Daniel Post's Lung-Trafficking Case

Episode: 3x01 [Can't We All Get A Lung?]
Client: Daniel Post
Case: The client was charged with violating the Universal Anatomical Gift Act, which prohibits the purchase of human organs for the purposes of transplant.
CP&S Representation: Shirley Schmidt and Denise Bauer
Opposing Counsel: A.D.A. Joshua Wendt
Presiding: Judge Clark Brown
Result: The jury found the defendant to be not guilty.
Notes:

• Daniel Post, suffering from lung cancer, was accused of paying the college tuition of his friend Tom Raulston's daughter Megan in exchange for one of Raulston's lungs.
• Lung transplants are made only when the donor dies or is declared brain dead. Raulston was dying of an inoperable brain tumor.
• Denise argued in her cross-examination of Megan Raulston that there was no proof that Daniel paid her tuition for any reason beyond his friendship with Tom
• In her closing, Shirley argued that it is currently legal to receive payment for donating some body parts (eggs, sperm, blood, etc) and that people bypass the system all the time - by going overseas, for example. She ended by citing a ruling by the Washington DC Circuit Court, which "found we have a constitutional right to save ourselves. That's all Daniel Post was trying to do."