Undercovered (Season 12, Episode 12)
Premise: A health insurance supervisor is killed with a hammer, and the man charged argues he had to do it because the company had refused the one drug that might save his nine-year-old daughter.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 12, Episode 12
- 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
- Juan Carlos Hernández as Tony Garcia, Ben Shenkman as Nick Margolis, Katherine Hiler as Jodi Reeves, Monique Fowler as Miss Ames, Jennifer Bransford as Ellen Brightman
- Director
- Jace Alexander
- Writers
- Wendy Battles & Noah Baylin
Summary
The Investigation
“Undercovered” begins with the body of Warren Slater, a 52-year-old supervisor at Fairhaven Health Insurance, near a park on the Upper West Side, his skull fractured and his wallet and watch still on him. A homeless man named Reggie, whose prints are on beer bottles nearby, saw the body but is ruled out. Slater had told his wife he was working late; a colleague, Jodi Reeves, says he got off a crosstown bus near Tenth Avenue.
A hand stamp visible only under black light leads the detectives to a Chelsea gallery holding a 9/11 benefit, where Slater spent the evening with artist Ellen Brightman. She explains he had hired her to film a surprise tribute for his wife’s 50th birthday. A loading-dock worker saw a man in a suit getting into a Centurion cable van near the gallery, and that night an installer, Tony Garcia, reported his van stolen. When the van is recovered, its ignition is intact and the key is in Garcia’s coat, his hammer has a beveled head that fits the wound and traces of human blood, and he carries a Fairhaven insurance card.
The Trial
Fairhaven fights a subpoena for medical files, which turn out to belong to Garcia’s daughter, Courtney, a nine-year-old with chronic myelogenous leukemia. Southerlyn gets the records with her mother’s consent. The insurer had pushed a bone marrow transplant, though a match was unlikely, and a review committee led by Slater turned down Gleevec, a new drug costing about $2,500 a month. Garcia rejects a plea to second-degree murder and claims justification: he killed to save his child.
At trial a Fairhaven official defends the decision, while defense attorney Nick Margolis stresses that no donor has been found. Midway through, Fairhaven reverses itself and approves Gleevec, but the judge keeps that news from the jury. Reeves admits she told Garcia the vote was three to two with Slater casting the deciding vote, and that three people voted no. Garcia testifies that he forced Slater into his van to plead with him and struck him when he refused to budge. McCoy tells the jury that if everyone killed over decisions they thought unfair, no one would be safe.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury deadlocks nine to three in favor of conviction, and the judge declares a mistrial. The prosecutors doubt a unanimous jury could ever be found, leaving them to explain the result to Slater’s widow.
Why it stands out
- The defense is justification, the claim that the killing was necessary to save another person’s life.
- The insurer’s reversal on the drug is kept from the jury because the defendant could not have known about it when he acted.
- Life after 9/11 runs through the episode, from a gallery benefit for the 9/11 fund to McCoy’s summation.