Law & Order Episode: We Like Mike

This episode originally aired in April 1997 on the NBC television network 

One Sunday morning, Mike Bodak, played by Frank John Hughes, stops to help another man, Matthew Sherman, change a tire. As Bodak walks away to clean his hands at a nearby doughnut shop, he passes a guy on the sidewalk; a Hispanic guy with a dragon tattoo on his hand. A few minutes later Sherman is found dead by his sister. He has been shot in the chest. Detectives Briscoe, played by Jerry Orbach, and Curtis, played by Benjamin Bratt, investigate the murder, aided in a supervisory role by Lieutenant Anita Van Buren, played by S. Epatha Merkerson. After getting some info, they track down Bodak, who is at his wedding rehearsal, and question him. Bodak works a couple of jobs, with his main job being a bellhop at a big hotel. Later, after checking out Bodak's story, they find he wasn't completely honest with them about the time he left work the day of the murder and about a large tip he received from a visiting Saudi prince, so they suspect him of killing Sherman. When the detectives go to Bodak's apartment, he admits that he left work early to go to another job answering calls at a bookie's,* and that he was naturally afraid to tell them about the job. Then they find Matthew Sherman's blood on Mike's jacket. They arrest Bodak at his wedding. During further questioning, he tells them about seeing the Hispanic man with the tattoo, "and he looked kinda scary," which prompts Briscoe to say, "Hey, this is New York, everybody looks scary."** The detectives find Bodak's description of the man is similar to a description of a man who robbed a woman in the same neighborhood, so Mike's story takes on credibility.

After checking around about the Hispanic man, the detectives learn his name is Ricky Garcia, played by Benny Nieves, and that he's been arrested for shoplifting. The plan is to have the lady who was robbed look at a lineup with Garcia in it to see if she can identify him. Garcia is released early and the lady is mistakenly brought to the courthouse where Garcia is being released. She sees Garcia and tells the detectives. They arrest Garcia. This leads them to Garcia's apartment (they have a warrant), where he lives with his brother. They find a pistol and a sock with blood on it, and the brother, played by Fernando López, has Matthew Sherman's wallet on him. When Ricky Garcia is confronted with the evidence, he confesses to the murder, in writing. The case now goes to the District Attorney's office (District Attorney Adam Schiff played by Steven Hill, Executive Assistant DA Jack McCoy played by Sam Waterston and Assistant DA Jamie Ross played by Carey Lowell). It all looks so easy... too easy.

With Garcia's confession, Bodak is released from jail with the apologies of the DA's office, but he naturally still has bitter feelings. Garcia's attorney, a Mr. Shuman, played by Casey Siemaszko, challenges the circumstances of the identification of Garcia by the lady in the courthouse.*** The judge agrees (judge played by Ron Frazier), and the attorney presses on by telling the judge that without the tainted identification, there would have been no search of his client's apartment, and therefore, no gun or bloody sock found. Again the judge agrees, which leaves the DA with only the wallet taken from Garcia's brother. The attorney isn't done, however, and he successfully argues that the wallet alone is not enough to hold his client in jail. The judge agrees and dismisses the charges. Garcia is freed. Now the DA needs Mike Bodak to identify Garcia as the man he saw on the street just prior to Matthew Sherman's murder. When Jamie Ross talks with Bodak, he is more than a little reluctant to get involved, but she tells him in a great way, "(You're) a decent guy who got screwed, but when a decent guy has the opportunity to put a killer behind bars, he stands up." Bodak's basic sense of decency brings him to agree to see if he can identify Garcia from a number of photos. He immediately picks out Garcia, who is then arrested again. His attorney's attempts to get him released fails this time, but the judge refuses to allow the gun (which was identified as the murder weapon) and the bloody sock back in for a trial. Now Bodak drops from sight and communication. Jamie Ross goes to his apartment where his bed has been slashed and where he has received a threatening phone call regarding his identification of Ricky Garcia. Mike wants to stay out of the whole thing, but again, Jamie appeals to his sense of decency and duty by telling him that without his testimony, Garcia will get away with murder.

