Competence (Season 3, Episode 22)
Premise: A pregnant woman with Down syndrome cannot say how it happened, and the search for her rapist runs into a guardianship fight over whether she can decide to keep the baby.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 3, Episode 22
- 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), Dr. George Huang (BD Wong)
- Guest stars
- Lois Smith as Rebecca Tolliver, Andrea Fay Friedman as Katie Tolliver, James Badge Dale as Danny Jordan, Matt DeCaro as Abe Cheney, C.J. Wilson as Scott Lucas
- Director
- Jud Taylor
- Writers
- Story: Jeff Eckerle; Story & teleplay: Robert F. Campbell & Jonathan Greene
Summary
“Competence” starts when Rebecca Tolliver tells Stabler that her daughter, Katie, a 22-year-old with Down syndrome, is pregnant and must have been raped. Katie has never been taught about sex and cannot say who the father is, and Rebecca puts off an evaluation by Dr. George Huang. Scott Lucas, who runs Katie’s day program, calls her mother overprotective, and Katie’s best friend there, Danny Jordan, says the van driver, Ray Dunstan, has been mean to her and touched her.
In an interview at the Central Park Zoo, Katie says Dunstan took her locket with her mother’s picture and pinched her, and the locket turns up in his apartment. Dunstan proves he had a vasectomy and is booked only for petty larceny. A former instructor, Joe Parker, admits he called the state anonymously and accuses Lucas of fathering a client’s child the year before; Lucas says the 17-year-old named him falsely and DNA showed another client was the father. Questioned by Huang with Cabot present, Katie says she got her baby from Danny by kissing.
Rebecca books an abortion, but Lucas wins an injunction and challenges her guardianship. Katie and Danny run off and are found in a hotel room stocked with diapers, where Katie is cooking soup and has applied for a job. Danny says he never had sex with Katie, and Katie explains that what she calls exercise, sitting on someone’s lap with pants down, happens daily at work with Abe Cheney, owner of the grocery store where she works. Cheney calls it job training and asks for a lawyer.
Cabot’s boss offers to quash a subpoena from Lucas’s lawyer, warning that a finding of competence will wreck the rape case, but Cabot testifies anyway that Katie can make her own choices, and Huang backs her. When Katie herself cannot answer basic questions about caring for a baby, the questioning is stopped and Rebecca gives up her guardianship.
Spoiler, the ending: A prenatal test shows Cheney is the father and that the baby does not have Down syndrome. Katie mentions seeing Cheney “exercising” with a co-worker, Maryanne, who has a baby girl. Cheney’s lawyer offers a plea to sexual misconduct; Cabot holds out for second-degree rape and 10 years, and the defense refuses. Cabot then shows that Cheney fathered children with women who worked in his stores, three of them underage, and paid the mothers to stay quiet; she is filing child support claims that would give each of six children 17 percent of his fortune and provide for Katie and her baby for life. The rape charge is left unresolved.
Why it stands out
- Andrea Fay Friedman, who had Down syndrome and was known for playing Amanda on Life Goes On, plays Katie Tolliver.
- Co-writer Robert F. Campbell has cited this episode and Lois Smith, who plays Rebecca, among his favorite experiences writing for the show.