The Ledger

7.23 Terminal: Schiff Takes on the Governor

In this intricately structured episode (7.23), the finale of season 7, a gunman shoots at a crowd of Jewish people as they exit a social cruise. The state Attorney General's office wants Schiff to seek Murder 1 and the death penalty against the defendant, but he refuses, so they take the case away from him. He fights the decision in court, even as he's dealing with another difficulty in his life: his wife suffers a stroke and dies at the end of the episode. Briscoe and Curtis investigate the shooting, and McCoy and Ross have to choose between ambition and loyalty.

The episode begins with a crowd of people disembarking a small ship. Two women are discussing their social prospects, which they hope improved as a result of the cruise. They are interrupted by a burst of gunfire, and panic ensues. When the bullets stop, Briscoe and Curtis arrive and learn that 3 people were injured and one person was killed. Moments later, they learn of a second death: a woman fell off the pier and drowned. A technician also points out the someone, apparently the killer, wrote "kill zionists" in the dust on a car window. It appears that this was anti-Semitic act, but we'll see the truth is more complicated.

At the hospital, the victims don't really remember seeing much. One witness says a man her friend was talking to took off right before the shooting started, to catch a limo. They track down the limo driver, who tells them all he saw was cab drivers. They talk to a cab driver with a record, and start working the terrorism angle. This cabbie was Yemeni, and he directs them to the Egyptian cabbies, who hang out at the port. The Egyptians squabble over peace vs. violence as Briscoe and Curtis attempt to question them about that night. One of them confirms he saw a man in a trench coat. This fits the description given by the other witnesses.

They consult a map of the crime scene and note that there were two groups of people -- the small crowd and the big crowd. The pattern of shots suggests that he wasn't actually trying to kill as many people as possible. It seems more like he was aiming at someone in the first group, and then fired randomly as he approached the second group.

The investigate various motives, starting with the dead guy, Larry Rice. They go through his wallet and find a business card belonging to a Mr Wexman. They visit Wexman's office looking for leads. His co-worker says he hasn't been in for two days. Strange. They ask to see a picture and guess what? It turns out that Rice and Wexman are the same person! Van Buren talks to Wexman's wife at the precinct and tries to tell her that her husband was apparently leading a double life, but she's in denial. They search his "secret" apartment which he kept under the name of Rice, but they can't determine why he kept it, except to watch porno movies. His reasons for keeping the apartment, living the double life, etc., are never explained.

They visit the the head of the Jewish social group that organized the cruise. They ask about Beckner, who is a travel agent. She says that Beckner gave her a donation check from a fellow travel agent and it bounced.

Forensics takes a look at the ballistics evidence and determines that the bullet went through Beckner and killed Wexman. This indicates that Beckner was the target. They talk to her and ask her whether anyone would want to kill her. They ask her who knew she would be there that night. She indicates that she mentioned it to that other travel agent.

They visit Hank Coburn, the travel agent. He says he purchased 40 tickets to Bulgaria from Beckner at a cost of $32,000. Strangely, that check cleared, but the donation check he wrote for $50 bounced. They review this information back at the financials and find it strange. They realize that if Beckner hadn't been shot, she would have deposited the $32K on Monday and it would have bounced. Instead she waited 4 days and it cleared, b/c Coburn had received a payment from another agent in the meantime. It sounds like Coburn has a motive: shoot Beckner so she can't cash the check.

They talk to Coburn's alibi witness, his girlfriend, who is very funny. She's stuck up and says she only dates rich men. She thinks Coburn was very rich, when in fact he was living check to check. Curtis gets a call while he's in her apartment saying that Trang owns a 9mm gun. They ask her for it, but she can't produce it. They question her at the precinct. At first she stonewalls them, but when she learns that Coburn was actually poor and only had $47 in his checking account, she rolls on him and says she loaned the gun to him. She's very upset and she calls him on behalf of the detectives and arranges a meeting with him that night (so they can arrest him).

Coburn shows up at her apartment, and instead of finding Trang, he finds Curtis and Briscoe, who arrest him (21 mins).

At the DA's office, McCoy and Ross walk into Schiff's office and find the deputy attorney general for New York, Mr Panatti, talking to Schiff. He wants to seek the death penalty against Coburn. Schiff says thanks for coming but is non-committal. Panatti leaves. As they discuss what to do, Schiff receives a phone call and arranges for his driver to get ready. He leaves abruptly.

In order to charge Coburn with Murder 1, they have to prove that Coburn had intent. So they look at the details of the case and re-interview the witnesses and check with ballistics. It sure looks like he was just firing randomly when the drowning victim got pushed into the water. Ross and McCoy can't figure out how to make it work, though Ross comes up with the idea of saying he killed them in furtherance of a robbery, the robbery being his knowledge that the check was no good when he paid for those tickets. McCoy likes this idea. He also tells Ross that Schiff's wife had a stroke.

In running down the details of the case, Ross talks to Ms Trang to see if he expresed intent to "rob" or shoot Beckner. She says he didn't, but she points Ross to another travel agent, who Coburn sought money from earlier than he should have. For some reason, this is important to proving intent, but it's not completely clear how.

Ross asks McCoy how Mrs Schiff is doing, and McCoy says she hasn't regained consciousness yet. They discuss with Schiff how to proceed on the case. McCoy and Ross both want to pursue murder one, but Schiff rebuts, very sharply, every point of law that they make (he finishes their quotations of the laws for them), and then orders them to go for Murder 2.

