Jurisdiction (Season 3, Episode 16)
Premise: A mentally disabled man confesses to stabbing two nurses, and Stone must cross borough lines to prove a Brooklyn detective steered him.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 3, Episode 16
- 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
- Dan Hedaya as Det. Brian Torelli, Michael Badalucco as David Zifrin, Paul McCrane as James Lee Pawl, Lorraine Toussaint as Legal Aid attorney Shambala Green, Mark Blum as Brooklyn ADA Frank Lazar, Carolyn McCormick as Dr. Elizabeth Olivet
- Director
- Bruce Seth Green
- Writers
- Walon Green & René Balcer
Summary
The Investigation
“Jurisdiction” begins with a stabbing in a Manhattan nurses’ residence beside Hudson Presbyterian hospital. Nurse Victoria “Vicky” Hemmings, 21, is killed and her roommate, Aloma, is badly wounded. The gloved attacker mutilated Vicky and cut off her ring finger to take a cameo ring. Briscoe and Logan learn he waited in the bushes and propped open a back door, and that Vicky trained at a Brooklyn methadone clinic where Mary Davis, a nurse stabbed in her apartment a month earlier, also taught.
Brooklyn Det. Brian Torelli, an old acquaintance of Briscoe’s, produces a suspect: David “Davy” Zifrin, a developmentally disabled man from a halfway house where Mary Davis gave out medication. Davy confesses to both killings, Aloma picks him out of a lineup, and he walks the detectives through the scene. A knife from his room carries traces of type A blood, Vicky’s type.
The Trial
Davy is charged in Manhattan and found competent, but defense attorney Shambala Green shows that Torelli told him he didn’t need a lawyer, and the judge suppresses his statements, including those to Briscoe and Logan. Learning that Vicky was selling stolen pills, the detectives find dealer Marty Lake, who says the real killer sold him drugs and offered him the cameo ring with the finger attached. Lake will name him only if his Brooklyn drug charges go away, and Brooklyn ADA Frank Lazar refuses.
Green subpoenas Stone to testify for Davy at his Brooklyn trial, Lazar attacks his motives, and Davy is convicted on all counts. Stone then persuades special narcotics prosecutor Jerry Silbo to free Lake, who names James Lee “Jimmy” Pawl. Pawl’s apartment yields Percodan, a bloodstained jacket and shoes matching prints from the scene, and Silbo hands Stone jurisdiction over the Davis killing. Stone offers Pawl two concurrent counts of second-degree murder.
Spoiler, the ending: Davy finally admits that Torelli, who had handled his earlier sexual misconduct arrest, showed him police photos and coached him to confess. Torelli is arrested for subornation of perjury and obstruction of justice. The episode ends without showing Pawl’s answer to the offer or any ruling on Davy’s conviction.
Why it stands out
- The case turns on a turf war between the Manhattan and Brooklyn district attorneys’ offices.
- Stone testifies as a defense witness for a man his own office has charged.
- A special narcotics prosecutor’s citywide drug jurisdiction becomes Stone’s route into a Brooklyn murder.