Law & Order

Law & Order

Filmed on location in New York, the drama showcases the sometimes-complex process of determining guilt or innocence, while lives hang in the balance. Often inspired by the latest headlines, the plots highlight legal, ethical or personal dilemmas to which people can relate.

Year:
1990
20,604 Views

Jenny Snyder:
[Crying] Oh, my God. You two are so pathetic! You run around, like, throwing bombs at each other when everything was falling apart!

Don Snyder:
I don't want you to say another word. Do you understand me? Sweetheart, do you understand me?

Jenny Snyder:
So, now, like, you're going to be my father again, is that it?

Dr. Claire Snyder:
Jenny, honey, don't.

Jenny Snyder:
Mom, I'm sorry.

Don Snyder:
Come on, let's go. We're getting out of here.

Jenny Snyder:
[Screams] You can't tell me what to do! Not anymore! [to Claire] You were drinking you were taking that drug and passing out every night. [to Don] And you were following that stupid b*tch around and the whole time she was making a fool of you. She didn't love you she just wanted your money.

Dr. Claire Snyder:
Don't do this. Do not throw your life away. Stop.

Jenny Snyder:
[Crying] I took some Dazzle from my mom. The same night we carried you out of the bath. I hid it at Dad's and I just waited for the right time.

Jack McCoy:
What happened the night Kate died?

Jenny Snyder:
Dad had to work late. Kate went to her apartment to paint. I got the Dazzle, I left Tim at Dad's and I went over to Kate's. We hung out for a while... She was so happy 'cause I was, like, finally coming around. So I asked her to see the roof. She was always bragging what a great place she had, how cool her life was. And after a while she put her glass down and I just put it in when she turned her back. We kept talking, and then after a couple of minutes she got really dizzy. I helped her so she could lean against the rail and then I... Everything was falling apart. Someone had to do something. You weren't going to do it. So I did.

Jack McCoy:
It's frustrating, as a prosecutor, when you're sure someone's a murderer but the only thing you can convict them of is tax evasion or assault. It's frustrating. But it's fundamental; you can't punish a crime that you can't prove. That's where the penal code meets the Declaration of Independence. What do you do as a cop, if you're sure there's a bad man on your beat but you don't have a made case against him? You don't frame him. You can't harass him. You make the case. You definitely don't shoot him. So, what should you do, as a citizen, if you're sure a monstrous predator has been released from prison because they couldn't hold him any more under the law? Write your own law? Run him down in the street? You make sure that the state enforces its rules. You get them for violating parole the day he moves in with Sheryl. You have the cops at the door. You make sure they watch him, and if they don't, if the system messes up, if he hurts someone, like Lowenstein could have hurt Sheryl's little girl, you sound the general alarm. You call the police and the papers, you go on TV, you make a scandal. Not a plan to commit murder. Joyce Draper is talented and brilliant. She might be the smartest person in this room. She's a sympathetic defendant, and Jacob Lowenstein was a repulsive victim. It doesn't matter. Joyce Draper murdered Jacob Lowenstein deliberately, with malice of forethought. And there's no reasonable doubt about that whatsoever. She didn't even really try to explain his blood on her car, because she's betting on you to let her get away with it. Citizens, no matter what their role, if it's a doctor, or a police officer, or a prosecutor, or a juror, may not take the law into their own hands. Joyce Draper belongs in jail, long enough to make it plain that we as a society will not tolerate citizens choosing who lives and who dies. And it's up to you to put her there.

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
Cause of death, acute pulmonary edema. A direct result of the flu.

Detective Ed Green:
So why'd you call us here?

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
His parents said he got a flu shot about a month ago, so I pulled his pediatrician's chart. According to the records, he was vaccinated, but when I ran blood titers, he had no antibodies.

Detective Joe Fontana:
And he should have had?

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
If he'd been immunized, absolutely.

Detective Ed Green:
I still don't get why we're here.

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
Well, there have been a lot of flu-related deaths in the past few weeks. I went through the autopsy records and found half a dozen other victims who had also supposedly been vaccinated but had no antibodies.

Detective Joe Fontana:
Supposedly?

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
These people were not injected with the flu vaccine. They couldn't have been.

Detective Ed Green:
It wasn't just a bad batch of the vaccine?

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
Even with an expired or a contaminated vaccine, there'd still be antibodies.

Detective Ed Green:
So if it wasn't the vaccine, what were they injected with?

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
Good question. Now, there's no sign of anything toxic, so it has to be something neutral. Sterile saline solution, maybe.

Detective Joe Fontana:
So these people all thought they were getting vaccinated. They weren't, and get the flu anyway and it killed 'em?

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
Exactly.

Detective Joe Fontana:
[to Green] We could be looking at a whole bunch of homicides here.

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
That's why I called you.

Ms. Sharkey:
Your Honor, my client is ten years old. She has teddy bears on her bedspread and a Big Bird piggy bank filled with pennies and she killed a child. It's so incongruous, it's almost inconceivable. Dr. Olivett has testified that because of her age and because of the way her brain works she simply couldn't appreciate that as she struck Aaron Polansky with a rock she was killing him. Jenny thought she could revive him with a one and a half volt battery. It speaks for itself. Mr. McCoy's position is to ignore the question of responsibility and brand Jenny Brandt a killer - she'll never change, we have to put her away. People change, if anyone can change it's a child. And Dr. Olivett has emphasized that this will not happen in a state mental hospital. Mr. McCoy's solution is a solution of last resort. Please, don't give up on her Judge.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
Jenny got dealt a lousy hand. I look at her with pity and regret. But Jenny Brandt is trouble. She battered Aaron Polansky's head and stuffed him in a pipe. Ms. Sharkey wants us to believe that she didn't appreciate what she did, I don't agree. Jenny daydreams about killing small boys. She even had a trial run with a cat but ultimately what she could or could not appreciate is irrelevant. Jenny is a loaded gun, she is a cocked fist with a rock and she needs to be stopped before she kills again. Dr. Olivett talks about sending Jenny to a state institution like it's a death sentence that turns the world upside down. Aaron Polansky got a death sentence! Jenny would get treatment. Now everybody knows state psychiatric care could be better. But letting Jenny get away with murder won't help this girl. How will she ever appreciate that her actions have consequences if there are none? And how many children will she kill before the adult criminal justice system can take over? Do we have to wait and see? Ms. Sharkey would like us to cross our fingers and hope. Hope that it won't happen again. I have my own kind of hope. I hope the state doctors can find a way to fix this girl, I hope that it takes six months. But until they do, we can't afford Ms. Sharkey's brand of hope, we need to protect the Aaron Polanskys of this world from Jenny Brandt.

