Church (Season 17, Episode 14)
Premise: A young actor’s staged suicide leads to the preacher of an anti-gay megachurch he had threatened to expose, until the case turns to the preacher’s wife.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 17, Episode 14
- Detectives
- Det. Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin), Det. Nina Cassady (Milena Govich)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Connie Rubirosa (Alana de la Garza), DA Arthur Branch (Fred Dalton Thompson)
- Guest stars
- Anson Mount as Reverend James Sterling, Julie Benz as Dawn Sterling, Andrew Garman as Scott Jepson, Kate Miller as defense attorney Madeline Meyers, Bradley White as defense attorney Mike Jeffers
- Director
- Constantine Makris
- Writers
- Rick Eid
Summary
The Investigation
“Church” centers on the killing of Jeff Cantwell, a 25-year-old gay actor found shot in the head in his apartment beside a Bible opened to a passage condemning homosexuality. It is staged to look like suicide, but the detectives doubt a left-handed man would have shot himself that way, and his gunshot residue test is negative. Friends describe Cantwell as upbeat and openly gay, yet he had recently asked about the New Promise Church, a national chain led by Reverend James Sterling and run day to day by its CEO, Scott Jepson.
A former agent Cantwell was suing has an alibi. His e-mail shows he worked as an escort, and one message he sent calls a man a hypocrite who deserves to be outed; the account belongs to Sterling, who had denounced gay marriage on TV the day before. A young man from the congregation says he dated Sterling for three months and that the preacher once hit him. Sterling’s fingerprints are in Cantwell’s bedroom and the victim’s blood is in his car, and he is arrested.
At arraignment Sterling declines bail so he can minister to fellow inmates. Meeting prosecutors, he says his bond with Cantwell was spiritual and that the actor, torn over his sexuality, had talked of wanting to die.
The Trial
McCoy fails to bar Sterling from repeating those conversations under clergy privilege. Sterling testifies that Cantwell once cut his own wrists in his car and that he was preparing a sermon in Peekskill that evening. His former lover takes the stand against him but is attacked over a theft arrest. Checking the alibi, Rubirosa learns from a janitor and a hospital sign-in log that Sterling was visiting a cancer patient in Bedford when Cantwell died. Before a meeting with the defense the next morning, Sterling hangs himself in jail, leaving a note that confesses to the killing.
McCoy concludes the pastor was shielding his wife, Dawn, and charges her. The judge excludes the note as hearsay, though three inmates say Sterling confessed at a prayer meeting. Pressed about a sermon that could cost the church its nonprofit status, Jepson reveals Dawn vowed not to let Cantwell destroy the church, but the judge treats Jepson as her spiritual adviser and keeps him off the stand. Dawn testifies that her husband came home that night with blood on his pants and admitted the killing.
Spoiler, the ending: Prosecutors learn that Dawn changed her name after arrests in Atlanta for cocaine possession and solicitation. McCoy offers to keep her past quiet if she pleads guilty, and to protect the church, Dawn admits killing Cantwell and accepts second-degree murder with 15 years over her lawyer’s objections.
Why it stands out
- The first defendant dies by suicide in jail after prosecutors find his alibi, and his written confession is ruled inadmissible hearsay at his wife’s trial.
- Two privilege fights shape the case: clergy privilege fails to limit the pastor’s testimony, but a spiritual-adviser privilege keeps the church’s CEO from repeating what Dawn told him.
- Anson Mount and Julie Benz guest star as Reverend James Sterling and his wife, Dawn.