The Ledger

7.1 Causa Mortis: Jamie Ross's First Episode

In this episode (7.1), the premiere of season 7, Carey Lowell makes her first appearance as ADA Jamie Ross. She and McCoy prosecute a young man for carjacking and murdering a woman who begged for her life.

The episode begins with a woman talking to a young man in a car about how she's dealt with troubled boys before and there is hope for him. She calls him Fernando, and she pleads with him as they drive into a deserted area by the water and he orders her out of the car. She starts praying despite his objections and begs for her life. Cut to Curtis and Briscoe arriving at the scene. The woman his dead, having been hit on the head, but not robbed. They find a ring on her finger: "10/3/82 Forever." Her face and legs have been covered.

They search for witnesses at a homeless encampment, and find a crazy old lady named Sally who says her grocery cart was scraped by the car. They talk to the Medical Examiner (not Rogers) about the cause of death, and they try to trace the car based on the paint from Sally's cart.

Meanwhile, Lt Van Buren talks with Curtis to see how Briscoe is doing regarding the death of Kincaid (in the last episode of the previous season). She asks whether Briscoe is "going to his meetings" (meaning his AA meetings, since he drank in that episode).

Based on the paint and missing persons reports, they visit a house where a babysitter identifies a photo of the victim: it's her boss, Mrs. Rankin. They track down Mr. Rankin, returning from a business trip. He's shell-shocked and says his wife taught adult ed. They retrace her path, and check out gas stations. They search a dumpster and find her wallet, as well as a tape recorder that contains no tape. They re-search the scene, and find the tape, buried in the dirt. Forensics cleans it up, and they listen: it contains an audio recording of Mrs Rankin begging for her life and getting killed. It also makes references to Fernando and his neighborhood, Belmont.

They search for the car, and it turns up in Belmont. An observant beat cop noticed it even though it had been repainted and the plates had been changed. They talk to the purported owner of the car, a young woman named Anna Galvez, who says she purchased it legally from a classified ad.

They note that the registration papers have been forged, so they talk to a forger at Rikers who gives them some helpful information despite the objections of his defense counself (whom Curtis refers to as "Alan Dirt-for-brains," a play on "Alan Dershowitz").

The forger leads them to Victor Driscoll, who fenced the forged documents, and fingers Fernando, who said he wanted the papers for a car for his fiancee. They reinterview Anna Galvez (played by a talented actress). She continues to stonewall, but her mother rolls on her daughter's fiance, Fernando, when she's told that Mrs Rankin was raped (she wasn't). They put together a big raid on the apartment where Fernando is supposedly staying. He isn't there. Curtis and Brsicoe go get some pizza nearby and then return to the apartment, figuring Fernando would have been told that the coast was clear. Sure enough, they catch Fernando and arrest him (28 mins).

ADA Jamie Ross makes her first appearance on the series at Fernando's arraignment, where she rebuts all of Fernando's old-timey lawyer's arguments by citing extensive case law to buttress her opinion. In the very next scene, Schiff assigns Ross to mcCoy and we get some of Jamie's back story: she's been in the office less than six months, she used to be married to Neil Gorton, the defense attorney, and she used to work in his office, too. She also has a kid in daycare.

Anyway, Ross and McCoy meet and discuss the case (31 mins). Ross pushes for Murder 1, but MCoy wants Murder 2. In arguing that it should be a capital case, Ross brings up Mickey Scott, the guy who got the death penalty in Aftershock (the finale of the previous season).

There is a motion to suppress the audio tape since it can't be authenticated any more than 20-40%. The judge suppresses the tape.

As it looks like the case against Fernando is falling apart, Ross brings in a lawyer from the US Attorney's office, Chuck Rodman. Under federal carjacking statutes, it looks like they have a better chance of getting the death penalty for Fernando. McCoy gets angry and dismisses the idea. Rodman is offended.

Back on the investigation, the detectives meet with Ross, and Curtis seems a little smitten with her.

The detectives talk to the guy who repainted the stolen car, and he says that Fernando brought the car in and painted it himself. He also says that Fernando picked out the color three days before the killing, which indicated premeditation.

The arrest Anna because she knew about the crime beforehand, too. They want to get her to roll. In the meantime, Ross discusses how she likes being on the prosecution side of things better. She tells a story about one client she defended who got an erection during testimony about the vicious sex crime he committed, and how she threw her jacket over his lap so the jury wouldn't notice. He was later acquitted and went on to kill again.

Anna rolls on Fernando, and tells the dets where to find the murder weapon. However, the gun gets suppressed because its location was revealed during a meeting between Fernando's lawyer, Anna, and Fernando. Anna gets her own lawyer, but then it turns out that Anna's lawyer and Fernando's lawyer used to sleep together. McCoy brings in the US Attorney again to threaten her, even though he has no real intention of turning her over to the feds. She gives up and rolls on Fernando, though the US attorney is upset with Ross and tells her he won't return her phone calls.

With Anna's testimony, the case against Fernando gets better, and he's found guilty of Murder 2 (off camera). The audio tape is heard during the sentencing phase.

At the end of the episode, Briscoe and McCoy discuss Kincaid's death, and McCoy reveals that a few weeks before her death, Kincaid told him she wanted to quit, and he talked her out of it. (McCoy is implying that she's still be alive if he hadn't. Briscoe responds, "And I couldn't kept walking past that bar," suggesting he's equally to blame, since Kincaid was giving him a ride home at the time of her death.)

The episode's title refers both to the death of the victim Mrs Rankin and apparently to the death of Kincaid, the cause of which is discussed in the episode's closing moments. There is an unusual occurrence in the episode: I am quite sure that camera/sound equipment is shown on-screen, reflected in a window, a mistake that I have never before seen in any of the couple hundred eps I've watched. Here's a screen shot. Check out the reflection on the cab's rear passenger window. It looks like a camera and/or sound equipment mounted on a boom. (Yes, it looks a bit like a utility pole, but in NYC, utility cables run underground, so I think it's filmmaking equipment.)

I just learned that this episode was based on a real life incident in which a woman was killed after tape recording her pleas with the killer to spare her life. The case is in the news again because the murderer's conviction was just thrown out, after it was learned that his mother had an affair with his defense attorney. The article mentions this episode.

Posted by adm at May 20, 2004 11:28 PM

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