The Ledger

5.13 Rage

In this episode (5.13), Courtney Vance turns in a great performance as a cocky Wall Street trader who kills his boss and then uses "black rage" as a a defense. Briscoe and Logan investigate, and McCoy and Kincaid prosecute against this novel defense.

The episode begins with a young couple approaching a big townhouse. From dialogue we learn that the woman is excited to introduce the man, her boyfriend, to her father. The enter the home and walk upstairs, and discover the father dead, with a shotgun in his lap and blood splattered all over. Looks like killed himself, but the daughter insists to the detectives that he didn't. ME Rodgers agrees, saying that based on the way the blood inside his body settled, she concludes he was strangled from behind, laid out on the floor, propped in the chair, and then shot, post-mortem.

They visit the victim's place of work and learn he was very wealthy, earning at least $15 million last year at his firm. They talk to some of his employees, who didn't like him very much, and they keep mentioning Bud Greer, a hotshot employee who some say was not hounded as much as they were. They find Greer (Courtney Vance) in a surprisingly run down apartment in Hell's Kitchen. He says he's in it for the power, not the money. He has an alibi, but not much of one.

The dets talk to the company car service, and the driver, who is black, says Vance told him "I'm not your brother" and got dropped off at the victim's home on the night of the murder. This seems to contradict what Greer implied to the detectives earlier. They also learn that Greer was once arrested for assault back in the 1980s.

They search Greer's apartment, and don't find any direct evidence, but do find a memo to the victim saying a record of all of Greer's recent trades was attached. They conjecture that Greer was making fraudulent transactions, his boss found out about it, and Greer killed him to keep the secret from getting out.

They bring Greer in for interrogation. He is very arrogant. When they learn there's a partial fingerprint from Greer on the victim's sink, they arrest him (21'). But the judge tosses the financial records evidence, saying that they weren't in plain view and weren't directly relevant to the elements of the crime, since motive isn't an element.

Kincaid then has to do some further investigation, so they can get that memo back in by arguing "inevitable discovery." She talks to Greer's father and his best friend from childhood, a (white) doctor who has some interesting ideas about race, Greer, and Greer's attitudes about race.

CK also talks to Greer's first employer after MBA school, who says Greer was an underperformer and was eventually let go. He only became a star trader at his second job, where it appears he did so fraudulently. Based on this unusual record, McCoy argues they would have found out about his trading practices eventually, and the judge agrees.

Greer then gets an additional lawyer: Mr Bryant, who is an acclaimed civil rights attorney whose work McCoy is aware of. Bryant says he is going to argue that Greer killed his boss because of "black rage," and he has an expert to testify about this condition, wherein a black person gets so fed up with racism, they eventually lash out violently.

Olivet examines Greer, and Greer speaks out against affirmative action and says that racist actions in part arose from white men's efforts to "protect" white women from black men. Olivet is sympathetic to Greer's place in society but concludes he wasn't insane.

At trial (50'), the expert testifies about black rage, and McCoy accuses her of giving people an excuse to be racist and fearful. Greer testifies and says the victim said racist things (N-word, etc) to him the night of the murder after finding out about the bogus trades. Greer says he doesn't remember killing him.

The ADAs regroup with Schiff, and they debate how this defense will play with the jurors, 8 of whom are black. Schiff says something like it will go well with "this jury," and CK sharply questions him, implying he's being condescending, and he retorts with what may be one of the worst lines in the history of the show: "Nobody's condescending here, young lady." I have seen this scene many times, and I cannot figure out what the deal is. Is Steven Hill just missing the irony in the line as he delivers it, or did the writers not realize that the line itself is condescending? I just can't tell. Anyway, that line drives me crazy every time I see it. Schiff calls CK "young lady" several times throughout his tenure, but this is definitely the worse instance.

Anyway, Schiff, per usual, tells McCoy to seek a deal. McCoy offers one, but Greer gives McCoy a big speech about how McC pretends not to be racist but really is, and that McC will be afraid of black men in suits now that he knows how they have all this rage built up inside of them. McCoy withstands this verbal assault, pretty much, and replies that Greer is just a common thief and murderer who hides behind his race.

So the verdict comes back: Guilty of Murder 2. Hurray for blind justice.

In the epilogue, CK and McCoy step outside to catch a cab, and as one stops to pick up McCoy, CK points out that it just drove right by a black man who was hailing it and picked up McCoy instead.

The episode is notable because of Courtney Vance's performance, one of the best guest appearances in the history of the show. Vance, of course, went on to land the regular role of Ron Carver on Criminal Intent several years later.

Another casting note: Mr Bryant is played by Wendell Pierce, a recognizable character actor who has appeared prominently in two other episodes: Disciple, and Consultation (woman dies by swallowing heroin-filled condoms), which is probably the next episode I am going to write about.

Posted by adm at September 7, 2004 02:49 AM

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