Right to Counsel (Season 3, Episode 12)
Premise: A widow’s much younger boyfriend pleads guilty to her murder, but a detail in his confession sends Robinette after the lawyer who sent him his defense attorney.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 3, Episode 12
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Mike Logan (Chris Noth)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Ben Stone (Michael Moriarty), ADA Paul Robinette (Richard Brooks), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- Richard Cox as Steven Gregg, Darrell Larson as Kevin Doyle, Mary Mara as Sally Knight, Mady Kaplan as Carole Spiegelman, Donna Murphy as Karen Unger
- Director
- James Frawley
- Writers
- Michael S. Chernuchin & Barry M. Schkolnick
Summary
The Investigation
“Right to Counsel” opens with Barbara Spiegelman, a 61-year-old widow, found stabbed in the back in her Manhattan kitchen with no sign of forced entry. Her daughter, Carole, says Barbara had been seeing a much younger man, clothing designer Steven Gregg, 38. Gregg says he loved her, but he lies about where he spent the night, and a dinner companion saw the couple fighting.
The detectives learn that Barbara had about $20 million from her late husband’s printing business and left Gregg $2 million in her will. She had also been paying down loans to his struggling company, and a former boss reveals that Gregg served a year in a Connecticut prison for theft. With his fingerprints on other knives in Barbara’s kitchen drawer, he is charged with second-degree murder.
The Trial
Gregg’s lawyer, Sally Knight, quickly agrees to a plea to first-degree manslaughter with 7 to 21 years. But when Gregg describes the stabbing in court, he says Barbara was sitting, while the medical examiner concluded she was standing. Robinette learns that Knight almost never goes to trial and that the case came to her from Kevin Doyle, Barbara’s estate lawyer, who had told the detectives Gregg could not be a killer.
As executor, Doyle stands to collect about $500,000. Robinette finds that he grew up in Brighton Beach, built a wealthy persona, and owes the IRS about $400,000. His alibi client was out of the country, and his fingerprint matches one on Barbara’s kitchen counter. Gregg is freed and Doyle is charged. Facing possible charges herself, Knight testifies that Doyle steered Gregg to her and told her to keep quiet once doubts arose. Stone’s cross-examination presses Doyle on his working-class roots and his debts.
Spoiler, the ending: Before the verdict, Robinette cannot reach Doyle, and he is found dead. Stone concludes that Doyle had reached the peak of his ambitions and could not bear the drop.
Why it stands out
- Stone’s office accepts a guilty plea from a man who turns out to be innocent.
- Robinette drives the investigation, catching the mismatch between the plea allocution and the autopsy.
- A defense lawyer’s failure to act on evidence of her client’s innocence becomes part of the case.