The Ledger

13.1 American Jihad: First Appearance of Arthur Branch

In this episode (13.1), the murder of a couple is traced to a young, white, middle-class convert to Islam who hates women. The suspect closely resembles John Walker Lindh, known as "the American Taliban."

The episode begins with a man walking his dog who hears gun shots coming from an apartment and sees a Hispanic male running from the scene. The police find a dead couple inside the apartment. Initally, they focus their investigation on a former assistant of the male victim, who was a researcher of Parkinson's disease. The assistant, now a cab driver, is an arrogant bastard, and calls Green a "primate" and refuses to cooperate until Green threatens to kick his ass. Doesn't matter, though: he isn't the guy. Additionally, ballistics shows that two separate guns were used in the shootings, a fact that suggests two shooters.

Briscoe and Green learn that the female victim, also a professor, was active in seeking human rights for women in Muslim countries. They learn that a local young Muslim man was aware of her work, and disliked her for it. When they go to question this man, Mousah Salim, they are surprised to learn that he is white and upper middle class. His mother speaks of him as "nothing but a disappointment," but says he is in Pakistan. Through his former high school and a dull-witted friend he had there, Green and Briscoe track him down -- not in Pakistan, but at a local mosque, where they arrest him.

The suspect, whose real name is Greg, fires his counsel and insists on hiring a Muslim attorney. He gets Anwar Muhammad, whom McCoy has apparently known for a long time. At trial, Muhammad does his best, but his client keeps making outbursts, screaming about how the US wants to eradicate Islam, and so on. He eventually fires Muhammad and represents himself. This development concerns McCoy and Branch ("our new DA") because they argue that if he is found not competent to represent himself, then perhaps he will be found not competent to stand trial. This doesn't make any sense to me, but whatever -- it's just the weak logic of the series' later episodes.

To get a better read on the defendant's psychological make-up, McCoy asks Elizabeth Olivet to attend the trial. She states the obvious: he hates women, and suggests he joined Islam because it keeps women in check. McCoy comes up with a tactic we could see from a million miles away: he has Southerlyn cross-examine him. Predictably, the kid loses his temper and accidentally reveals that he knew his victim personally, via one of her graduate assistants. It turns out the assistant had brief romance with Greg and, apparently, laughed at him during some intimate encounter. This incident, combined with the effect of his domineering mother, seems to have led him to hate women. When McCoy has the grad student confront him in the conference room, he freaks out again, and, off-camera, admits to the crime and agrees to a plea deal. McCoy, Southerlyn, and Branch breath a sign of relief that he wasn't a "real" Muslim or terrorist, and say they are worried about how "easy" it is to craft a terrorist. All you have to do is laugh at his manhood, they imply.

The episode is notable because it retells the story of the American Taliban and because it is Senator Fred Thompson's first appearance as DA Arthur Branch, replacing the spineless Nora Lewin. We learn that he's from Georgia and that his wife's name is Lillian.

Posted by adm at March 16, 2004 01:18 AM

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