Law & Order Episode, Season 8: Thrill
NBC's "Law & Order" had some disturbing episodes; after all, the cases involved murder. This episode was more disturbing than usual, and I've never forgotten it. Even though the episode displayed a disclaimer about the story being fictional, there is little or no question that it is loosely "based" upon the real "thrill killings" of two men delivering pizza to a remote address that took place in New Jersey just a few months before the "Law & Order" episode. The murders in New Jersey drew national attention.
Two young guys, Joey Timon and Dale Kershaw, played by Rob McElhenney and Michael Maronna, respectively, call in an order for fried chicken for delivery to a vacant commercial address on a little used street one evening. A 20 year old delivery man, Matt Wheeler, played by Bryan Greenberg, brings the order and he is shot and killed; his money and valuables are not taken, and the police find the address for the delivery is a vacant business place. The murdered man's parents, played by James Handy and Suzanne Costallos, are naturally devastated. The police detectives, played by Jerry Orbach,* Benjamin Bratt and S. Epatha Merkerson, track down the two young guys and they eventually arrest both of them. A female friend of the two men is interviewed by the police and she says the two had talked about wanting to kill someone, just to see how it feels! The legal question becomes, "Which one pulled the trigger?" A witness saw one man chasing the delivery vehicle and shooting, but he can't identify which man it was; so, the authorities can't prove conclusively that both men were present at the driver's murder, nor can they prove which man it was who was seen chasing the vehicle. This leads the separate defense attorneys for the two prisoners to develop a strategy to blame the other guy, figuring that will get their own client off. Executive assistant district attorney Jack McCoy, played by Sam Waterston, gets a court order allowing the district attorney's office (DA) to record phone calls for the guys in jail. To guarantee that only their calls are recorded, they have them put in isolation, where even visitors are separated from the prisoners by glass, having to talk to the prisoners by phone. Timon's uncle, played by Jan Munroe, comes to visit him and the prisoner tells him how scared he is. The uncle tells him he has to take responsibility for his actions and the nephew tells him he shot the delivery man, but he does not implicate Kershaw, and in fact, he never even mentions his name. The uncle tells his nephew that God forgives him. The DA's office is happy, because they now have an admission, but Timon's attorney files to have the recording suppressed, as the uncle is a priest, and they claim the nephew made the confession to his uncle not as his uncle, but as a priest. The Catholic archdiocese goes to court to have the tape suppressed and destroyed. After some wrangling, the judge won't allow the tape to be used against Timon, but he will allow it to be used for Kershaw, because it supports his claim of innocence (remember, during the admission of guilt, Timon never mentioned Kershaw's name). The dead man and his family are Catholic, and the parents can't understand how the Church is helping to protect a murderer.**
Kershaw's attorney asks the judge to have two separate trials so he can use the tape for his client's defense. Timon's attorney naturally objects, but the judge grants separate trials. The defense attorneys believe there was only one shooter, so only one defendant can be guilty. If one defendant is convicted, the other will go free. Sooooo, McCoy decides to start the two trials simultaneously and argue that both men are guilty of firing the bullet that killed Matt Wheeler! As McCoy's boss, Adam Schiff, played by Steven Hill,*** asks, "You're familiar with the laws of physics?" The judge allows the simultaneous trials, with the second trial to be conducted by assistant district attorney Jamie Ross, played by Carey Lowell. With the recent developments, Timon wants to make a deal with McCoy, and he agrees to testify in court and tell what happened when Matt Wheeler was killed. In return he gets 20 years to life imprisonment and the promise of incarceration in a prison near enough for his mother and uncle to visit him.
In court, Timon tells that he fired first, but that Matt Wheeler pulled away. Kershaw grabbed the gun and chased after the delivery man shooting him. The two pulled the dying young man from his car and stood and watched him die. The Wheelers sit and hear how their son was murdered. Kershaw is convicted and given 30 years to life imprisonment. The Wheelers are allowed to speak. A distraught Mr. Wheeler says that his life has stopped with the murder of his son. He turns to Kershaw seething with anger, but his words won't come out. He takes his seat. Mrs. Wheeler says she agrees with the Church, that Kershaw and Timon deserve God's love and protection, and that she hopes God will watch over them "in that terrible place you are going." As McCoy and Ross leave the courthouse, McCoy asks Ross if she could forgive the two men as Mrs. Wheeler did, and she answers, "No." McCoy agrees that he couldn't forgive them either, but he then asks, "What does that say about us?"
* Jerry Orbach was a long time actor, primarily on stage and on television. He starred in "Law & Order" as Detective Lenny Briscoe from 1991 until 2004. He died from cancer near the end of 2004.
