When a woman is found shot to death in her apartment, Detectives Benson and Stabler discover 14-year-old Nathan Phelps, traumatized and hiding in the closet. The investigation leads the detectives to Ted Carthage, the head of a charity organization, and whose voice Nathan recognizes as belonging to the man who shot his mother. Without a positive I.D., Carthage is released, but later found dead - shot by Nathan. A.D.A. Novak must prosecute Nathan and attempts to give him a break when his attorney Sophie Devere finds a study that suggests people who witness gun violence are more likely to commit acts of violence themselves. But their plan to settle with a plea is disrupted when a gun manufacturer's advocacy group catches wind of the defense, fearing legal implications.

When a newborn baby boy is discovered in the trash, Detectives Benson and Stabler use a bar t-shirt found at the scene to trace the crime back to a well-to-do college co-ed. At the precinct, the girl collapses and is treated for a potentially lethal post-conception complication, where she then admits to Benson that she had been raped and was unaware that she had been pregnant prior to the birth. The girl soon loses sympathy when it is also discovered that the girl had been connected to another abandoned newborn a year later, but was never arrested - and that the girl is the daughter of a city councilman. At the trial, Dr. Huang's diagnosis of postpartum psychosis sets the stage for the defense - but it's soon discovered other factors are at play when the father of both abandoned babies is revealed.