License to Kill (Season 15, Episode 17)
Premise: An SUV crashes into a Washington Heights restaurant at the end of a chase, and its dead driver proves to be a gunman who has just killed five hunters upstate, leaving McCoy to prosecute the motorist who pursued him.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 15, Episode 17
- Detectives
- Det. Joe Fontana (Dennis Farina), Det. Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Alexandra Borgia (Annie Parisse), DA Arthur Branch (Fred Dalton Thompson)
- Guest stars
- Mike Pniewski as Randall Stoller, Michael Hyatt as defense attorney Julia Shinnear, Julia Gibson as Selma Flanagan, Jake M. Smith as Tommy Flanagan, Matthew Stocke as Officer Jude Rhodes
- Director
- Constantine Makris
- Writers
- Richard Sweren & Stuart Feldman
Summary
The Investigation
“License to Kill” begins with a car chase that ends when an SUV jumps the curb and smashes into a Washington Heights restaurant, killing its driver and injuring a teenage passenger and several diners. The pursuing sedan, which fled, is remembered mainly for a yellow ribbon magnet. The SUV belongs to Selma Flanagan of Kingston, and the injured teen is her son, Tommy, but she does not recognize the dead driver. Her husband’s hunting partner, P.J. Grant, guides the detectives to Antler Creek State Park in Ulster County, where they find five hunters shot to death, among them Thomas Flanagan.
At a gas station along the route, the detectives recover a semiautomatic AR-15 that ballistics tie to the killings, and the driver is identified as John Wyatt, a volatile man with a string of bar-fight arrests. Van Buren keeps the detectives hunting the pursuer, whose chase put bystanders at risk. A motorist, Randall Stoller, says he saw both vehicles head for the Tappan Zee Bridge, but Tommy, recovering from liver surgery, remembers Wyatt running an E-ZPass lane at the George Washington Bridge. Toll photos there show Stoller’s blue Camry 30 seconds behind the SUV. Stoller asks for a lawyer and is charged with manslaughter.
The Trial
Also charged with eight counts of assault and leaving the scene, Stoller gets $1,000 bail and becomes a media favorite, and plea talks with defense attorney Julia Shinnear stall. At a hearing, testimony from an Ulster County officer lays out the homes, stores and police barracks Stoller passed without seeking help, but Judge Paul Fillmore treats the chase as a citizen’s arrest and dismisses everything except leaving the scene. Then Tommy dies of liver failure caused by the crash, and McCoy moves to try Stoller for the boy’s death, though Selma Flanagan doubts that jailing him would accomplish anything.
Stoller turns down three to nine years. Borgia questions the prosecution, and Branch suggests that since September 11 ordinary people feel bound to act. Testifying, Stoller says he heard shots and a scream, chased the SUV, saw Wyatt shove the boy into it at a gas station, and panicked after the crash. McCoy asks why he never checked on the wounded, never had the station attendant call 911, never reported the massacre and lied to the detectives, and he casts Stoller as a man dodging responsibility rather than a hero.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury acquits Stoller of manslaughter. Afterward Branch observes that people need heroes, and McCoy replies that Tommy Flanagan needed one too.
Why it stands out
- A judge first throws out the homicide and assault counts by treating the high-speed pursuit as a lawful citizen’s arrest; only the teenage passenger’s later death revives the case.
- Branch questions the prosecution by pointing to September 11 as a reason ordinary people feel they cannot stand by.
- The title echoes McCoy’s argument that acquitting Stoller would amount to licensing the killing of Tommy Flanagan.