It’s been 18 months in jail and a half dozen lawyers since Gigi Jordan was arrested for the murder of her son, Jude.  Judge Charles Solomon denied her bail again, even though the proffer was to match the terms allowed Dominique Strauss-Kahn. 

There were four major distinctions between the two cases: 

DSK is a billionaire, whereas Jordan is only worth about $40 million.
DSK is a French national, whereas Jordan is American.
DSK is accused of raping a maid, whereas Jordan murdered her son.
DSK is reasonably sane, whereas Jordan’s story is nuts.

The background to this case goes well beyond bizarre, deep into the seriously crazy category.  I hesitate to even try to explain, as it goes on for more than 50 pages in the defendant’s memorandum in support of bail.  The TL;dr version is that Gigi, who made millions in a pharma startup, had a son, Jude, who suffered from significant developmental challenges.  She had an ex-husband biological father of her son (of sorts) who, she believed, wanted to kill her.  She had the biological father of Jude ex-husband, who happened to also to be her business partner (of sorts) who, she believed, would sexually abuse Jude and, she believed, had raided her assets. (Edit. Note: Got the roles reversed. It’s complicated.)

As Gigi roamed the country seeking medical help for Jude’s condition, she learned of all the things that others were doing/planning to do, to her and Jude.  She brought her story to law enforcement, who thought she was nuts.  The best she got out of them was a  72 hour stay for observation in Wyoming.  She tried to get help, but not even $40 million in net worth was enough to make the FBI believe her.  Now that’s a wild story.

Gigi then rented a $2300 a night suite at the Peninsula Hotel in Manhattan for February 4-5, 2010, where she planned to end the nightmare and protect Jude, her beloved but severely disabled son, from a life of misery.  She gave Jude an overdose of prescription drugs, and he died.  Her own suicide didn’t go as smoothly.

The defense team went from Gerald Shargel through some Washington Biglaw types and eventually ended up with my old pal, Ron Kuby, and oft-confused Harvard lawprof Alan Dershowitz.  Together, they have devised a novel theory of defense, Altruistic Filicide.  In other words, Gigi Jordan’s killing of her son was a mercy killing, the lesser of all evils in her mind.

The problem with this defense, aside from the fact that it’s never been tried anywhere, is that it’s primarily grounded in justification, but doesn’t quite hit the mark since justification would allow Gigi to kill the person threatening harm.  Had she killed her ex-husband or the biological father, the two men she contends would do the harm to her and Jude, that would be one thing.  Killing her son instead, who was a threat to no one but who would spend his life suffering at their hands, is an entirely different matter.

To craft the defense, Kuby explains that it overlays elements of duress and necessity, essentially a mash of elements of defense that justifies Gigi’s decision to euthanize her son rather than leave him motherless and subject to a life of abuse.  The thought process was better explained by analogy:

Imagine that a couple of terrorists get hold of a nuclear missile, but don’t have the launch codes.  They have a innocent hostage who knows the codes. You are there with a gun with one bullet.  If the terrorists get the launch codes, they will cause horrible death and destruction. Who do you shoot?

It’s a heck of a question, since the obvious answer is that using the one bullet to shoot the innocent hostage is the best way to assure that the terrorists don’t get their hands on the launch codes and prevent the greater harm.  But then, you kill the innocent hostage.

One of the benefits of being wealthy is that the defense has access to every bell and whistle available to put together proof of Gigi’s wild story.  While it’s bizarre, convoluted and, well, just completely ridiculous, that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.  Or at least significant parts of it aren’t true.  It may be the one in a million nutjob claim that actually happened.  Even one in a million long shots sometimes come in the money.  Sometimes, as in once in a million.

Even so, however, there remains the monstrously huge question looming over the case.  Assuming that there’s sufficient basis for everything Gigi believed to be true, does that make her killing of Jude reasonable?  For most of us, the idea of killing a child, even clothed in the belief that it’s better than what would happen to him if he lived, is just too outrageous to consider.  Gigi believed it to be her only choice, the most reasonable choice under the circumstances.  Whether a jury will agree is another matter.

As if this case wasn’t strange enough, during the 18 months that its pended, the prosecution lost a vial of Gigi’s blood, which the defense says will prove that she was attempting suicide at the Peninsula, and not just killing her son.  The prosecution’s response :