Self-Defense 7 Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episodes
Killings and attacks that the accused says were justified to protect themselves or others.
- 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 12 · Episode 11
Pop
A boy’s death on a carousel exposes a ring of fathers betting on fights between their sons, and Stabler tries to free a teenage fighter from his abusive stepfather.
- Season 15 · Episode 3
American Tragedy
A celebrity chef shoots an unarmed black teenager she mistakes for a serial rapist, and her manslaughter trial turns on race, fear and self-defense.
- Season 17 · Episode 2
Criminal Pathology
After Greg Yates’s fiancée is found dismembered, the squad tracks the fugitive medical examiner Carl Rudnick and tries to convict him despite his claim of self-defense.
- Season 17 · Episode 6
Maternal Instincts
A celebrated flautist accused of rape blames an escort he says drugged him, and Rollins recognizes the escort as her fugitive sister.
- Season 20 · Episode 14
Part 33
As the squad waits to testify in the trial of a woman who killed her emotionally abusive police officer husband, the detectives argue over how far their testimony should help her.
- Season 23 · Episode 22
A Final Call at Forlini's Bar
A battered wife stabs her abusive husband in the back, and Barba defends her against Carisi as Benson weighs her feelings about him and Stabler.