Judge Evelyn Greico:
Counsel, the jury's asking permission to consider a lesser charge.

Mr. Clayborn:
How much less?

Judge Evelyn Greico:
Man two.

[Jack gives Abbie a look of skepticism, while Mr. Clayborn talks to his client]

Mr. Clayborn:
[returning to the bench] The defense has no objection, Your Honor.

Judge Evelyn Greico:
Mr. McCoy?

Jack McCoy:
The standard for man two is recklessness. How does that apply to deliberate strangulation?

Judge Evelyn Greico:
I'm inclined to agree with you, Mr. McCoy. How do you feel about man one?

Jack McCoy:
I don't think any manslaughter option is appropriate. The victim didn't die by mistake. This murder was clearly intentional.

Mr. Clayborn:
The jury clearly disagrees with the severity of the charge.

Jack McCoy:
Because the defense bent over backwards to stir up sympathy for a cold-blooded killer!

Mr. Clayborn:
They should have sympathy for a greedy hooker?

Judge Evelyn Greico:
That's enough.

[to the bailiff]

Judge Evelyn Greico:
Tell the jury they can consider man one.

Jack McCoy:
[the bailiff leaves] Your Honor, you're allowing a compromised verdict. That's not...

Judge Evelyn Greico:
Sit down, Mr. McCoy.

Jack McCoy:
You might as well let them nullify.

Judge Evelyn Greico:
[firmly] Sit down.

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
[returning to their seats] It's now a guaranteed man one conviction, and Malone knows that.

Jack McCoy:
[scoffs] Six to twelve on an intentional murder.

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
Well, it happens sometimes when your victim is sleazier than your defendant. You know that.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
What confuses me, Mr. Bergan, is that if the bartender actually pressed charges, as a first-time offender, Fiona would have drawn... a suspended sentence, with a $250 fine. Yet you chose to pay the bartender $1,000 to make it all go away. To me, that seems an odd choice. Considering a teacher's salary.

Gary Bergan:
Fiona insisted. She told me that a criminal record would hurt her chances of getting into a good college.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
Sure, that is one possibility. Another is that Fiona was scared.

Jessica Sheets:
Well, of course she was scared.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
Scared that the parole board down in Florida might issue a warrant for her arrest if her fingerprints ever happened to hit the system. That would put a quick end to your game, wouldn't it?

Fiona Reid:
I don't know what you're talking about.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
That's right, I forgot. You're insane.

Jessica Sheets:
[standing up to leave] All right, I think we are done here.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
So insane that you went to Milford, Connecticut. So insane that when you were carded in that bar in Milford, you used your old Marguerite Sampson driver's license. Pretty strange, wouldn't you say? Considering you testified you'd never heard of her.

Fiona Reid:
[smirks] You're good.

Jessica Sheets:
Fiona?

Fiona Reid:
But you see, Mr. McCoy, what I'm good at, what my special talent is, is to make people see what they want to see. And it's carried me this far in life; I doubt it'll let me down with twelve people unable to avoid jury duty.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
Without an attorney, it might. Fact is, unlike you, your lawyer is bound by a code of ethics. She can't knowingly let you lie on the stand, nor can she lie to the jury in her closing.

Fiona Reid:
You think I need her to win? The jury already sees me as a poor, abused, abandoned child. All they're concerned about, all they really hope for, is to save my soul.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
Until Mr. Bergan takes the stand.

Fiona Reid:
Him? As far as they're concerned, he's a child molester. Who's gonna believe him?

Jack McCoy:
Like it or not, in evaluating the case against Mitchell Lowell, Detective Fontana's actions are irrelevant and must be ignored. Like it or not, the law says that you must focus only on what the defendant did. I'm realistic; I know you're good people, and as such, it's next to impossible that you could ignore what you heard, or didn't hear, in this courtroom. And I also know that by asking you to weigh the defendant's actions against the police officer's, Mr. Dworkin is, in effect, appealing to your fundamental sense of fair play. Is that a bad thing? Heck, what's good for the goose is good for the gander; we all know that. Fairness is all. Or is it? Does Mr. Dworkin's fairness leave any room for justice? That fairness exists in a vacuum, while justice, on the other hand, cannot. In Mr. Dworkin's vacuum world, we'd have to treat a rapist the same as we'd treat a man who made love to his wife. After all, they've both performed the same physical act; it's only fair. In Mr. Dworkin's vacuum world, the terrorist must be treated the same as the soldier who tracks him down and kills him. Of course he does; each of them has taken a human life, and what's fair is only fair. In Mr. Dworkin's vacuum world, the man who takes a little girl hostage while attempting to rob a bank, as long as he feeds her well, must be treated better than a cop who used excessive force in trying to save the life of that innocent child. It's only fair, but is it just? The benchmark of a civilized society is the quality of its justice. In this society, we put kidnappers and bank robbers behind bars.


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