The Ledger

The Collar

Decent episode (12.11) in which a teenager kills a priest while the priest is in a confessional. It turns out that the teen killed the wrong priest, though: his intended victim has taken the night off from hearing confessions, but the killer didn't realize it until it was too late. This mixup causes Briscoe and Green to spend some time investigating various motives to kill the dead priest, so they have to rework their investigation once they realize who the intended target was.

Once they get themselves on the right path, they connect the dots between the intended victim and the murderer through the murder weapon (which had been stolen from a gas station) and some evidence suggesting the teen's involvement in the earlier murder, and a suggestion that he may have confessed this involvement to the priest who was his intended victim.

The investigation hits a brick wall, however, when the priest refuses to tell McCoy and Southerlyn what he knows about the boy's involvement in the murder. McCoy believes that the boy's statement to the priest is not privileged, since privilege only attaches if the boy was seeking spiritual advice. McCoy and Southerlyn try all kinds of tactics to get the priest to speak out, but he steadfastly refuses, even though it would mean freeing the man wrongly convicted of the original murder. McCoy has several meetings with bishops and a priest who is an old friend, but all is for naught: the priest simply refuses to betray the confidence of the young murderer, even though he was nearly of victim of the boy himself. Finally, after the priest loses hope that the boy will ever come forward to confess to legal authorities, the priest has a conversation with McCoy in which they discuss the ethical and moral implications of privilege for priests and lawyers, and the priest agrees to testify, which he soon does.

The episode is an interesting look at the issue of clerical privilege, and shows the quandary that priest's can find themselves in as they must choose between justice and their oath to the church and obligations to their clergy. In this case, after testifying, the priest ultimately decides he can no longer serve as a priest, and in the closing moments of the show, he pointedly removes his color. A little over the top, but it's still a moving moment.

The episode is notable for two quick moments. First, when that cute female detective -- the one who replaced Profaci and Mo -- brings Green and Briscoe a lead, she calls Green "Eddie" with what seems to be a touch of intimacy. Briscoe comments on it pointedly: "Eddie?" Also, when they show the courthouse downtown, it is being guarded by National Guardsmen in uniform, a fixture that mirrors a real-life response to 9/11.

Finally, the episode features another edition of the Ed Green 5-Second Foot Chase™ as Green briefly chases after the suspect when they confront him. Although the suspect had a good head start on Green (which made me think the chase might last longer than the usual 5 seconds), the chase ends when the suspect encounters a chain link fence. Oh well.

Posted by adm at February 4, 2004 12:36 AM

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