The Ledger

Shadow

In this episode (8.8), McCoy and Cheekbones use unusual legal tactics to uncover a corruption scheme in the court system that led to a the murder of a bailbondsman who discovered the scheme and wanted a cut of the action.

The episode begins with two women discovering the body of the bailbondsman in his office. Briscoe and Curtis investigate, and learn that one of his clients had skipped bail, and his mother risked losing the restaurant she put up for collateral as a result. To track down this suspect, they use an elaborate ruse involving a payphone and his girlfriend, in which Curtis calls her and pretends he's a doctor. These leads to the location where the fugitive is staying. They break down the door, and as they're taking the suspect into custody, Briscoe opens up a gym bag that belongs to the suspect and discovers a wad of cash and a gun.

By interrogating the suspect and his girlfriend, Briscoe and Green learn that the man's lawyer, Arvin Baker, is corrupt, and accepts bribes to fix cases, an arrangement that obviously suggests other participants within the legal system. Cheekbones gets on board and begins investigating the lawyer's cases over the last several years. She is unable to come up with a common thread, and McCoy and Schiff are both mortified to learn of the corruption. Cheekbones proposes an elaborate sting to prove that Baker is corrupt. She suggests that they stage a phony prosecution against their original murder suspect, and then record him taking a bribe solicitation from Baker. They can then follow the money through the system and find out who else is corrupt. Schiff isn't wild about it, but he permits it to go forward, so long as they can find a judge to approve. McCoy makes his case to a judge, who permits the phony prosecution to go forward. She also appoints a "shadow counsel" to represent the suspect's interests during the proceedings, since his original counsel is likely tainted and is of course the subject of the investigation.

The ploy works, but as Cheekbones assembles the phony prosecution, she must work with another ADA who was responsible for the original prosecution of the defendant on the drug charges he ran out on. This ADA, Harmon, isn't used to murder prosecutions, and when he prepares Briscoe for his testimony at a suppression hearing about the gun, he seems to be encouraging him to testify in such a way that would aid the defense, not the prosecution. Cheekbones watches this happen, and it is apparent that she is suspicious that this ADA, who is also a friend of hers, is somehow involved in the corruption.

At the suppression hearing, Harmon seems ham-handed in his efforts to keep the gun from getting suppressed, and Baker asks Briscoe very specific questions that seem to indicate he had talked to Harmon about Briscoe's answers during the prep session. Reaction shots of Cheekbones reveal her suspicions. It appears that Harmon is going to lose the hearing without much a fight at all, but at the last second, he recalls Briscoe, and asks leading questions that give Briscoe a chance to justify the search of the gym bag. Unfortunately for Harmon, the questions are so leading that they reveal an insider's knowledge of the crime scene from the bailbondsman's murder: he has information that only the killer could know, since it wasn't included in the police report. In asking the questions, he inadvertently fingers himself as the murderer, a fact which is not lost on a shocked Cheekbones.

But it's not over yet. When the trial judge learns of the phony prosecution against the original suspect, he throws out all the evidence that came from it, and severely chastises McCoy in the courtroom and in chambers for his actions. McCoy tells him the case "isn't a civics lesson" and that he was just doing his job, and he doesn't appreciate being threatened. Nonetheless, they must get additional evidence against Harmon. In reviewing the evidence of the case, Briscoe finds a business card for a Harlem travel agency. Cheekbones visits the agency and learns that Harmon's wife occassionally ran errands there, errands that were involved in the transfer of the proceeds from the corruption scheme to offshore accounts. Cheekbones confronts her and the wife admits her involvement. There's the corroboration. Predictably, McCoy and Cheekbones confront Harmon with this information, and after a bunch of "How could you?" invectives aimed at Cheekbones, he reluctantly accepts a plea bargain.

Casting note: Dominic Chianese, who went on to play Uncle Junior on The Sopranos, plays the judge who suppresses the evidence from the phony prosecution. Also, Arvin Baker is played by Bruce MacVittie, a character actor who tends to play neurotic, nervous people, such as the one who threw Vincent D'Onofrio into the path of a subway train in a somewhat famous episode of Homicide: Life on the Street.

This episode's title refers to the shadow defense attorney assigned to the original suspect, but I think more strongly refers to the "shadow" in Harmon's character which darkened his conscience and the office he held.

Posted by adm at February 27, 2004 11:12 PM

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