Legal Ethics 35 Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episodes
Prosecutors, judges and lawyers whose own conduct comes under scrutiny during a case.
- Season 1 · Episode 13
Disrobed
When a judge celebrated for protecting women is shot dead in his car, the detectives uncover a scheme trading parole decisions for money and sex.
- Season 3 · Episode 21
Denial
A rape victim’s grisly keepsake leads detectives to a toddler’s remains hidden in a closet for 14 years, and to a mother and grandmother each hiding a child’s death.
- Season 4 · Episode 21
Fallacy
A young woman kills a man she says tried to rape her at a party, and the case changes when detectives learn she is a transgender woman hiding her past from her boyfriend.
- Season 5 · Episode 12
Brotherhood
A fraternity pledge master is found murdered at a sewage plant, and the case uncovers years of sadistic hazing inside his house.
- Season 5 · Episode 20
Lowdown
A Bronx prosecutor found strangled on a prostitution stroll turns out to have been living a hidden life, and the trail leads to the colleague he loved.
- Season 5 · Episode 24
Poison
A mother accused of making her adopted daughter swallow detergent is acquitted by a judge whose past rulings Novak sets out to expose.
- Season 9 · Episode 7
Blinded
A schizophrenic children’s author who abducts girls he mistakes for his sister blinds Stabler, and Benson and Novak each bend the rules over whether he should face execution.
- Season 9 · Episode 12
Signature
Benson and Lake team with an FBI profiler to hunt a serial sexual sadist, only to find he has already been executed, and that the shooter may be on their side.
- Season 9 · Episode 19
Cold
In the season finale, Lake’s fatal shootout with a fellow officer exposes a decade-old rape and murder by police, and the case costs Novak and Lake dearly.
- Season 10 · Episode 10
Smut
A woman raped under a memory-erasing drug cannot say what happened, so SVU hunts for other victims of a man who films his attacks.
- Season 10 · Episode 20
Crush
An abused teenager who sent nude photos of herself is prosecuted for child pornography, and her harsh sentence leads SVU to a family court judge who profits from locking children up.
- Season 11 · Episode 4
Hammered
A recovering alcoholic wakes up next to a murdered abortion doctor with no memory of the night, and his trial exposes the prosecutor’s own drinking.
- Season 11 · Episode 8
Turmoil
A missing teenager pulls Stabler’s son into danger while a leaked photo and a state bar inquiry threaten Cabot’s rape case against a high school football star.
- Season 11 · Episode 15
Confidential
A woman’s murder in a Manhattan tower matches a 1987 killing, and the case turns on what the killer’s lawyer has kept secret ever since.
- Season 11 · Episode 21
Torch
A father is charged with setting the fire that killed his two young daughters, until the new SVU prosecutor, his accuser, comes to doubt the fire marshal’s science.
- Season 11 · Episode 22
Ace
A pregnant rape victim who vanishes from the hospital leads SVU to a Bulgarian ring smuggling women into New York to sell their babies.
- Season 12 · Episode 5
Wet
A public relations executive for a soda company is poisoned with wild mushrooms, and a water-rights activist eagerly claims the blame.
- Season 13 · Episode 10
Spiraling Down
A sting aimed at the men who paid to have sex with a 14-year-old runaway catches a former football star whose head injuries raise the question of whether he understood what he did.
- Season 13 · Episode 17
Justice Denied
When a Fleet Week rape copies a 2004 case, Benson must face the possibility that the confession she obtained sent an innocent man to prison.
- Season 14 · Episode 2
Above Suspicion
After an undercover officer is shot by a fellow cop, SVU unravels the plot behind it and finds who in the DA’s office has been protecting a powerful madam.
- Season 14 · Episode 11
Beautiful Frame
When a rape victim is charged with killing her boyfriend on Long Island, SVU suspects the man she accused framed her, and Barba squares off against the Suffolk County DA who protects him.
- Season 15 · Episode 6
October Surprise
When a mayoral front-runner asks Barba, his oldest friend, to help a mutual friend accused of attempted rape, SVU uncovers the candidate’s sexting and hush money.
- Season 18 · Episode 1
Terrorized
A lost boy who pulls a gun on Benson leads SVU to a planned shooting in Central Park, and his mother, charged with murder, says the attackers raped her for years.
- Season 18 · Episode 3
Imposter
A security guard who poses as a college admissions director to seduce anxious mothers is charged with rape, testing whether sex obtained by fraud is a crime in New York.
- Season 18 · Episode 14
Net Worth
A junior investment banker accuses her firm’s billionaire client of rape, and his allies use emails, tabloid photos and a lucrative job offer to make the case go away.
- Season 18 · Episode 15
Know It All
A data-mining executive suspected of disguising his girlfriend’s murder as a serial killer’s work uses hacked secrets to blackmail a forensic expert and Barba.
- Season 18 · Episode 21
Sanctuary
With their key witness deported, SVU pressures a suspect’s undocumented wife to break his alibi, and Benson must decide whether to back a grieving mother’s changed account at trial.
- Season 19 · Episode 13
The Undiscovered Country
A father kidnaps his terminally ill baby to stop doctors from ending his life support, and Barba’s response lands him on trial for murder.
- Season 19 · Episode 16
Dare
When a girl dies after a schoolyard dare, SVU discovers that her surgeon harvested her organs without her parents’ consent, as she has done for dozens of other children.
- Season 20 · Episode 8
Hell's Kitchen
A waitress who refuses to call her assault rape leads SVU to her celebrity chef boss, his uncharged Brooklyn cases and the prosecutor who passed on them.
- Season 21 · Episode 9
Can't Be Held Accountable
A retired detective asks SVU to stop a billionaire he believes is grooming his teenage daughters, but the case collapses in court and the father takes matters into his own hands.
- Season 22 · Episode 6
The Long Arm of the Witness
After a judge throws out a rape case and launches a campaign for attorney general, the squad uncovers a history of sexual assaults dating to his college years.
- Season 23 · Episode 8
Nightmares in Drill City
A teenage girl who helped gunmen into a deadly robbery faces murder charges, and SVU sets out to prove she was a trafficking victim acting out of fear.
- Season 24 · Episode 19
Bend the Law
Carisi must build a case against his own boss’s husband when 15-year-old girls are found serving members of an exclusive club, while Velasco tracks down an old cartel friend in Maine.
- Season 27 · Episode 19
Impropriety
A 16-year-old dropped outside a hospital after a party leads SVU to a retired judge’s daughter who drugged her son’s friends and watched them on a hidden camera.