Schiff then meets in one of those wood-paneled bars he always goes to when wants to meet with someone important. He meets with the attorney general of New York, who tells him very strongly that he wants Schiff to seek Murder 1 and the death penalty. Schiff doesn't want to and says it doesn't add up legally unless "you turn the penal law into a bag of pretzels." The AG tells him he wants Schiff's decision by the next afternoon, and Schiff says, "I don't like ultimatums," and "I'm doing criminal justice. I'm not doing politics." The answer is no.

This causes the Attorney General to hold a press conference at which he announces that the governor has removed the case from Schiff's prosecutorial jurisdiction and will use the AG's office to try it. The AG announces that Mr Panatti will lead the prosecution. They watch this on TV back at the DA's office and McCoy gets a phone call immediately afterwards: Panatti wants him to help prosecute the case.

Panatti and McCoy meet the next morning. Panatti says Schiff is always opposed to the death penalty, but McCoy counters that Schiff signed off on three executions since the statute went into effect. (Presumably one of them was featured in Aftershock). Panatti says Schiff's situation with his wife is interfering with his judgment.

McCoy goes back to the office where he talks to Schiff. McCoy asks Schiff whether the rumor that Schiff wrote a letter of resignation was true. Schiff says the rumor is true, but he tore up the letter. McCoy asks him what he's going to do, and he says "I'm going to take the governor to court." This means he will challenge the governor's attempt to poach his case.

McCoy and Ross discuss what McCoy will do. She asks him, whether he's "going to charge up Hamburger Hill with Adam." He indicates that he is...he won't work with Panatti. She seems to disagree with this decision. McCoy says Panatti will call her next. She says he already has, and she's going to start working on it tomorrow. Traitor!

Ross, Panatti, and Coburn's lawyer, recurring character Mr Axtell, meet. Axtell's looking for a deal, but Panatti refuses. Axtell: "Well...pleasure not doing business with you."

Schiff and McCoy strategize on how to win their case against the governor. They go over a lot of decisions that have ex-governors' names in them. Schiff says he's going to give the governor a history lesson, since the statute says the governor has "virtually" total authority over such decisions. The case hangs on the word "virtually," as McCoy says.

Meanwhile, McCoy steps out to order dinner and has a tense conversation with Ross. Her case starts the next morning. He tells her Schiff's wife is still on life support.

The criminal trial starts first (43'). Ross examines one of the victims re the check issue. Cut to Schiff talking to a gaggle of reporters on the courthouse steps about his reasons for taking the governor to court. Cut to the civil trial (45') where McCoy argues the case for Scguff. He does well. Back at the murder trial, Axtell does a good job cross-examining a witness. Ross tells Panatti she can read the jury, and they're in trouble. He refuses to budge, blames her for the problems, and says he's going to take over the case the next day, even though he previously admitted to McCoy he's been out of the courttroom for a long time.

Back at Schiff's case, McCoy continues to do well, and then Schiff stands up in the middle of the proceedings and tells the judge that the governor's decision is arrogant. At the criminal trial, Coburn testifies and admits to the shooting, but says he didn't intend to kill anyone. Panatti cross-examines him, and Coburn says of his lack of intent, "You have to believe me," and then Panatti makes a fatal error: he asks Coburn whether he can think of a "reasonable person who would" believe him. Ross and Axtell realize Panatti's blunder immediately: SCHIFF HIMSELF BELIEVES HIM. Panatti doesn't realize his error until moments later when -- over Ross' vociferous objections -- Axtell manages to get an affidavit from Schiff entered into the record. The affidavit describes why Schiff felt the defendant did not have intent. Oops! Arrogant Panatti has egg on his face.

Back at the office, McCoy tells Schiff the verdict in their case against the governor: they lost. Schiff is disappointed, but happy they "made waves."

Immediately thereafter, we see the verdict rendered in Coburn's murder trial: not guilty on Murder 1, but guilty of 2 counts of Murder 2. It's considered a defeat for Panatti.

Schiff meets Ross and McCoy at the hospital and tells them, "You did good...both of you." They leave to wait for him outside.

Schiff meets with a doctor briefly and signs a form. He enters his wife's room, and touches her wrist affectionately (pictured ) and listens to the beep-beep of the monitors. Then the beeping tone goes steady: she's dead. He looks very sad, on the verge of tears which don't come.

The episode is notable mainly for the plot and the wittier-than-usual script, and because of the prominent role Schiff plays in it, both professionally and personally. The episode also underscores the consistent tension between Ross and McCoy. Ross is arguably the strongest-willed of the junior ADAs, and the most likely to disagree with McCoy. They never seem to have the close connection that the other ADAs had with their bosses. (The one exception being Serena Southerlyn, who is so vapid as to be incapable of a connection with anyone besides her Barbie collection.) Some of these episodes where Ross fights with McCoy make me nervous. I much prefer the camaraderie of Stone and Robinette or McCoy and Kincaid.

Interestingly, the deputy AG Panatti is played by Roy Thinnes, who played the District Attorney in the pilot episode of Law & Order (which later aired as "Everybody's Favorite Bagman"). This role, of course, was taken over by Schiff/Steven Hill in future episodes. Liana Pai, who plays Ms Trang, has appeared in several eps.

Posted by adm at June 14, 2004 03:33 AM

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