The Collar (Season 12, Episode 11)
Premise: A priest is shot dead while hearing confessions, and the only man who can explain why is a fellow priest who refuses to repeat what the killer once told him.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 12, Episode 11
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Serena Southerlyn (Elisabeth Röhm), DA Nora Lewin (Dianne Wiest)
- Guest stars
- John Dossett as Father Evans, Agustin Rodriguez as Angel Cabrera, Dick Latessa as Bishop Durning, Joanna Going as defense attorney Dana Bauer, Cesar Leonardo as Freddie Ortega
- Director
- Matthew Penn
- Writers
- Richard Sweren
Summary
The Investigation
“The Collar” opens with the murder of Father Grady, shot through the screen of the confessional in the chapel of Don Bosco, a Catholic boys’ school. Nothing is taken. Briscoe and Green first look at Tim Boswell, a suspended senior who sneaked into the school that evening and says Grady was involved with his mother; his father, Allan, who beats his wife over the same suspicion, has a pizza delivery alibi. The school newsletter then shows that another priest, Father Evans, was scheduled to hear confessions that night and had swapped with Grady.
A .25 pistol turns up on the subway tracks near the school. It is registered to store owner Joseph Serrano, whose night manager, Danny, admits lending it to his cousin Angel Cabrera, a former Don Bosco student now working at a boatyard. Cabrera runs, and his MetroCard puts him at the nearby station around the time of the shooting, but he asks for a lawyer. Evans, who once counseled Cabrera, will only say he cannot discuss what he knows.
Cabrera’s mother recalls a night in 1998 when her frightened son came home and she summoned Evans. Detective Ronald Murphy links that week to the stabbing of Samuel Landrum in Riverside Park, a case closed with the conviction of Freddie Ortega. In prison, Ortega tells McCoy and Southerlyn that Evans has long assured him the wrong man was locked up.
The Trial
Lewin approves a grand jury subpoena for Evans, and a lawyer for the archdiocese warns her that jailing a priest would hurt her with voters. A priest McCoy consults, Father Paul, doubts any confessor would absolve a killer who shows no remorse, and suggests Evans is still hoping Cabrera will come forward. Pressed by McCoy and Southerlyn, Evans insists the 1998 talk was sacred but will not say whether it was a formal confession.
Defense attorney Dana Bauer moves to bar the statement as hearsay. McCoy argues it was against Cabrera’s penal interest and that keeping an innocent man in prison would offend due process, and the judge agrees on condition that Evans actually testify. Bishop Durning presses McCoy to drop the effort, and Cabrera turns down a plea, betting the priest will stay silent. Evans finally takes the stand and describes finding Cabrera in tears with blood on his sleeve, admitting he had stabbed a boy, and never asking forgiveness.
Spoiler, the ending: Bauer immediately asks whether the 15-to-life offer still stands, and Cabrera pleads to both killings for 15 years to life on each. Ortega is set free, though Evans chooses not to attend his release.
Why it stands out
- The case turns on New York’s clergy privilege, which covers only communications made to seek spiritual guidance, not every conversation with a priest.
- McCoy uses a due-process argument to get a confession admitted that would free a man already serving time for a killing he did not commit.
- The killer’s real target was the priest who knew his secret; Father Grady dies only because the two priests traded confession duty.