The police tape and trace a threatening phone call to Mike Bodak that comes from Garcia's brother's workplace. They arrest the brother. Jack McCoy talks with Mike and the father (played by John Doman) of Mike's fiancée, who keeps pressuring Mike to stay out of the case. Still, Mike's decency makes him commit to testifying. Ah, don't breathe easily yet! The trial starts and Jamie comes in to tell McCoy that Bodak can't testify, because he's been arrested while working at a bookie's. The judge grants a recess and Jack McCoy goes to the Bronx**** to make arrangements for Mike Bodak to testify in the Garcia trial, as Bodak was arrested in the Bronx. The problem becomes, Bodak's attorney, played by Stuart Burney, doesn't want Mike to testify, because he's fearful Mike could incriminate himself by having to admit to working at a bookie's, operated by an underworld figure. The Bronx will likely want Bodak's testimony against this operator. Mike tells McCoy, "I don't understand. All I did was help a guy change a tire." As the old saying goes, "No good deed goes unpunished." This young man is in a furnace room and the furnace is about to get much hotter.

Mike chooses to testify and he identifies Ricky Garcia. Now Garcia's attorney asks him about his work for the bookie. The attorney casts doubt on Mike's story that he stopped to help Matthew Sherman and that maybe he stopped to collect a gambling debt for the bookie. The attorney asks Bodak to say exactly what he does for the bookie, but Mike's attorney signals that he should not answer, and Mike invokes his Fifth Amendment right to not incriminate himself. Now the defense attorney asks that Mike's testimony be thrown out, because he can't just selectively answer some questions, but not others. After a brief recess, the judge asks Mike if he will answer the defense attorney's question, but Mike again invokes the Fifth Amendment. As he leaves the stand, the judge tells the jury to completely disregard Mike's testimony and Mike is flabbergasted by the fact that he saw Garcia walking towards Matthew Sherman on the morning of the murder is not being allowed to be considered by the jury. The defense attorney also asks for a dismissal of the charges. McCoy tells Mike that this is it, that he must make a choice, but Mike's own attorney is telling him not to testify further. Mike goes back to the stand and he tells what he did at the bookie's. He then tells the jury that it doesn't matter what they think of him, but that it doesn't change the fact that he saw Garcia. As Mike leaves the stand, Ricky Garcia is squirming in his seat. The jury convicts Garcia. The Bronx district attorney drops the charges against Bodak and Adam Schiff says how important it is to have a decent person like Mike Bodak to help make the criminal justice system work.

Just a comment or two. The one troubling part of the script is how no one heard the shot or shots that killed Matthew Sherman, including Mike Bodak, who had just left Sherman. Otherwise, the script is good and it shows that Mike Bodak isn't a perfect person; after all, he did work for the bookie, a choice he made on his own, but none of us is without our flaws, and the writers didn't make Bodak a totally unblemished character with the aura of an angel.     


* For those unaware, a "bookie" is a place that takes and pays bets for all sorts of activities, although most typically for sporting events. Properly the term is "bookmaker," but "bookie" has long been used in every day speech. They are illegal in many places and they have long been associated with organized crime, which will come into play in this story.

** "Law & Order" was known for some of its sarcastic humor and interesting characters. This episode has both, as the doughnut shop owner is hilarious, but so is the lady neighbor of Bodak's fiancée, and Detective Briscoe gets in his own couple of smarta-- lines that should bring a chuckle; not that I would know anything about smarta-- lines (typed with the most innocent look I could muster).

*** While I'm not a lawyer, the issue about police lineups to have eyewitnesses identify suspects is to have a fair process, with no indication of who the actual suspect is among those in the lineup, who are supposed to be "similar" in appearance. The issue in this episode of "Law & Order" seems to be that the witness was brought to the courthouse by mistake, and then she saw the suspect in the courthouse with his attorney, thus possibly prejudicing her to identify Ricky Garcia. While she actually pointed out Garcia completely independently of the police, the defense attorney was able to convince the judge later that the identification was not fair to the accused, and the judge used the term "tainted" in reference to the identification.    

**** The Bronx is one of the boroughs of New York City. It has its own district attorney; thus, Bodak is out of McCoy's jurisdiction in Manhattan, another borough of New York.   

Photo is of the 2010 DVD set for Season 7 by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment

WORD HISTORY:
Aura-This word is related to "air," a word borrowed by English from French, which got it from Latin, which got it from Greek, which got it from Indo European. It goes back to Indo European "awer," which had a notion of "raise, rise." This gave transliterated Ancient Greek "aer," which then produced Greek "aura," meaning, "wind, breeze, moving air." This was borrowed by Latin as "aura," meaning, "air, breath of air, wind." It was borrowed by English circa 1400 with the meaning, "soft breeze," but the sense of "atmosphere" also came to be present, and then used figuratively for "the feeling or sense of atmosphere around, and coming from, some being" (first half of the 1700s?).