Patriot (Season 12, Episode 24)
Premise: A gas explosion in a tenement covers up the murder of an undocumented Yemeni man, and his killer, a Gulf War veteran, claims he was fighting terrorism.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 12, Episode 24
- 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
- Terry Serpico as Frank Miller, David Aaron Baker as Adam Teague, Leo Burmester as Lester Hastings, Chris Bauer as Sergeant in Wheelchair, Edward Hajj as Imam
- Director
- David Platt
- Writers
- William N. Fordes & Sean Jablonski
Summary
The Investigation
“Patriot” opens with an explosion in a Lower East Side tenement, where the only tenant at home, a man known as Joseph Haden, is found dead. Fire investigators find the stove’s gas line deliberately unhooked and a candle used to set it off. The landlord, locked in a rent strike with his tenants, let his insurance lapse, and the other residents resented Haden for paying his rent. The medical examiner then finds that Haden was tied up and had his neck broken before the blast.
Haden earned low wages at an oil-change shop yet held about $90,000 in an online bank account, first funded from a Swiss account. A jailed DMV clerk who sold him a fake license recalls his name as Juseff, and immigration records identify Juseff Haddad, a Yemeni who stayed on after a tourist visa and a denied asylum claim. His imam points the detectives to The Shadow Report, a website where Adam Teague published Haddad’s address and labeled him a radical.
Teague invokes the shield law, but an FBI tip log names the source as Frank Miller, a former Special Forces and Army Intelligence officer who served in Desert Storm. Miller’s apartment holds a scanner and logs of Haddad’s movements, and a warrant search of Teague’s office turns up tapes of Haddad’s calls. A former Army comrade who translated them says Miller told him to send everything to Teague. Arrested, Teague admits that on the day of the murder he told Miller that a State Department source said Haddad had no family. Miller is captured in a raid.
The Trial
Defense attorney Lester Hastings argues Miller acted as a soldier against an illegal combatant. The judge refuses to dismiss but lets Miller claim reasonable fear of imminent harm. The FBI then traces Haddad’s money to a Sudanese charity on a terrorist watch list.
The translator testifies the tapes held nothing specific about terrorism, while Hastings likens Haddad’s finances to those of the 9/11 hijackers. Fearing an acquittal, Lewin urges a manslaughter offer, but McCoy refuses and offers to leave the case instead. Miller says he read Haddad’s talk of bringing his family over as code. On cross-examination McCoy stresses that the money was never touched, that Miller acted without any legal authority, and that the explosion put other people at risk.
Spoiler, the ending: After five days of deliberations, the jury finds Miller guilty of second-degree murder. Lewin tells McCoy he was right and that the jurors came to their senses.
Why it stands out
- The episode marks Dianne Wiest’s last appearance as Interim DA Nora Lewin.
- The defense argues that in a war on terrorism a civilian can act as a soldier against a suspected sleeper agent.
- McCoy wins a murder conviction even after evidence emerges that the victim’s savings came from a charity on a terrorist watch list.