In Harm's Way (Season 23, Episode 13)
Premise: A Yankees pitcher is shot dead at a charity gala by a gunman who was really aiming at DA Nicholas Baxter, and proving that motive at trial means putting Baxter’s daughter on the stand as his election nears.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 23, Episode 13
- Detectives
- Det. Jalen Shaw (Mehcad Brooks), Det. Vincent Riley (Reid Scott)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Nolan Price (Hugh Dancy), ADA Samantha Maroun (Odelya Halevi), DA Nicholas Baxter (Tony Goldwyn)
- Guest stars
- Tess Goldwyn as Carrie Baxter, Tara Westwood as Julia Baxter, Ralphy Lopez as Hector Canseco, Kelly AuCoin as defense attorney Alan Wallace, Silvestre Rasuk as Eddie Aguilar
- Director
- Alex Hall
- Writers
- Pamela Wechsler & Jennifer Vanderbes
Summary
The Investigation
“In Harm’s Way” opens at the mayor’s charity dinner at the New York Public Library, where DA Nicholas Baxter, three points ahead in his election, arrives with his wife, Julia, and their daughter, Carrie, a law student. A masked gunman in the crowd shoots Yankees pitcher Matt Bennett, the guest of honor, in the head. Bennett’s girlfriend, singer Merritt Clark, names Kyle Taggert, a fan with stalking convictions she recently got an order of protection against. Taggert has phone video of the shooting: the gunman was aiming at Baxter, who moved as he fired, so the bullet hit Bennett.
Baxter refuses to quit the race. Brian Spellman, who emailed threats after Baxter gave him no plea offer on a gun-sale case, has a lottery receipt placing him blocks away. The gun turns up in a street grate, and Det. Arielle Lehane links it through NIBIN to a liquor store robbery charged to Eddie Aguilar. Caught with heroin, Aguilar says the gun was shared and he passed it to a man an informant identifies as Hector Canseco of the Cobra 10 gang, whose leader, Diego Molina, Baxter sent away for life as a federal prosecutor. Canseco’s girlfriend, Tina Arias, offered relocation, says the bullets in her bedroom are his and tracks him to Pier 17, where Baxter is holding a rally. Canseco is caught in the crowd wearing a jacket like the shooter’s.
The Trial
Canseco is charged with second-degree murder and attempted murder and held without bail. Carrie tells her father she saw Canseco outside her parents’ house a week before the shooting, asking who lived there. Arias ties Canseco to the ammunition at trial, but when Maroun arrives to prepare Aguilar to testify, she finds him dead.
Baxter rejects a plea and takes the stand himself, identifying a recorded prison call as Molina ordering Canseco to kill him. The judge sides with defense attorney Alan Wallace and bars any mention of the gang or revenge. Baxter asks Carrie to testify over Julia’s angry objection, and Price’s warning that the defense knows her past does not change his mind.
Carrie describes seeing Canseco at the house. On cross, Wallace brings out that as a Princeton sophomore she drove drunk and struck a pedestrian, who lost the use of an arm, and that her felony charge was reduced and later expunged, implying her father called in favors. Reporters accuse Baxter of privilege, and he refuses to apologize for protecting his daughter.
The ending
Spoiler: The jury convicts Canseco of second-degree murder and attempted murder. On election night Baxter thanks his campaign workers with the race too close to call; Carrie joins him, but Julia is not there, and the episode ends before the result is known.
Case outcome: Canseco, guilty verdict. Prosecuted by Nolan Price. Conviction rates
Why it stands out
- The Season 23 finale is Camryn Manheim’s final appearance as Lt. Kate Dixon.
- Carrie Baxter is played by Tess Goldwyn, the real-life daughter of Tony Goldwyn, who plays her father, DA Nicholas Baxter.