** "Law & Order" tried to show us in many episodes how our laws do not always work perfectly, but that most of them try to give us protections against too much government power at any level of government. If we suffer at the hands of crime, as the parents lost their son in the story, we're hurt, angry and distraught. We want the guilty to pay and we want them to pay regardless of any rights they may have. That's understandable, very serious emotions are involved, but in the end, the hope is for cooler heads to prevail and to mete out justice according to the law. It isn't easy and the system is not perfect, and don't forget, in spite of the protections that have been assembled since the country's founding for those accused or suspected of crimes, people end up arrested and convicted of crimes they did not commit. The percentage of such failures seems to be small, BUT how about we convict you of something you didn't do. Remember, for much of history (including still today), people were sent to prisons or even executed because that was the wish of nobles or dictators, and those so sentenced had no recourse to have such punishments even reviewed, let alone have the punishments reversed.
*** Steven Hill was a long time actor and starred in "Law & Order" as District Attorney Adam Schiff from 1990 until 2000. He passed away in the summer of 2016 at the age of 94.
Photo is of the 2015 DVD set for Season 8 by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment
WORD HISTORY:
Order-The ultimate origin of this word is unclear, although I'm presently persuaded that it is a distant relative of "arm," ^ as well as a number of other words. This takes "order" back to the Indo European root "ar," which meant, "to fit together." This gave Italic the root "ord/ored," meaning, "to arrange, to make an arrangement (of items)." This spawned Latin "ordo," meaning, "a pattern, a row, a series." Its accusative form, "ordinem," gave Latin-based Old French "ordene," which then became "ordre," meaning, "an arrangement (items put into a regular series), a law, regulation or discipline;" thus also, "people devoted to a religious way of life or discipline" (a religious order of adherents, but later expanded in meaning to include, "group of dedicated military forces, usually with some connection to religion"). English borrowed the word in the first half of the 1200s seemingly with two spellings, "ordre" and "order," with the latter then prevailing. The verb was derived from the noun in the 1200s. The word has taken on expanded meanings over time.
^ "Arm" meaning the body part and also meaning 'weapon,' both from the same original source, but with different overall histories. If correct, "order" would also be related to words like "armament," a Latin-derived word borrowed by English from that language, to "armada," a Latin-derived word borrowed from Spanish, to "armor" and to "ordinance," both Latin-derived words borrowed from French, with "ordinance" having strong influence and reinforcement from Latin itself.
Two young guys, Joey Timon and Dale Kershaw, played by Rob McElhenney and Michael Maronna, respectively, call in an order for fried chicken for delivery to a vacant commercial address on a little used street one evening. A 20 year old delivery man, Matt Wheeler, played by Bryan Greenberg, brings the order and he is shot and killed; his money and valuables are not taken, and the police find the address for the delivery is a vacant business place. The murdered man's parents, played by James Handy and Suzanne Costallos, are naturally devastated. The police detectives, played by Jerry Orbach,* Benjamin Bratt and S. Epatha Merkerson, track down the two young guys and they eventually arrest both of them. A female friend of the two men is interviewed by the police and she says the two had talked about wanting to kill someone, just to see how it feels! The legal question becomes, "Which one pulled the trigger?" A witness saw one man chasing the delivery vehicle and shooting, but he can't identify which man it was; so, the authorities can't prove conclusively that both men were present at the driver's murder, nor can they prove which man it was who was seen chasing the vehicle. This leads the separate defense attorneys for the two prisoners to develop a strategy to blame the other guy, figuring that will get their own client off. Executive assistant district attorney Jack McCoy, played by Sam Waterston, gets a court order allowing the district attorney's office (DA) to record phone calls for the guys in jail. To guarantee that only their calls are recorded, they have them put in isolation, where even visitors are separated from the prisoners by glass, having to talk to the prisoners by phone. Timon's uncle, played by Jan Munroe, comes to visit him and the prisoner tells him how scared he is. The uncle tells him he has to take responsibility for his actions and the nephew tells him he shot the delivery man, but he does not implicate Kershaw, and in fact, he never even mentions his name. The uncle tells his nephew that God forgives him. The DA's office is happy, because they now have an admission, but Timon's attorney files to have the recording suppressed, as the uncle is a priest, and they claim the nephew made the confession to his uncle not as his uncle, but as a priest. The Catholic archdiocese goes to court to have the tape suppressed and destroyed. After some wrangling, the judge won't allow the tape to be used against Timon, but he will allow it to be used for Kershaw, because it supports his claim of innocence (remember, during the admission of guilt, Timon never mentioned Kershaw's name). The dead man and his family are Catholic, and the parents can't understand how the Church is helping to protect a murderer.**
Kershaw's attorney asks the judge to have two separate trials so he can use the tape for his client's defense. Timon's attorney naturally objects, but the judge grants separate trials. The defense attorneys believe there was only one shooter, so only one defendant can be guilty. If one defendant is convicted, the other will go free. Sooooo, McCoy decides to start the two trials simultaneously and argue that both men are guilty of firing the bullet that killed Matt Wheeler! As McCoy's boss, Adam Schiff, played by Steven Hill,*** asks, "You're familiar with the laws of physics?" The judge allows the simultaneous trials, with the second trial to be conducted by assistant district attorney Jamie Ross, played by Carey Lowell. With the recent developments, Timon wants to make a deal with McCoy, and he agrees to testify in court and tell what happened when Matt Wheeler was killed. In return he gets 20 years to life imprisonment and the promise of incarceration in a prison near enough for his mother and uncle to visit him.
