Chosen (Season 13, Episode 11)
Premise: The killing of a bookie who served wealthy Manhattan gamblers leads to his partner, whose lawyer turns a murder trial into a referendum on support for Israel.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 13, 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 Arthur Branch (Fred Dalton Thompson)
- Guest stars
- Peter Jacobson as defense attorney Randolph J. “Randy” Dworkin, John Rothman as Steven Strelzik, James Goodwin as George Ashman, Delaine Yates as Susan Ashman, Ross Bickell as Judge Bryce Miller
- Director
- Ed Sherin
- Writers
- Michael S. Chernuchin
Summary
The Investigation
“Chosen” starts with a bookie murder uncovered by accident: two drunk Wall Street workers, out to prank a friend, pry open the wrong Lexus and find a body in its trunk. The dead man is Gordon Meeks, 25, whose apartment holds more than $100,000 in cash packed into coded envelopes. Briscoe and Green learn that his well-off clients, among them a dermatologist and a lawyer, place their bets through First Run Gaming, a firm based in Costa Rica, and that Meeks settled their accounts in person. His boss there is Steven Strelzik.
Betsy, a woman who calls herself Meeks’s fiancée, recalls a frantic call from a client named Susan. Susan Ashman, who owes about $25,000, admits her black eye came from her husband, George. He says he believed Meeks was sleeping with her, tracked him down and set up a meeting for the night of the murder, but Meeks never came. The company’s accountant, Dean Riley, says Meeks had accused Strelzik of skimming almost $600,000, and the two partners went to dinner at a nearby steakhouse after a shouting match.
The knife found with the body is the kind that restaurant uses, and fibers on its blade match its tablecloths. Reading glasses left in the car could not have belonged to the young victim. Strelzik is arrested at home after his young daughter answers the door.
The Trial
Defense attorney Randolph J. “Randy” Dworkin jokes his way through the arraignment, proposes assault two and hints that Strelzik kept a second ledger of prominent clients; Branch tells McCoy to convict anyway. Dworkin seats a number of Jewish jurors, and McCoy later counts at least eight. On the stand, Strelzik admits stealing from the company and says the cash went to Israel to fight the murder of Jews. McCoy objects that this is a justification defense raised without notice, but Judge Bryce Miller lets it stand and makes McCoy apologize. Under cross-examination Strelzik denies killing Meeks.
McCoy asks Miller, who is Jewish, to recuse himself, and the judge refuses. Strelzik’s wife tells of the violence she saw on a family trip to Jerusalem and argues that Arabs want Israel destroyed. Worried about the jury, the prosecutors offer manslaughter two, but Dworkin turns it down. In closing, Dworkin asks jurors to suppose Strelzik killed out of fear for Jews, while McCoy likens him to a magician hiding a body behind misdirection and asks jurors to put the law ahead of their loyalties.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury convicts Strelzik of first-degree murder. Afterward Dworkin compliments McCoy over a drink, remarking that donating to Israel is admirable but murder is another matter.
Why it stands out
- Peter Jacobson plays Randy Dworkin, a Harvard-trained former federal clerk who wins over jurors with humor and courtroom theatrics.
- McCoy asks a judge to step aside because of his religion, and the judge turns him down flat.
- Dworkin never formally pleads justification, so the defense avoids the notice rule while still putting the defendant’s motive before the jury.