Depravity Standard (Season 17, Episode 9)
Premise: When Lewis Hodda recants his confession, Barba tries him for a 1999 child murder and Benson’s interrogation tactics go on trial with him.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 17, Episode 9
- Starring
- Lt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Det. Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino), ADA Rafael Barba (Raúl Esparza), Dr. George Huang (BD Wong)
- Guest stars
- Tom Sizemore as Lewis Hodda, Robin Weigert as Lisa Hassler, Liza Colón-Zayas as Delores Rodriguez, Alex Karpovsky as Stephen Lomatin, Mili Avital as Laurie Colfax
- Director
- Martha Mitchell
- Writers
- Story: Brianna Yellen; Written by: Ed Zuckerman
Summary
“Depravity Standard” brings back Lewis Hodda, the building manager who confessed to Benson three years earlier to kidnapping seven-year-old Wyatt Morris and to the 1999 murder of Hector Rodriguez, whose body was found under fresh concrete in a basement he managed. At his plea hearing Hodda refuses the agreed deal, says Benson put the words in his mouth, fires his lawyer and demands a trial. Wyatt’s mother, Laurie Colfax, will not let her son testify, so Barba must try Hodda for Hector’s murder on circumstantial evidence and the confession, as Hector’s mother, Delores, wants.
Defense attorney Lisa Hassler, daughter of a famous civil rights lawyer, takes the case. The judge bars any mention of the kidnapping but admits the confession. Carisi, studying law at night, shadows Barba, and auxiliary officer Stephen Lomatin, who found Hector’s lunch box in 1999, offers to lie on the stand. Hassler makes Benson admit she questioned Hodda for six hours before the camera rolled, lied about witnesses and warned him he would be labeled a child molester in prison. Hodda testifies he confessed out of fear, but under Barba’s cross he blurts that he never touched Hector “down there.” Former SVU psychiatrist Dr. George Huang, now consulting after leaving the FBI, testifies that Hodda is suggestible, and Benson confronts him afterward. Hassler then casts suspicion on Lomatin, who kept photos of Hector in his attic.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury deliberates for five days. Lomatin tells Barba he bribed a court clerk and approached the family of a juror he believes dislikes police; Barba promises to report him. Barba agrees to Hassler’s offer of a plea to criminally negligent homicide with eight years, and Delores reluctantly accepts, but the jury declares itself deadlocked, Hassler withdraws the offer and the judge declares a mistrial. Laurie then tells Benson that Wyatt and his father will cooperate in a kidnapping trial. In the hospital, Rollins goes into labor with Carisi beside her, but she begins to hemorrhage and the baby’s heart rate drops; the episode ends before the outcome is known.
Why it stands out
- BD Wong returns as Dr. George Huang, his fourth guest appearance since leaving the main cast in Season 12, this time testifying for the defense.
- Tom Sizemore, Mili Avital, Alex Karpovsky and Liza Colón-Zayas reprise their roles from the Season 14 episode “Manhattan Vigil,” whose case this episode revisits.
- Rollins’s daughter is born after the events of this episode.