, has her own serious problems. Her young daughter is suffering from leukemia. Nick’s empathy for her is evident throughout.

The pilot concludes with the tail end of the rape trial and Nick’s grueling cross examination of the young 17-year-old Hispanic teenager, the victim’s breakdown after the verdict, and then a repeat Teaser smash-cut of the body falling on to a NYC police car--while the Spider-man rapist hones in on his next victim.