The Ledger

Violence of Summer

Philip Seymour Hoffman and Samuel L. Jackson both guest star in the early episode (1.14) in which a woman is gang raped, but Stone and Robinette have trouble building a case against the defendants.

The episode begins untraditionally, with Paul talking to an attorney about a deal to "sever" one defendant's trial from the other two. At the severance hearing, the two older defendants berate the younger one, who wants the severance. Things get out of hand, and one of the older defendants takes the gun from a security guard and nearly shoots the younger one.

Later, the younger defendant rebuts the confessions of the other two, and says he was only tangentially involved in the incident, but both Stone and Robinette feel he is holding back important information. The question is, What is that information? One clue comes in the form of a setback for their case: the semen found in the victim does not match any of the defendants, which suggests either a fourth rapist or that the woman had a boyfriend she was with before the attack. As Stone realizes his case is falling apart, he goes to the victim, a TV reporter named Monica DeVries, and tells her she will probably have to testify. He is reluctant to ask her to do this, both because he wants to spare her the pain and also because he doesn't thing she'll be a good witness: she doesn't remember the details of the attack clearly, and there are rumors that she is a drug user, who actually was in the area of the attack seeking drugs. She admits to Stone she was seeking drugs, but "for a story." Stone feels he can't go forward with the prosecution, and he has an extended strategy session with Schiff and Robinette. Knowing that if he goes to trial and loses, he will never get another chance, he allows the charges to be dismissed, so they can be re-instated if new evidence is found.

That new evidence comes when Greevey and Logan recanvas the neighborhood and find someone who remembers more than three attackers. He previously concealed this information, and apologizes for it. From here, Greevey and Logan seek to hypnotize the victim, so they can get more clues. Stone okays the unusual move, and during hypnosis she reveals that indeed there were four attackers, and the fourth was older and named "Tim." She describes his features. The detectives return to the scene of the crime, and discover some glass, which she had told police was used in the attack on her. The fingerprints match to a dealer named "Tim." The detectives pick him up, but statements he made during arrest are inadmissible because in the confusion surrounding his arrest, he had not been properly Mirandized. Yet another setback occurs when the forensics department loses all the material related to the case. Now they don't have a semen match either.

But Greevey saves the day with his plan to get two of the original suspects to confess. He and Logan approach the suspects on the street, and tell them that Tim has implicated them, and only them, in the rape. He then makes it clear that they are not under arrest, but he would like them to come to the station to make a statement. He leads them to the car, puts them inside, and leaves both passenger side doors open while he and Logan approach a pay phone. He says to Logan, "You think they have a reasonable expectation of privacy?" It turns out he tape-recorded their conversation, during which they discussed the case and implicated themselves and Tim. Way to go, Greevey!

After this development, the defense attorney doesn't have much wiggle room, and -- we learn in a textual epilogue -- they are found guilty of rape.

Obviously, there are two important casting notes here: a very young Philip Seymour Hoffman plays one of the older defendants [pic], and has a great onscreen temper tantrum during the opening scene, and much later in the episode, Samuel L. Jackson turns up as their defense attorney [pic]. One last casting note: Megan Gallagher plays the victim. She is best known as Larry Sanders' wife on The Larry Sanders Show and as Frank's wife on Millennium.

Privacy is an important theme in this episode, as Stone attempts to preserve the privacy of the victim, and even strongly scolds robinette for seeking a toxicological analysis of her hairbrush without consent. Later, as I mentioned, privacy becomes an issue for the defendants when their conversation is recorded.

Posted by adm at February 15, 2004 05:52 PM

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