Age of Innocence (Season 16, Episode 4)
Premise: A husband fighting to end his brain-damaged wife’s life support is killed by a car bomb outside her hospital, and the trail runs from a bomb maker to an outspoken minister and the woman’s own family.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 16, Episode 4
- 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
- John Aylward as Reverend Harlan Dwyer, Derek Cecil as Steven Lamar, Peter Bradbury as Walter Bird, Beth Dixon as Pam Lamar, Fred Burrell as Phil Lamar
- Ripped from the headlines
- The episode is reportedly based on the Terri Schiavo case, the 1998–2005 legal fight in which a Florida woman’s husband sought to have her feeding tube removed over her parents’ opposition; the tube was removed in March 2005, and she died later that month.
- Director
- David Platt
- Writers
- Davey Holmes
Summary
The Investigation
“Age of Innocence” opens with a car bombing outside a hospital: Robert Barrows, whose wife, Karen, has been kept alive by a feeding tube for 11 years, is killed hours before the tube is to be removed, and four bystanders are hurt. The pipe bomb was set off by remote from somewhere near the protest crowd. Karen’s parents, Phil and Pam Lamar, have called Barrows a monster on the news and stand to control her $3.2 million malpractice settlement. Their adviser is Reverend Harlan Dwyer, and Karen’s brother, Steven, has a gas receipt placing him downtown at the time.
A threat letter Barrows never opened matches one sent before last year’s bombing of a women’s center, whose suspect, Walter Bird, was released for lack of evidence. Protesters recall Bird handing out flyers, and police find him at his ex-wife’s house, where his shed full of bomb parts catches fire. His explosives match, but a gun range confirms he was there with his ex-wife during the blast. Dwyer steers the detectives toward fugitive clinic bomber Mitch Randolph, yet hotel video of Randolph also catches Bird in the background.
Offered a plea by Borgia, Bird says Dwyer ordered the bomb, which he delivered to Dwyer’s hotel room, and that the Randolph video was a setup. Dwyer is arrested at the hospital just after announcing that a court will keep Karen’s tube in place, and bomb residue turns up on his hotel desk.
The Trial
Dwyer’s alibi, a radio appearance, holds, but Phil Lamar skipped his own scheduled spot on that show, and a gas station manager says the car on Steven’s receipt was driven by a gray-haired woman who turns out to be Pam. All three Lamars are arrested for conspiracy. Pam says Dwyer drew Steven aside and pressed him to act, and the parents are offered conspiracy pleas: five to 15 years for Phil and probation for Pam.
Steven and Dwyer are tried together, with Steven claiming justification. Bird testifies that Steven accepted the bomb in Dwyer’s hotel room. Offered 15 years to testify against Steven, Dwyer instead claims Steven was after the settlement money. On the stand Steven admits planting and detonating the bomb, compares it to shooting a burglar, and insists the plan was his own, which McCoy calls taking the fall for Dwyer.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury convicts Steven of second-degree murder but deadlocks on Dwyer, and the judge declares a mistrial for him. Records show Dwyer visited Steven at Rikers before he testified, and whether a retrial would go differently is left in doubt. At a news conference, Pam says Karen wept on hearing her father and brother would be gone for years, but is grateful for their sacrifice.
Why it stands out
- Steven Lamar defends the bombing as justified, arguing that killing his brother-in-law to save his sister was like shooting a burglar to protect his family.
- The minister who supplied the bomb walks out with a hung jury, while the brother who planted it is convicted of murder.
- The bomb maker was the suspect in an earlier bombing of a women’s center, and Dwyer tries to steer police toward a fugitive who bombed abortion clinics.