Open Season (Season 13, Episode 7)
Premise: A defense attorney is shot after winning a controversial acquittal, and the case against a white supremacist leaves his new lawyer, Danielle Melnick, accused of helping him arrange another killing.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 13, Episode 7
- 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
- Tovah Feldshuh as defense attorney Danielle Melnick, Garret Dillahunt as Julian Preuss, Graham Winton as Kevin Wilson, Chris Diamantopoulos as Chris Wilson, Curtiss Cook as Darnell Marbury
- Director
- Matthew Penn
- Writers
- Richard Sweren
Summary
The Investigation
“Open Season” opens with defense attorney Vance Grodie gunned down outside a Manhattan restaurant while celebrating an acquittal for Darnell Marbury, who was accused of trying to kill a police officer. A witness saw the shooter speed off in a blue Chevy, and a bartender recalls a silent stranger drinking gin who left just before the shots. Green suspects a cop. Briscoe, whom Grodie once discredited on the stand while freeing a killer, pushes back.
The disabled officer, Chris Wilson, says he is glad Grodie is dead. A precinct log shows officers drove his brother, Kevin, to court for the verdict, and Kevin fits the stranger’s description. Kevin admits following Grodie and insulting him in the restroom but denies the shooting. His mention of a woman leaving Grodie her number makes the detectives realize the lawyer’s handheld organizer, which held Marbury’s address, is missing. Marbury, in hiding, hands over threatening letters assembled from magazine clippings.
Subscriber lists lead to a Suffolk County woman whose neighbor, Julian Preuss, takes out her recycling and drives a Chevy. Preuss belongs to the American Patriot Union, a white-supremacist group whose founder is serving federal time for bombing a judge’s car. Posing as a sympathizer at the group’s office, Southerlyn spots an organizer like Grodie’s, and Grodie’s files turn up on Preuss’s computer. Preuss is charged with murder.
The Trial
When Preuss refuses to enter a plea, the arraignment judge jails him without bail under special administrative measures that bar all contact except with his lawyer. Danielle Melnick, a friend of both McCoy and Grodie, takes over the defense but cannot get the restrictions lifted. Then Mark Featherstone, a Florida prosecutor who convicted the group’s founder, is murdered at a secluded fishing cabin whose address was in Grodie’s organizer. Branch suspects Melnick, and the office bugs her next Rikers meeting with Preuss, where he gives her another name and address to pass along.
McCoy has Melnick charged with conspiracy and manslaughter, but she refuses to breach privilege even to protect herself. After Branch tells a story about a friend whose lie rescued a classmate’s graduation, McCoy tells Preuss that Melnick has confessed and is cutting a deal. Preuss pleads to conspiracy and first-degree manslaughter, with parole eligibility after 12½ years, on condition that he states Melnick had no criminal intent.
Spoiler, the ending: The charges against Melnick are dropped, and Branch praises McCoy’s bluff. Moments later, a follower of Preuss who calls Melnick a traitor to America shoots her while she waits for an elevator, and building security catches the attacker in the parking garage. The episode ends without revealing Melnick’s condition.
Why it stands out
- Tovah Feldshuh’s Danielle Melnick, a recurring defense attorney since 1991, is shot at the end of the episode and recovers a few episodes later.
- McCoy secures Preuss’s plea with a bluff, claiming Melnick has confessed, after Branch hints at the tactic with a story about an old classmate.
- Briscoe’s grudge against the victim dates to a 1992 trial in which Grodie attacked his drinking on the stand and won an acquittal for a man who later killed two students.