The Ledger

Stalker

Very good episode (8.18) in which a young woman is heard being thrown down the stairs in her apartment building. Although she is severely injured, she survives. As Briscoe and Curtis investigate, they learn that she was being stalked by a ex-con who calls himself "Giovanni" and who seemed to have exceedingly detailed information about her life, including what kind of products she owned. They find several emails from Giovanni in her apartment, and, after talking to another detective who worked the stalking case, eventually come up with a suspect.

They bring him in, but have very little evidence to go on. They are able to hold him a bit longer by getting one of his neighbors to file a harassment claim against him, but they realize his connection to their case is tenuous at best. Meanwhile, the victim regains consciousness in the hospital. When the detectives visit her with a mugshot of Giovanni, she is unable to identify him and says she's never seen him before. This is strange because Giovanni claims they met in a bar and he gave him her number. She also gives the detectives an additional suspect, Russell Lowery, who used to follow her around when she lived in the same building.

The detectives investigate Lowery, but can't make anything stick. He has a habit of photographing women using a telephoto lens without their knowledge, but he also has an unusually deep knowledge of criminal law, and refuses to co-operate with the detectives. They manage to get a search warrant, and find photographs of the victim (and several other women) in his apartment, but they can't connect him to the attack either.

As they continue to investigate the victim's story, they come across some inconsistencies in her story, and conclude that she made up the attack as a bid to get attention and get something done about the stalker. The scene in which they confront the woman with this theory is nerve-wracking, because you can't tell if she's lying, and you fear that Briscoe and Curtis are making a terrible mistake. The woman insists that the stalker exists and that he will kill her.

Sure enough, the detectives soon get a call, and visit the woman's apartment, where they find her brutally murdered. As her killer was entering her apartment, she called 911 frantically and said that it was "the man in the picture" who was coming to kill her. By this she apparently meant the man in the mug shot Curtis and Briscoe showed her at the hospital: Giovanni. Since Lowery is still in jail at Rikers, they rule him out and go pick up Giovanni, and get a search warrant from a sympathetic judge. They don't find much in his apartment, except dozens of recordings of the opera Don Giovanni. They can't find any hard evidence linking him to the crime.

McCoy's case against Giovanni takes a turn for the worse when the defense manages to get the 911 tape suppressed, on the grounds that since the woman apparently lied about the initial attack, her assertions on the 911 tape are not credible. When Briscoe finds out, he approaches McCoy and tells him he changed his mind: he now believes the victim was actually thrown down the stairs by Giovanni, and that she didn't make up the story. It's difficult to tell whether Briscoe really believes this or is just saying it to help McCoy convict Giovanni. McCoy tells Briscoe the defense will rake Briscoe over the coals, but Briscoe says he's ready for it. At a new hearing to determine the admissibility of the tape, Briscoe stands his ground despite a grilling from the defense, and the judge re-admits the tape. Then McCoy and Cheekbones learn that Curtis doesn't share Briscoe's opinion about the case. There is a tense scene between Briscoe and Curtis, as Van Buren angrily confronts Briscoe and accuses him of perjury, and Curtis chastises Briscoe for putting him in a situation where he feels manipulated into lying. The prosecutors regroup with Schiff, who tells them to make a deal. McCoy says he already tried, but the defense attorney rejected it. Schiff says, "Do something else." McCoy concludes that he has "only one move left: Hang Rey Curtis out to dry."

McCoy does exactly that at trial. Curtis, called by the defense, says his opinion that the victim made up the original story has not changed, but McCoy gets him to admit that he spoke to the victim's employer after the alleged initial attack and asked them not to sue her, since she was indeed in imminent danger from Giovanni. McCoy destroys Curtis's credibility on the stand, and in so doing, bolsters Briscoe's. This is a bit ironic, because it seems as though Briscoe is the one who is actually stretching the truth.

Apparently, Curtis's testimony was discounted by the jury, and when they come back from deliberating, they deliver a verdict of guilty. Out on the courthouse steps, McCoy tells Curtis, "No hard feelings," and Curtis says he feels ok about telling the truth, but he hopes that Briscoe can live with himself. Briscoe shrugs and walks off.

This episode once again highlights the "justice at all costs" mentality that defines McCoy and shows that he has some spiritual kinship with Briscoe, who is also willing to bend the rules a little bit when he knows someone is guilty. It's also clear that those who work with them -- whether it's Cheekbones, Curtis, or Van Buren -- resist this way of doing things, but often seem helpless to stop it.

Posted by adm at February 25, 2004 01:16 AM

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