The Ledger

8.24 Monster: Jamie Ross's Last Episode

A lot goes on in this episode (8.24), the finale of season 8: McCoy prepares to face the disciplinary committee, to answer charges brought against him by the judge running against Schiff for the office of District Attorney, Briscoe considers doing something unethical that might lead to the murder of his daughter's killer, Cheekbones (aka Jamie Ross) announces her resignation, and Van Buren confronts department brass about apparent racism and their desire to see her quit.

The episode begins with the discovery of a 10-year-old comatose black girl in the basement of a housing project. Briscoe and Curtis investigate, retracing the girl's steps and eventually coming up with enough information to release a sketch of the suspect. The detectives ask Van Buren to get more officers working on the case, but she is unable to. She eventually visits her boss, who refuses to assign her more help. In a heated conversation, she accuses the department of racism, and then suggests she can't get the resources she needs because her superiors are upset with her over the lawsuit she filed. (The lawsuit charges that she was passed over for a promotion in favor of a white woman with less seniority.) Her boss tells her that the dept. brass wants her to quit. She leaves without the promise of help she came looking for.

The community takes matters into their own hands however, and a the detectives are called to a scene where a mob assaulted a man names Stokes who they believe attacked the little girl. He is badly beaten, but instead of taking him to the hospital, Briscoe and Curtis bring him down to the precinct and interrogate him, even though they say he is not under arrest. They question him, but can't get enough to make any charges stick. They send him to the hospital with a police officer, and in the meantime find a witness (a small-time drug dealer) who shakily identifies the man in a photo aray. As he makes the ID, it's clear he's picking up on the influence of Briscoe and Curtis who are right next to him. The detectives go back to the hospital and arrest Stokes.

With the election looming, Schiff tells McCoy to tell the police to get a confession from Stokes no matter what it takes. Briscoe and Curtis get Stokes in the interrogation room, and "doubletalk" him into signing away his Miranda rights, even though he comes very close to asking for a lawyer. ("What happened to that lawyer I asked about this morning?" he says.) After telling him he's going to get thrown in with the general population in "the Tombs," the temporary holding cells at Police Plaza, the detectives wrangle a confession out of their suspect, but it's clear he's under severe distress.

McCoy and Cheekbones are fearful that they will lose a motion to get this statement suppressed, and McCoy tells Cheekbones to pick up a copy of People v. Davis, a case that is frequently referred to on the show. At the suppression hearing, a sympathetic judge rules in favor of McCoy.

Schiff tells McCoy to make sure the case is in order, because he doesn't want "another October Surprise." McCoy explains to Cheekbones that the first October Surprise is that Schiff's opponent, Judge Feldman, is charging that Schiff no longer has control of his office, and that he has brought McCoy up on charges that he'll have to face before the disciplinary committee. The charges involve the time that McCoy advised an airline to send a stewardess who was a witness in a case to another country where she would be beyond the reach of defense attorneys who might find her testimony valuable. (This incident occurred in an episode involving a drunk driver -- see Under the Influence.

Regardless, everyone continues with their investigation, and Cheekbones learns that Stokes is on the drug Depo-provera, which is supposed to suppress the urge to commit sexual acts. She also thinks there is a problem with the statement of the security guard who found the girl: his timeline doesn't make sense. As Briscoe and Curtis question the repairman who supposedly was with the security guard at the time of the assault, they learn that the two weren't actually together. Further investigation reveals that the security guard had access to the same kind of roach spray that was found sprayed in the victim's mouth. So, now they have a news suspect, but not much evidence pinning him to the crime.

As McCoy goes to court to dismiss the charges against Stokes, he faces Judge Feldman, the same judge who is accusimg him of ethics violations and who is running against Schiff. Feldman takes the unusual step of calling for the new suspect to be arraigned in front of him, and tells the clerk he wants to try to the case himself. (Usually cases are assigned to judges randomly.) McCoy objects, but Feldman insists, and tells McCoy to watch his step. McCoy angrily confronts the judge in the hallway later, but Feldman is resolute.

Around the same time, Cheekbones informs McCoy that she has been called to testify before the disciplinary committee about McCoy, and McCoy visits the attorney who will represent him. McCoy seems fearful of the consequences, and his lawyer tells him he can always quit to protect Schiff. Shortly thereafter, Cheekbones tells McCoy that she's resigning, and then McCoy tells Schiff that he wants to quit, too. Schiff tells McCoy, "Don't get all weepy on me," and says he'll refuse to accept his resignation. and that McCoy should get back to concentrating on the case at hand.

McCoy checks in on the victim at the hospital. She is still in a coma, and her doctor says she is unlikely to come out of it. McCoy then tells Cheekbones he wants to talk to the doctor alone: he tells the doctor that when the defense attorney calls, he wants him to tell the attorney that the girl will soon revive. The doctor objects, but McCoy seems to believe that he'll do what he's asked. McCoy then tells Cheekbones that he's adding the girl to the witness list in an effort to pressure the suspect to accept a plea deal. The gambit works, and the suspect pleads, telling McCoy enough about the case to indicate that he is indeed guilty. At first, Judge Feldman refuses to accept the plea arrangement, but McCoy convinces him the judge will take the heat if the case goes to trial and falls apart.

At this point, the episode ties up all its loose ends. McCoy wishes Schiff good luck in the vote, and Schiff goes out for a drink, where he runs into Carl Anderton (played by Robert Vaughn), a supremely wealthy and powerful man who got so angry with Schiff in a previous episode he swore he'd ruin Schiff. It's apparent that Carl is the primary backer of Feldman, but he seems to realize that Schiff's success with this case made it less likely that he would lose. Next, we cut to Briscoe's daughter's funeral. On her tombstone, her date of death is listed as 3/4/1998. As the service ends, Briscoe meets with a detective who he thinks might be able to help get a case dismissed against a burglar. This burglar told Briscoe earlier in the episode that if Brsicoe helped him out by making some evidence disappear, then the burglar could arrange the death of Danny Jones, the drug dealer apparently responsible for his daughter's funeral. Finally, we follow McCoy to the disciplinary hearing. Through the latter half of the episode, he kept telling people he was "covered," which indicated he thought he had a solution to avoid being reprimanded. As Cheekbones exits the hearing, we learn from McCoy's reaction that this is what he was counting on. But as Cheekbones approaches him, we learn from her stony, pained expression and silence that she must have told the committee all about McCoy's ethically questionable tactics. McCoy understands this too, and looks shocked and worried. The episode ends with Cheekbones marching off and exiting through some tall doors, and McCoy entering the hearing.

The episode is notable for all of the backstory it provides about Van Buren, Schiff, McCoy and Briscoe. It is also another strong example of McCoy's justice-at-all-costs credo, as he engages in ethically questionable behavior even as he's under invesigation for previous misconduct.

Posted by adm at February 28, 2004 06:25 PM

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