Fontana is accused of using excessively violent tactics to force a kidnapping suspect to reveal the location of the victim. Prosecutors are left to decide whether the ends justified the mean... Read allFontana is accused of using excessively violent tactics to force a kidnapping suspect to reveal the location of the victim. Prosecutors are left to decide whether the ends justified the means.Fontana is accused of using excessively violent tactics to force a kidnapping suspect to reveal the location of the victim. Prosecutors are left to decide whether the ends justified the means.
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- DA Arthur Branch
- (as Fred Dalton Thompson)
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Did you know
- TriviaThe episode title is from Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2: "... there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so ..."
- Quotes
Jack McCoy: Like it or not, in evaluating the case against Mitchell Lowell, Detective Fontana's actions are irrelevant and must be ignored. Like it or not, the law says that you must focus only on what the defendant did. I'm realistic; I know you're good people, and as such, it's next to impossible that you could ignore what you heard, or didn't hear, in this courtroom. And I also know that by asking you to weigh the defendant's actions against the police officer's, Mr. Dworkin is, in effect, appealing to your fundamental sense of fair play. Is that a bad thing? Heck, what's good for the goose is good for the gander; we all know that. Fairness is all. Or is it? Does Mr. Dworkin's fairness leave any room for justice? That fairness exists in a vacuum, while justice, on the other hand, cannot. In Mr. Dworkin's vacuum world, we'd have to treat a rapist the same as we'd treat a man who made love to his wife. After all, they've both performed the same physical act; it's only fair. In Mr. Dworkin's vacuum world, the terrorist must be treated the same as the soldier who tracks him down and kills him. Of course he does; each of them has taken a human life, and what's fair is only fair. In Mr. Dworkin's vacuum world, the man who takes a little girl hostage while attempting to rob a bank, as long as he feeds her well, must be treated better than a cop who used excessive force in trying to save the life of that innocent child. It's only fair, but is it just? The benchmark of a civilized society is the quality of its justice. In this society, we put kidnappers and bank robbers behind bars.
- ConnectionsFeatures I Wanna Be a Sailor (1937)
He's got a real sleazy client this time, a con artist in Stephen Schnetzler. Con artists aren't lovable tricksters going after the very rich. This guy and his son have a deadly scheme.
They probably had Michael Countryman's movements down real good. Schnetzler during a small window of opportunity when Countryman's little girl is alone. She's snatched and Schnetzler's son contacts the victim and asks him to assist in a bank robbery for ransom. The FBI says there were two other such incidents where the kids were found dead and the other never found though there's no link to anyone.
When Dennis Farina and Jesse Martin figure it out it's Farina who goes out to the Hamptons where Schnetzler has a pair of ex-wives he bilked. He has to be most persuasive in getting the whereabouts of the child out of Schnetzler.
It's the technicalities that Jacobson pins his hopes on getting the case dismissed. Truth be told Farina crossed the line in a good cause. They have quite a battle of wits on the stand. And Sam Waterston as well is evenly matched with Jacobson and he knows it.
If there was ever an episode that justified a little torture this was it.
- bkoganbing
- Dec 20, 2015