By Perjury (Season 19, Episode 9)
Premise: A plaintiff in a class action over a fatal airliner crash is shot after offering the airline a way out, and the trail leads to the families’ own lawyer, whom Cutter comes to believe has killed before to protect his payday.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 19, Episode 9
- Detectives
- Det. Cyrus Lupo (Jeremy Sisto), Det. Kevin Bernard (Anthony Anderson)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Michael Cutter (Linus Roache), ADA Connie Rubirosa (Alana de la Garza), DA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston)
- Guest stars
- Dallas Roberts as Marty Winston, Mercedes Ruehl as Judge Clara Lloyd, Ned Eisenberg as defense attorney Phillips, Susanna Guzman as Maria Cruz, Catrina Ganey as Diane Palina
- Director
- Darnell Martin
- Writers
- Richard Sweren & Christopher Ambrose
Summary
The Investigation
“By Perjury” opens with the shooting of Charlie Sawyer, a deeply indebted Long Island contractor found dead in his car in Manhattan soon after a cheerful slice of raspberry pie at a diner, where he had a small oxygen tank with him. Sawyer was a plaintiff in the class action over PanWorld Airlines Flight 33, which crashed off Long Island seven years earlier with his father aboard, and he had just told the airline’s lawyers he had good news for them.
A conspiracy blogger’s logs place Sawyer in Henryville, Pennsylvania, that morning. At his late mother’s house there, oxygen tanks stored near the furnace had exploded, and his father may have carried extra oxygen for her on Flight 33, a theory that would clear the airline of negligence. Marty Winston, who represents 46 of the victims’ families, has no alibi. A sheriff’s deputy quietly shows the detectives a sealed record of Winston’s trespassing arrest at the Henryville house the next day, made while he drove a neighbor’s black Lexus SUV, and a 9mm casing is found jammed in that car’s wiper. Winston is arrested.
The Trial
Winston represents himself, wins bail and a closed courtroom, and at a suppression hearing grills Lupo, a first-year law student, about the deputy’s unauthorized disclosure. The car and casing are thrown out, and Judge Clara Lloyd dismisses the case with prejudice, fining Cutter and Winston $1,000 each for contempt. Cutter and Lupo trade blame, and McCoy warns Cutter about his temper.
Cutter learns that Winston was the key witness against his own client Victor Cruz, executed for killing the judge first assigned to the PanWorld suit. Cruz had claimed someone took cigarette butts from Winston’s office to frame him, and Winston swore he let no one smoke there. When Cutter visits Winston and asks to light up, Winston agrees, and McCoy backs a charge with no precedent: murder by perjury, on a depraved-indifference theory. Winston is arrested in the middle of a PanWorld hearing. On his motion to dismiss, a juror from Cruz’s trial testifies that Winston’s denial turned the jury, and the motion is denied.
Spoiler, the ending: Acting on a complaint brought for Cruz’s widow, a grievance committee removes Winston from the PanWorld case and bars him from any fee. Cutter taunts him with an offer of $100 on his birthday, echoing Winston’s yearly gift to Cruz’s son, and Winston later confronts Cutter in a men’s room with a gun; Lupo and Bernard stop him. No verdict is shown.
Why it stands out
- Cutter charges a lawyer with murder for perjured testimony that helped send his own client to execution, a theory for which Cutter finds no case law.
- Lupo’s first-year law studies backfire when the defendant, acting as his own lawyer, cross-examines him about good faith and a sealed record.
- Mercedes Ruehl guest-stars as Judge Clara Lloyd, who holds both Cutter and the defendant in contempt.