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This week's episode combines a nail-biting legal plot with a nail-biting romantic one.

In the courtroom drama portion, Rebecca and Eugene defend Jan, a young woman who murdered her own mother during her birthday celebration. As is the case with so many clients of Donnell, Young, Frutt & Dole, Jan doesn't remember the event. She does remember being sexually abused as a child, by her now-deceased father. Although this repressed memory is still unclear, Jan can recall specific incidents of abuse related to her early birthdays. Thus, her birthday celebration allegedly triggered memories of sexual abuse, which led to a flashback. Rebecca and Eugene defend Jan on the grounds that she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and is not responsible for the murder of her mother.

The prosecution calls Jan's older sister, Briana, to testify. Parenthetically -- Rebecca's observation that Briana can be forced to testify against her own sister is correct. Briana was also visiting her mother's at the time of the killing but did not actually witness it. On the stand, Briana denies their father ever abused either herself or Jan. Still, her description of Jan immediately after the killing seems consistent with PTSD: Briana testifies she found her sister sitting in the kitchen over the dying body in a non-responsive haze.

This, apparently, was the prosecution's entire case. One witness. I should tell you that there are no murder trials in which the prosecution offers only one witness. I assume we only see one witness because there is only one hour (more like 41 minutes when you account for commercials) in which to present two plots. Undoubtedly, the prosecution in a real case would have offered the testimony of the police officer called to the scene; the detective who investigated the killing and took statements from Jan; a medical examiner to testify as to the cause of death; and so forth. But you already know this from watching Law & Order.

Aside from witnesses in general, the one other thing I found missing from the prosecution's case was a motive for Jan to murder her mother. Briana testifies her sister was angry with her mother because Jan believed her mother knew of the sexual abuse and did nothing to prevent it. But the prosecution cannot suggest this as a motive without conceding that Jan truly believed that she had been abused. So they have no motive and it's not until Jan testifies in her own defense that we learn she stands to inherit more than one million dollars from her mother's estate. One million dollars is a whole lot of motive. In a real murder trial, the prosecution would have had Briana testify about the alleged motive as an integral part of its case in chief.

Perhaps because the prosecutor calls only one witness, Rebecca and Eugene put on only two: Dr. Starger, Jan's psychiatrist, and Jan herself. Again, if The Practice were a two-hour show, I'm sure they would have called others, such as Jan's childhood pediatrician to testify to physical symptoms consistent with sexual abuse; anyone who had observed Jan having other flashbacks; or anyone with whom she had discussed the alleged sexual abuse. To prevail here, Jan must demonstrate to the jury some symptoms of PTSD (recurrent depression, anxiety, panic, phobias, anger, rage, low self-esteem, feelings of being damaged and/or worthless, shame, self-destructive thoughts and/or behavior, substance abuse, eating disorders, intimacy difficulties, sexual dysfunction, time loss, memory gaps, sleep disturbances, nightmares, insomnia, sleepwalking; and the list goes on and on).

As that list suggests, the psychiatrist -- Dr. Starger's -- outline of the elements of post-traumatic stress disorder is wildly over-simplified. Experts believe PTSD may actually affect hundreds of thousands of survivors of disasters such as earthquakes, airplane crashes, terrorist bombings, inner-city violence, domestic abuse, rape, war, and genocide. Yet, because PTSD does not leave any physical scarring or show up on a CAT scan, it has become one of those defenses the public decries -- like the battered wife defense, the premenstrual syndrome defense, the "twinkie" defense, and TV intoxication defense. The public distrusts these defenses because they can be faked; because they are beyond the normal experiences of most of us; and because at least a few of them are just plain wacky.

Moreover, I find that as a practitioner, it is difficult to persuade a jury to embrace these affirmative defenses because there is a strong natural human tendency to ascribe blame for a crime, just so we all can feel protected from this threat. Back in early English law, this tendency was plain. Animals and other inanimate objects were "prosecuted" for their crimes, and not infrequently either. For instance, if a tree fell on a person, early English law provided that the tree was to be chopped to bits. Bad tree.

I digress.

After the jury decides Jan is not guilty, and she is released, she experiences another PTSD episode that very evening while out with Briana. Jan is sitting at the wheel of her car, believes her sister to be her father walking in front of the car, and runs her down, killing her instantly. Did she again believe she was a six-year old child? Could she again convince a jury that she rationally believed that she was in imminent danger of being sexually abused?

I can't help thinking Jan's next murder trial might have a different result.

Finally, one of the issues I have with legal dramas, including this week's episode of The Practice, is an over-reliance on the surprise witness - the person who miraculously appears from nowhere to provide the incontrovertible piece of evidence that turns everything around. In this case, Briana consistently denied she or her sister were ever abused. But thanks to a surprise witness in the form of Briana's ex-husband, Briana is called back to the stand and Eugene's cross-examination convinces the jury that Briana is in denial with respect to the abuse.

You know, I think I could win all my trials if I got to write in a surprise witness. It's just too easy.

Oh, and before I forget, in the "non-law" portion of the show, it looks like it's over for Bobby and Lindsay. They are fighting about which gown Lindsay will wear at the wedding. Bobby insists Lindsay must get married in his mother's somewhat outdated wedding gown. She refuses. They patch it up -- not the gown, the fight -- for now. Don't count on this working out. So I am asking right now why there are no pre-nups? What good is the law if it cannot lay out which lawyer gets to keep the ring when this engagement ends?

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