Harm (Season 9, Episode 5)
Premise: The murder of a teacher who was helping a torture survivor tell his story puts a psychiatrist who designed interrogations in Iraq on trial in New York.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 9, Episode 5
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), Sgt. John Munch (Richard Belzer), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Chester Lake (Adam Beach), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), ADA Casey Novak (Diane Neal), Dr. George Huang (BD Wong), ME Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie)
- Guest stars
- Elizabeth McGovern as Dr. Faith Sutton, Steven Weber as Matthew Braden, Marjan Neshat as Hagir Abbas, Patrick Page as Jack Rexton, Jennifer Van Dyck as Dr. Kelly Alvin
- Director
- Peter Leto
- Writers
- Josh Singer
Summary
“Harm” begins when a jogger finds Kate Simes, a college counselor at a private school, stabbed once in the chest, her clothes disturbed as if in a rape. Warner finds no sign of sexual assault but identifies a lesion on her arm as cutaneous leishmaniasis, a parasite spread by sand flies. A student, Jackie Solomon, and her father had clashed with Kate over Jackie’s anti-Muslim video, but they have an alibi. Airport footage shows that Kate secretly flew to Istanbul, cut and dyed her hair, and crossed into Iraq; she had told her mother she was rebuilding homes in New Orleans. She had been translating Arabic at a women’s refugee center, where her computer was stolen and her backup drive is missing.
Phone records lead to Haroun Abbas, an Iraqi cab driver who died the same night. His widow, Hagir, says he was tortured for two years in a prison camp in Iraq before she smuggled him into the country. Warner finds marks of stress positions and signs that a long ice bath stopped his weak heart. A clinic for torture survivors says Kate was helping Abbas turn his journal into a book and that he believed he had seen his torturer at a diner. A canvass of diners turns up a receipt naming Dr. Faith Sutton, a psychiatrist. Her companion, former special forces soldier George Tomforde, has vanished, and he works for Helios Defense Industries, a private military contractor. Helios’s U.S. president, Jack Rexton, hands over Tomforde’s file, which records prisoner abuse and lists Sutton on his interrogation team in Mosul. Sutton defends her methods until lawyer Matthew Braden turns up unasked; Helios has flown Tomforde’s family to Bahrain.
With Tomforde out of reach, Warner urges a case against Sutton, and Novak charges her with criminally negligent homicide in Abbas’s death. Over Braden’s objection that the methods were legal in Iraq, Judge Lois Preston accepts Novak’s argument of continuing jurisdiction. At trial, Warner cannot say for certain that the methods caused the death, and Sutton testifies that Helios questioned Abbas, a militia leader’s cousin, after she left. Under Novak’s questions about hooded stress positions lasting up to two days, Sutton says her own son is serving in Iraq. A juror then collapses, and Sutton revives him.
Spoiler, the ending: Preston declares a mistrial, and Braden says the jury was hopelessly split, so a retrial would be pointless. No one is charged with Kate’s murder. Warner files a complaint with the state medical board, which reviews Sutton’s license. Sutton argues she had no doctor–patient relationship with detainees and tells Warner she feels no remorse in wartime; the board’s decision is not shown.
Why it stands out
- Elizabeth McGovern guest stars as Dr. Faith Sutton, a psychiatrist who believes helping with interrogations is her duty in the war on terror.
- Showrunner Neal Baer said Christopher Meloni asked for a Stabler line criticizing harsh interrogations, to keep the character three-dimensional.