In court, Timon tells that he fired first, but that Matt Wheeler pulled away. Kershaw grabbed the gun and chased after the delivery man shooting him. The two pulled the dying young man from his car and stood and watched him die. The Wheelers sit and hear how their son was murdered. Kershaw is convicted and given 30 years to life imprisonment. The Wheelers are allowed to speak. A distraught Mr. Wheeler says that his life has stopped with the murder of his son. He turns to Kershaw seething with anger, but his words won't come out. He takes his seat. Mrs. Wheeler says she agrees with the Church, that Kershaw and Timon deserve God's love and protection, and that she hopes God will watch over them "in that terrible place you are going." As McCoy and Ross leave the courthouse, McCoy asks Ross if she could forgive the two men as Mrs. Wheeler did, and she answers, "No." McCoy agrees that he couldn't forgive them either, but he then asks, "What does that say about us?"
* Jerry Orbach was a long time actor, primarily on stage and on television. He starred in "Law & Order" as Detective Lenny Briscoe from 1991 until 2004. He died from cancer near the end of 2004.
** "Law & Order" tried to show us in many episodes how our laws do not always work perfectly, but that most of them try to give us protections against too much government power at any level of government. If we suffer at the hands of crime, as the parents lost their son in the story, we're hurt, angry and distraught. We want the guilty to pay and we want them to pay regardless of any rights they may have. That's understandable, very serious emotions are involved, but in the end, the hope is for cooler heads to prevail and to mete out justice according to the law. It isn't easy and the system is not perfect, and don't forget, in spite of the protections that have been assembled since the country's founding for those accused or suspected of crimes, people end up arrested and convicted of crimes they did not commit. The percentage of such failures seems to be small, BUT how about we convict you of something you didn't do. Remember, for much of history (including still today), people were sent to prisons or even executed because that was the wish of nobles or dictators, and those so sentenced had no recourse to have such punishments even reviewed, let alone have the punishments reversed.
*** Steven Hill was a long time actor and starred in "Law & Order" as District Attorney Adam Schiff from 1990 until 2000. He passed away in the summer of 2016 at the age of 94.
Photo is of the 2015 DVD set for Season 8 by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment
Order-The ultimate origin of this word is unclear, although I'm presently persuaded that it is a distant relative of "arm," ^ as well as a number of other words. This takes "order" back to the Indo European root "ar," which meant, "to fit together." This gave Italic the root "ord/ored," meaning, "to arrange, to make an arrangement (of items)." This spawned Latin "ordo," meaning, "a pattern, a row, a series." Its accusative form, "ordinem," gave Latin-based Old French "ordene," which then became "ordre," meaning, "an arrangement (items put into a regular series), a law, regulation or discipline;" thus also, "people devoted to a religious way of life or discipline" (a religious order of adherents, but later expanded in meaning to include, "group of dedicated military forces, usually with some connection to religion"). English borrowed the word in the first half of the 1200s seemingly with two spellings, "ordre" and "order," with the latter then prevailing. The verb was derived from the noun in the 1200s. The word has taken on expanded meanings over time.
^ "Arm" meaning the body part and also meaning 'weapon,' both from the same original source, but with different overall histories. If correct, "order" would also be related to words like "armament," a Latin-derived word borrowed by English from that language, to "armada," a Latin-derived word borrowed from Spanish, to "armor" and to "ordinance," both Latin-derived words borrowed from French, with "ordinance" having strong influence and reinforcement from Latin itself.
Labels: Benjamin Bratt, Carey Lowell, English, etymology, French, Jerry Orbach, Latin, Law & Order, Michael Maronna, Rob McElhenney, S. Epatha Merkerson, Sam Waterston, Steven Hill, television shows, thrill killings
posted by Randy at 12:53 PM
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