March 27, 2004
13.13 Absentia
In this episode (13.13), a jewelry store owner is shot to death in his shop, and a customer visiting from Chicago is critically injured. The customer survives, but disappears before he can testify. It turns out that he, too, has something to hide. Briscoe and Green investigate.The episode begins with a young hipster couple walking by a jewelry store and hearing gun shots. A man runs past them, and they enter the store, finding a carnage-filled scene. Green and Briscoe go undercover from pawn shop to pawn shop, and find a guy who bought the stolen merchandise. They get a hit on a fingerprint, and trace it to a Georgian national, who they arrest at a local bar, and who is identified by the injured customer in a line-up. The suspect, Ed Travanza, wants a jury trial, despite the fact that his guilt is obvious. But before the trial can be begin, the witness disappears. He is found not guilty. So where's the witness go?
Prints at the witness's apartment in Chicago reveal that his real name is Levi March who killed his girlfriend years earlier but skipped bail and was convicted of the crime in absentia.
Briscoe and Green jump through all kinds of hoops to track March down, and they eventually go to Montreal(!) and arrest him. His lawyer argues, however, that it was unconsitutional to try his client in absentia, and he manages to get a court to throw out the verdict. Since the case happened 20 years ago, McCoy wants to retry him but has a heck of time putting together a case. Eventually, however, March's current wife rolls on him after an extra-marital affair is revealed, and says March admitted the murder to him.
Casting notes: Andrew McCarthy plays the jewel thief's defense attorney. McCarthy also worked an episode of Criminal Intent, where Vincent D'Onofrio had a rather famous run-in with him, and pretty much threw him off the show. Also, the detective who worked the original investigation into the March case is played by John Tormey, who always shows up in mob movies, and who is Forrest Whittaker's "master" in Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai.
Posted by adm at March 27, 2004 04:55 PM
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