American Jihad (Season 13, Episode 1)
Premise: When two professors are gunned down at home, a taped telemarketing call points detectives to a 19-year-old convert to Islam, who fires his lawyer, then takes over his own defense and turns the courtroom into a platform.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 13, Episode 1
- 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 Arthur Branch (Fred Dalton Thompson)
- Guest stars
- Wil Horneff as Greg Landen/Mousah Salim, Ali Farahnakian as defense attorney Anwar Mohammed, Merritt Wever as Jennifer Taylor, Ramon de Ocampo as Michael Sanchez, Carolyn McCormick as Dr. Elizabeth Olivet
- Director
- Constantine Makris
- Writers
- Aaron Zelman & Marc Guggenheim
Summary
The Investigation
“American Jihad” opens with a double murder: Stuyvesant College professors Hugh and Louise Murdoch are shot in their townhouse, he twice in the head and she three times in the back. Nothing is stolen, and a pistol turns up in a nearby trash can. Louise was on the phone with a telemarketer minutes before the shooting, and the firm’s recording catches scraps of a visitor’s voice, including what sounds like “Ellen Bar.”
Hugh ran a stem cell lab, so the detectives question Phil Gianni, a researcher he fired, and an anti-abortion group that once mailed him a warning. Ballistics finds the two victims were hit by different 9mm guns, which means two shooters. Louise campaigned against the abuse of women in parts of the Middle East. Pamphlets sent to her came from El Anbar Books, whose owner, Salman Mogazi, says he fired the clerk who mailed them after Louise picketed his shop.
The clerk, Mousah Salim, is really Greg Landen, whose mother, Francine, says he is away in Pakistan. A prep school discipline file links Greg to Michael Sanchez, whose prints match the discarded gun. Through his lawyer, Sanchez names Landen in exchange for two counts of second-degree manslaughter, saying he shot Hugh while Landen shot Louise, and Landen is arrested.
The Trial
At arraignment Landen answers only to his Muslim name and is held without bail. He rejects McCoy’s offer of consecutive first-degree manslaughter terms and dismisses his lawyer, Derek Greer, demanding a Muslim attorney. Over McCoy’s objection, new District Attorney Arthur Branch says a defendant needs a lawyer he can trust, and Anwar Mohammed takes the case. After Sanchez testifies, Landen shouts about September 11 and the bombing of Afghanistan, then announces that he will act as his own counsel, with Mohammed kept on standby.
Landen asks the audio expert who matched his voice to the tape whether he is Jewish, and he grills his own father, who owns the gun from the trash can and a second, missing 9mm. Testifying, Landen blames Sanchez. Dr. Elizabeth Olivet suspects his zeal hides a fear of women, so Southerlyn takes over the cross-examination. Goaded, Landen says Louise had an abortion and served liquor at home, private details that suggest he knew her. That leads prosecutors to Louise’s research assistant, Jennifer Taylor, who admits she once dated Landen and brought him to dinner with Louise.
Spoiler, the ending: When McCoy tells Landen that Taylor will testify, and she asks whether he did this because of her, he breaks down, screaming that she laughed at him. He pleads guilty, and in his allocution he apologizes to the Muslim community. The prosecutors judge him less a true believer than a humiliated young man.
Why it stands out
- Fred Dalton Thompson makes his first appearance as District Attorney Arthur Branch, who replaces Nora Lewin.
- The defendant fires his lawyer over religion and then defends himself, and prosecutors cannot challenge his fitness to do so without risking a finding that he is unfit to stand trial.
- Branch sides with the defendant’s right to a lawyer he trusts, arguing that a conviction must not be handed grounds for reversal.