Attorney Client (Season 12, Episode 22)
Premise: A defense attorney’s wife is shot in his car, and the hunt for a vengeful client gives way to evidence that the lawyer staged the killing himself.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 12, Episode 22
- 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
- Peter Friedman as defense attorney Harold Jensen, Annie Parisse as Jasmine Blake, Lord Jamar as Leon Griggs, Victor Verhaeghe as Bobby Caldwell, Helen Carey as defense attorney Charlotte Swan
- Director
- Matthew Penn
- Writers
- Jill Goldsmith
Summary
The Investigation
“Attorney Client” opens with the murder of Marjorie Jensen, shot as she drives her husband’s Jaguar out of their building’s garage; the hood ornament is missing. Her husband, criminal defense attorney Harold Jensen, says she borrowed the car on short notice, and given the tinted windows the detectives suspect the gunman was after him. A disciplinary committee file points to Leon Griggs, a former client on work release who sent Jensen stacks of threatening letters, once used a .22 and was known for stealing hood ornaments.
Griggs skipped a required meeting that night, saying a stranger sent him to see a disabled friend at an address that proved to be an abandoned building; a bodega security camera clears him. A doorman describes strains in the marriage, and a bartender recalls Marjorie meeting a younger man. Charges for jewelry and a Las Vegas trip lead Jensen to admit an affair with Jasmine Blake, a dancer and former prostitute, which he says he ended.
Jasmine blames her ex-boyfriend, Bobby Caldwell, who flees when the detectives arrive. Caldwell admits he photographed Jensen with Jasmine and sold the pictures to Marjorie, and his room holds a note on the car she drove that night. A former roommate says Jasmine and Caldwell never really split, suggesting a conspiracy between them.
The Trial
With nothing tying either one to the shooting, McCoy and Southerlyn turn back to Jensen. His secretary, Hillary Morton, reveals he checked Griggs’s release date several times, and the prosecutors conclude Jensen set up his old client as a patsy using what he knew of Griggs’s habits. Jasmine then says Jensen planned the killing once his wife learned of the affair. At trial, another former client, Lonnie Stiles, testifies that he got Jensen a .22 Smith & Wesson, and Jasmine says Jensen meant to frame Griggs and steer police toward Caldwell.
Jensen testifies that Jasmine and Caldwell framed him, but when McCoy confronts him with Caldwell’s photographs he cannot say when the affair supposedly ended. He then fires his lawyer, Charlotte Swan, takes over his own defense, admits the affair never stopped, and tries to call McCoy as a witness. The judge refuses and denies a mistrial. In closing, Jensen attacks the justice system, while McCoy argues that Jensen tried to manipulate it.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury convicts Jensen of second-degree murder. He then offers to inform on his clients and their associates for a deal, and McCoy’s office declines. Jensen tells McCoy he expects to win on appeal because he was barred from calling McCoy, and says he was counting on the prosecutor’s eagerness to win.
Why it stands out
- Annie Parisse, who plays Jasmine Blake, later returned as series regular ADA Alexandra Borgia in Seasons 15 and 16.
- The defendant fires his own lawyer mid-trial, represents himself and tries to force McCoy onto the witness stand.
- After his conviction, the defense attorney offers to betray his clients’ confidences in exchange for leniency, and prosecutors refuse.