The Ledger

3.16 Jurisdiction

In this episode (3.16), some nursing students are brutally attacked in their dormitory, and a man with mild mental retardation eventually is arrested and confesses to the crime. Not everyone is convinced he's guilty, though, and soon enough the Manhattan DAs office gets into a big fight with Brooklyn for jurisdiction over the case.

The episode begins with two nursing students opening the door to a dorm apartment, and finding two badly injured nurses inside, one of whom is dead. They've been stabbed and one of them is missing a finger. Briscoe and Logan investigate, and Robinette and Stone prosecute.

Briscoe and Logan interview the other nurses, and mention Richard Speck, who killed 8 nurses in real life. They find a bloody footprint, and trace the killer's steps to a door to the building which he apparently propped open with a block of wood. Cragen comes down to the scene, Hudson Presbyterian Hospital, to have a look around, too. They talk to the hospital security chief (played by the same actor who would later play Lt. Van Buren's husband, I think), and he says he saw a guy lurking around a few days ago.

The surviving nurse, Aloma, regains consciousness and they talk to her in the hospital. She describes a previous incident in which she was nearly attacked. She used to work at a methadone clinic in Brooklyn, so perhaps there's a connection there. Briscoe mentions a nurse was stabbed in Brooklyn a month ago.

They head out to Brooklyn and interview a Detective Torelli (played by Dan Hedaya), who was working that case. Logan checks on the methadone program's dropouts, and comes up with a few suspects, who they talk to. One of them is played by Paul McCrane, the guy who went on to appear on ER as Robert Romano and on the X-Files as Leonard Betts, the guy who ate people's cancer cells. They hear from Brooklyn that Torelli has picked up a suspect and gotten a confession. The suspect is named Davey, and it's clear that he has a very low IQ. They bring him (improbably) to Aloma's hospital bed, where they shine a lamp in his face so he can't see her and she says she's not sure whether that's him or not. Why not just use a photo array, guys? Anyway, after some hesitation, she changes her mind and says she is sure that's him, after all.

They are suspicious as to whether Davey is actually the perpetrator, so they take him to the crime scene, where he walks them through it and gives them all kinds of details, including the block of wood trick. However, when they offer him a candy bar, he says he doesn't eat them because they're bad for his teeth. But when they initially scoured the crime scene, they found a candy bar rapper and conluded the killer consumed it while waiting for nurses to enter the building. While he's at the crime scene, some nurses walk out, and Davey freaks out and starts yelling.

They check his prior arrest record, and there is some evidence he may have been involved in a sexual assault a long time ago. He also is in possession of a homicide detective textbook that shows a fascination with police work. Briscoe believes Davey is guilty, but Logan doesn't. They find a knife that has blood on it, but they haven't matched that blood to the victims yet.

Davey is arraigned, and his lawyer is recurring character Shambala Green. Olivet examines Davey, who says he went to law school, which isn't true. Davey's IQ is 78, but he wants to appear much smarter. Olivet says he's competent to stand trial.

Davey's confession to Torelli is suppressed, as are his other statements. Schiff is mad at Brooklyn for screwing up their interrogation of him. Stone learns that both nurses were drug users. Aloma tells Robinette that she stole drugs from the hospital and dealt them on the street. This leads to a guy named Marty, who says someone else is responsible, and this someone else has the finger cut from the victim and the cameo ring that was on it. They also learn that Torelli arrested Davey years ago. It begins to look like Torelli is framing Davey. Stone confronts Davey and the Brooklyn DA, Frank Lazar. Lazar says he's bringing Davey to trial in Brooklyn anyway.

Stone is subpoenaed to testify on behalf of Davey at his trial. Lazard cross examines him. Davey is convicted of the nurse attack in Brooklyn, but Stone wants to get to the bottom of the case. To do that, he needs Marty's cooperation, but he's unwilling to give it unless Stone can help him with his current drug charges.

Stone convinces a special narcotics prosecutor to take over the charges against Marty and make a deal with him. Marty IDs the killer as James Lee Pawl, aka Jimmy. Lazar is pissed because his office has already convicted someone of these murders, and he doesn't like Stone arranged for his cases to be poached. The detectives catch up with Pawl: It's Leonard Betts from the X-Files! They had the right guy to begin with. They search him and find lots of evidence.

Then the truth starts coming out: Torelli told Davey to say he killed the nurses. Briscoe, Logan, and IAB show up in Brooklyn and arrest Torelli.

In the epilogue, we learn that Lazar has left for private practice, and Davey remains in jail.

A small bit of character background: Logan mentions he has a niece who is retarded.

Casting notes: Davey played by Michael Badalucco of The Practice, who also appeared as Natalie Portman's father in The Professional. He also played serial killer David Berkowitz in Spike Lee's Summer of Sam. Det. Torelli is played by Dan Hedaya, who played Carla's husband, Nick Tortelli, on Cheers, (and on a Cheers spin-off called "The Torelli's" that didn't last very long).

Posted by adm at June 27, 2004 08:24 PM

Comments

Post a comment

validate