Memo from the Dark Side (Season 20, Episode 1)
Premise: The killing of a former Marine who once guarded detainees in Iraq leads to the ex–Justice Department lawyer whose memos shaped the interrogation rules, and McCoy decides to put the memo itself on trial.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 20, Episode 1
- 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
- David Alan Basche as Kevin Franklin, Ned Eisenberg as defense attorney James Granick, Lisa Joyce as Megan Tanner, Addison Timlin as Hayley Kozlow, Michael Berresse as Mr. Gardner
- Director
- Fred Berner
- Writers
- René Balcer & Keith Eisner
Summary
The Investigation
“Memo from the Dark Side” opens with the murder of Greg Tanner, a former Marine shot twice in the chest in a university faculty garage. Marijuana in his pockets marks him as a likely campus dealer, and a dorm key card leads to Hayley Kozlow, a student who let him stay in her room. His sister, Megan, says he came home anxious, struggled to get veterans’ benefits and recently promised her tuition money. Meanwhile, Van Buren tells the squad she has been diagnosed with cancer.
Garage records point to law professor Kevin Franklin, a Justice Department alumnus who broke his routine and left his car there the night Tanner died. His bookstore alibi fails, he places police at the garage before the first patrol car arrived, and an old weapons arrest shows he carries a licensed .22 Smith & Wesson. A Veterans Affairs doctor says Tanner’s discharge cited a pre-existing personality disorder, ending his benefits, though guard duty at Abu Ghraib had left him with post-traumatic stress. A rival for tenure steers the detectives to newly declassified Bush administration memos, including Franklin’s guidance on detaining and questioning enemy combatants.
Before a warrant is issued, Franklin turns himself in with his lawyer, James Granick, and the gun, saying he shot a deranged stalker in self-defense.
The Trial
Granick wins a writ excluding Franklin’s statements to police as unwarned custodial questioning, erasing the false alibi, and a grand jury that hears Franklin say Tanner trapped him and demanded money declines to indict. Megan then produces her brother’s video diary, in which he describes hanging a hooded prisoner by the wrists in a shower room until the man died, and mentions finding one of the rule-writers on campus. McCoy notices that Franklin drafted his 2003 memo while assigned to the federal prosecutor’s office in Manhattan, so Cutter charges him with conspiring in assault and depraved-indifference murder. When the defense insists the intermediaries be named, Cutter adds the Joint Chiefs, a former defense secretary and Vice President Cheney.
Franklin is tried first, apart from the officials. Cutter doubts the legal footing, and a former McCoy protégé now at the Justice Department urges him to drop the case. A veteran military interrogator testifies that torture does not work, and under cross-examination Franklin maintains that a wartime president answers to no law. Before closing arguments, the Attorney General asks a federal court to halt the case.
Spoiler, the ending: The jurors reach a verdict, but as the foreperson starts reading, a federal marshal delivers a district court order preempting the state case, and the judge dismisses the jury before it is entered. McCoy, already facing calls for his removal, says he expects to anger his critics further.
Why it stands out
- The episode opens Season 20, the last before the show’s 2010 cancellation; its 20 seasons matched Gunsmoke as the longest-running drama in American network prime time.
- Van Buren reveals her cancer diagnosis to the squad, starting a storyline that runs through the season.
- The case ends without a verdict: a federal court order shuts down the state prosecution as the foreperson begins reading.