When teenager Chris Pollit beats a fellow foster home resident to death, his lawyer seeks a not guilty verdict by reason of genetic defect, claiming that Pollit is genetically predisposed to violence because he has an extra Y chromosome.

After 82-year-old Mildred Bauer is found dead in her apartment, suspicion immediately turns to her at-home caregiver and her boyfriend until the medical examiner reveals that the elderly woman had been starved to death. Feeding instructions given to Maria by Laura, the deceased woman's granddaughter, turn Stone's eye on the young woman, and she is charged with neglect and grave indifference to human life.