Noncompliance (Season 2, Episode 6)
Premise: A market manager is raped and shot, and the man charged is a schizophrenic who refuses medication, until the evidence points to the stabbed bystander he says he attacked to save her.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 2, Episode 6
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), Det. John Munch (Richard Belzer), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), ADA Alexandra Cabot (Stephanie March), ME Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie)
- Guest stars
- Kevin Breznahan as Mark Nash, Kathleen Chalfant as Mrs. Nash, Danny Mastrogiorgio as Earl Miller, William Youmans as Ben Moreland, J.K. Simmons as Dr. Emil Skoda
- Director
- Elodie Keene
- Writers
- Story: Dawn DeNoon & Lisa Marie Petersen & Robert F. Campbell & Jonathan Greene; Written by: Judith McCreary
Summary
“Noncompliance” opens at a Manhattan market, where night manager Margaret “Maggie” Sandomir is found raped and shot behind the counter while an unidentified man lies outside with stab wounds to his back, chest and genitals. Her shoes have been put back on the wrong feet, no fluids are recovered and the cash is untouched. Sandomir was a Columbia psychology doctoral student who interned at a clinic for homeless mentally ill patients. One of them, Ben Moreland, had stalked her and now takes court-ordered medication. The clinic’s Dr. Klein refuses to share patient records and steers the detectives to Mark Nash, the subject of Sandomir’s thesis, a schizophrenic who rejects all medication.
The stabbed man, Earl Miller, wakes from surgery and describes a rambling young attacker. Benson and Stabler find Nash reciting passages from Crime and Punishment; he admits stabbing Miller and says he hopes the man dies. His mother insists Mark adored Sandomir, describes the harsh side effects of earlier drugs and admits she keeps a handgun. Nash is charged with murder, rape and assault, his lawyer claims self-defense, and he keeps the right to refuse treatment. Then the evidence shifts: hairs on Sandomir’s body are not his, and Moreland’s prints turn up in the store, though Moreland’s confession collapses because he has no idea how she died.
Suspicion turns to Miller, who changes his account of why he was in the area. Prints from his hospital food tray identify him as Earl Gilmore, paroled after seven years in Sing Sing for armed robbery. A guard tells Munch and Tutuola that Gilmore was sexually assaulted by a cellmate and, after using smuggled steroids, preyed on new inmates. His blood matches the hairs, but the likely gun has gone out with the trash on a barge bound for Virginia, and Cabot needs a credible witness. She offers to treat Nash’s stabbing of Gilmore as justified in exchange for a statement made under a month-long antipsychotic injection. After a beating at Rikers, Nash agrees despite his mother’s protests.
Lucid, Nash says he heard a shot, saw a man standing over Sandomir and searching her for the safe keys, and stabbed him, then tidied her body before fleeing. Gilmore, whose offer of a life plea is withdrawn, is charged with her rape and murder.
Spoiler, the ending: That night Stabler and Benson are called to the hospital, where Nash has hanged himself with a belt tied to his bed. Dr. Melinda Warner says the drug silenced his voices and left him lonely and depressed. When the detectives offer condolences, Mrs. Nash tells them to go to hell. Gilmore’s trial is not shown.
Why it stands out
- Tamara Tunie makes her first appearance as medical examiner Dr. Melinda Warner, a role she goes on to play through later seasons.
- The prosecution’s only eyewitness can give a usable statement only after accepting a long-acting antipsychotic injection, which puts a patient’s right to refuse treatment at the center of the case.