Promises to Keep (Season 3, Episode 14)
Premise: A surgical resident’s murder reveals that her fiancé was sleeping with his psychiatrist, and Stone tries to hold the doctor criminally responsible.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 3, Episode 14
- 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
- Lindsay Crouse as Dr. Diane Meade, Frederick Weller as Dan Garrett, Fritz Weaver as Larry Weber, Gail Strickland as Ellen Gorham, Jenny O’Hara as Carol Janssen, Carolyn McCormick as Dr. Elizabeth Olivet
- Director
- Ed Sherin
- Writers
- Story: William N. Fordes & Douglas Stark; Teleplay: Robert Nathan & Joshua Stern
Summary
The Investigation
“Promises to Keep” opens with the body of Dr. Jennifer Gorham, a 31-year-old surgical resident, found strangled in Central Park. Items from her purse are scattered along Central Park West, but her apartment was searched with her own keys and nothing valuable was taken, so the detectives suspect someone she knew. Her fiancé, Dan Garrett, gives shifting accounts of where he was the night she died.
The couple’s psychiatrist, Dr. Diane Meade, suggests that Jennifer drank and flirted, though a supervisor and a bartender say she rarely drank. Hospital records show Jennifer once had Dan admitted to the psychiatric ward, and Meade had him released. Phone records show Dan called Jennifer’s parents from Meade’s office the night of the murder. Under questioning, Dan admits killing Jennifer, says he was having an affair with Meade, and says Jennifer had found his diary describing it.
The Trial
Dr. Olivet concludes that Meade made Dan completely dependent on her, and Stone decides to go after the psychiatrist, over Schiff’s doubts. Prosecutors tape a jailhouse visit in which Meade comforts Dan, and she is arrested, but the judge rules the tape inadmissible. Dan turns over the diary and testifies that Meade had sex with him nearly every session and said she would cut him off unless he got it back from Jennifer. He later tries to hang himself in his cell.
Meade admits the sexual relationship on the stand but calls it therapy. Stone has her read diary entries describing her telling Dan to imagine a pillow was Jennifer and beat it.
Spoiler, the ending: While the jury deliberates, Meade pleads guilty to criminally negligent homicide, receives five years’ probation and gives up her medical license. Dan pleads guilty to second-degree manslaughter. Stone asks for four years in a mental facility, but the judge sentences him to 4 to 12 years in prison.
Why it stands out
- Stone tries to hold a psychiatrist criminally liable for a killing committed by her patient.
- The judge throws out a secretly taped jail visit because Garrett’s plea had not yet been entered.
- The episode was later remade for Law & Order: UK as “ID.”