Embedded (Season 14, Episode 8)
Premise: A television correspondent accused of tipping off the enemy in Iraq is shot outside a Manhattan club, and the case against a soldier from the unit he covered becomes a battle over patriotism and the press.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 14, Episode 8
- 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
- Nick Chinlund as Frank Elliott, Keith Nobbs as Sgt. George Meacham, Michael Medeiros as defense attorney Stewart Griffin, Bess Wohl as Gia Whitchurch, Robert Hogan as trial judge Hugo Bright
- Director
- Ed Sherin
- Writers
- Craig Turk
Summary
The Investigation
“Embedded” begins with network correspondent Frank Elliott shot in the back near the club Lotus at 2 a.m., hours before he is due to fly back to the Middle East, after an ex-lover, Gia Whitchurch, rebuffs him at the bar. He survives with a perforated liver. Elliott has plenty of enemies, including a chief executive he exposed and a lawyer, Barry Boyd, whom Elliott names as his top suspect.
Boyd represents the families of three soldiers from the 81st killed in an ambush near Tikrit. They blame Elliott, who reported while embedded with the unit that one of two nearby resistance camps would be struck within 48 hours. The bullet comes from an Army-issue Beretta M9. Only one member of the unit was free in the city that night: Sgt. George Meacham, home for his father’s funeral, who was drinking at a send-off party near the club. A Lotus bouncer recalls turning away a drunk man with a crew cut and a tattoo of a unit motto.
Meacham has already left, but Van Buren gets an Army officer to admit he is waiting at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. Brought back, he surrenders his sidearm and admits he went to Lotus after a cab driver mentioned dropping Elliott there, but says the bouncer kept him out.
The Trial
Charged with attempted murder and assault, Meacham is released without bail and seeks a speedy trial. The prosecution offers to drop the attempted murder count for a plea to first-degree assault, but tests show the bullet did not come from the surrendered pistol, which belonged to the dead Sgt. Dixon Hawes. The Army cannot find the pistol that should be with Hawes’s gear, and Elliott goes on television hinting at a Pentagon cover-up. Judge Hugo Bright gags all parties, Elliott included, and soon afterward the FBI arrests Elliott for treason.
A Defense Department official recommends Meacham for a medal, and defense attorney Stewart Griffin gives notice of a justification defense: that the shooting prevented more American deaths. Elliott testifies that his report named no specifics and calls it his duty under the First Amendment. Meacham recounts Hawes dying beside him and says he wanted Elliott dead, but when pressed on cross-examination about whether he fired, he denies it, saying Elliott would be dead if he had.
Spoiler, the ending: The denial wrecks the justification defense, which required admitting the shooting. It also turns the prosecutors toward Elliott, who quoted a headline from the paper he claimed he had stepped out to buy and who steered police to Boyd. Elliott dares them to prove he arranged his own shooting. No verdict is shown: Meacham flies back to Baghdad, and Elliott follows on the next plane.
Why it stands out
- Just before the soldier’s trial, federal agents arrest the shooting victim for treason over his war reporting.
- The defendant’s denial on the witness stand undoes his own justification defense, which depended on admitting the shooting.
- The episode ends with the prosecutors suspecting the victim staged his own shooting for publicity, with no way to prove it.