Home Sweet (Season 17, Episode 3)
Premise: An eight-year-old girl is killed when an Upper East Side brownstone explodes, and suspicion falls on the owner’s ex-wife, who stands to profit from a battle over his land.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 17, Episode 3
- 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
- Mädchen Amick as defense attorney Alissa Goodwyn, Robert Emmet Lunney as Miles Schaffner, Nora Dunn as Rosalie Schaffner, Meg Gibson as Judge Edith Milbanks, Amy Hargreaves as Dana Wechsler
- Director
- Richard Dobbs
- Writers
- Michael S. Chernuchin
Summary
The Investigation
“Home Sweet” opens with a deadly explosion: eight-year-old Jenna Wechsler runs back to fetch her doll from the sidewalk just as a brownstone blows apart, and she dies in the rubble. The fire marshal finds a cut electrical wire beside a punctured gas pipe in the basement. The owner, Miles Schaffner, survives and insists the wiring was new. He lives off a family trust whose principal would go to charity if he died.
His ex-wife, Rosalie, says a divorce judge awarded her $20 million, of which Miles has paid about a quarter, and she has gone to court to force him to sell undeveloped land in Brooklyn where an environmental group, the Green People, farms. Its Brooklyn chapter president, Michael Kaplan, sent angry e-mails but calls Miles a friend. Miles chose developer Harvey Wallace’s $10 million over a $25 million offer from the retail chain Ideal Mart, which could bid again if he died. Rosalie’s records show a $15,000 check to her father, Leonard Kaskell, a former electrician who reveals she once spent college summers wiring with him. She still has a key, and she is arrested for murder and arson.
The Trial
Rosalie is defended by Alissa Goodwyn, a Miami lawyer known for women’s causes who once represented McCoy’s second wife. In chambers Goodwyn calls the case sexist, Rubirosa insults Judge Edith Milbanks, and the judge dismisses it for lack of evidence. A junior lawyer at the local firm tells Rubirosa that a women’s defense league pays Goodwyn, and Milbanks sits on its board. When she refuses to step aside, Branch privately threatens an Article 78 petition, and the case goes to trial.
Jenna’s mother and the fire marshal testify, and Goodwyn gets Miles to admit he never told Rosalie what Ideal Mart had offered. Rubirosa then finds a confidential memo written for Ideal Mart by its outside lawyers, showing that Miles let the insurance on his house lapse six days before the blast after keeping it for 30 years. Unable to use the memo openly, McCoy enlists Goodwyn: Rosalie agrees to plead to second-degree manslaughter with the arson count dropped, and Miles approves the deal.
Spoiler, the ending: Rosalie then reveals that she kept the lapsed policy paid and has a court order to seize the $10 million payout. Enraged, Miles confesses that he rigged the blast himself, since the house was all he had left and he meant to die in it, and gloats that his confession leaves her nothing to collect. The charges against Rosalie are dropped, and Miles is arrested for arson and Jenna’s murder; no verdict is shown. He later sells the Brooklyn land to Ideal Mart to cover his bills.
Why it stands out
- McCoy springs a staged plea bargain, with the defense attorney’s help, to goad the real bomber into confessing.
- Branch threatens an Article 78 petition against a judge who will not recuse herself despite sitting on the board of the group paying defense counsel.
- The break comes from a confidential law-firm memo that Rubirosa is unsure she can ethically use.