Build a movie plot around this: Who has to participate in rigging a case with the prosecutor? Paul Grey
Set in Washington DC, Suspect centers on three disparate characters. Carl Wayne Anderson is a homeless, deaf-mute Vietnam veteran accused of murdering Elizabeth Quinn, a file clerk at the Justice Department. Kathleen Riley is the beleaguered Federal Public Defender assigned to represent Anderson. An agribusiness lobbyist who normally works on Capitol Hill, Eddie Sanger, is made a member of the jury and begins investigating the details of the murder himself, eventually teaming up with Riley to solve the case. We see some early scenes of Sanger's work as a lobbyist on Capitol Hill, including his efforts to win passage of a bill by seducing a Congresswoman. While not relevant to the movie's plot, these scenes are establishing shots giving us a sense for Sanger as a charming, though somewhat ruthless, person.The movie begins around Christmas with the suicide of a United States Supreme Court Justice, for which no explanation or context is given. We only see the Justice making a tape recording and then shooting himself. Shortly after the Justice's suicide, Elizabeth Quinn's body is found floating in the Potomac river, and Carl Wayne Anderson is arrested for the crime, based almost entirely on the fact that he was found sleeping in Quinn's car, which was abandoned in the parking lot where she worked (and was mostly deserted at night). Anderson explains that he found it unlocked and was just looking for a warm place to sleep since it was the dead of winter. But since he was homeless, had no alibi, and was found in Quinn's car, he was arrested for her murder. The establishing scenes show Riley trying to communicate with Anderson and realizing that he is a deaf-mute. Over time, she begins to penetrate his hard exterior and he tries to cooperate with her efforts to mount a defense for him.In the District of Columbia, all crimes are tried in the federal courts, so a murder trial that would normally be in state court was in federal court instead. Riley selects Sanger to be a member of her jury. Soon thereafter, it becomes...