Conduct Unbecoming (Season 3, Episode 17)
Premise: A female Navy officer dies after a raucous party at a Manhattan hotel, and Stone takes on the Navy to charge her commanding officer.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 3, Episode 17
- 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
- Len Cariou as Capt. Allard Bunker, Julianna Margulies as Lt. Ruth Mendoza, Michael Dolan as Ens. Evan Walters, Barbara Blackburn as Tammy White
- Ripped from the headlines
- Based on the 1991 Tailhook scandal.
- Director
- Arthur W. Forney
- Writers
- Story: Walon Green & Peter S. Greenberg; Teleplay: Michael S. Chernuchin & René Balcer
Summary
The Investigation
“Conduct Unbecoming” starts when police break up a party thrown by officers of the ship McKinley on a Manhattan hotel floor and find Lt. Janet Tracy Hagen dead in a room. She has a fractured skull, a torn rotator cuff and heavy bruising, though the rape kit is negative. Navy officials call it a drunken fall, but her blood alcohol is only 0.03, and her father, a retired chief petty officer, says she barely drank.
A sailor’s home video shows Hagen passing through a hallway gauntlet of groping officers. Lt. Bates admits he was with her before Ens. Evan Walters carried her into a room, and Walters says she vomited, went still and he panicked. The Navy claims jurisdiction, and after a brief Article 32 hearing, Walters pleads to involuntary manslaughter and is sent to Leavenworth.
The medical examiner says Hagen’s slow brain bleed could have left her able to walk and talk, looking drunk, for 20 to 30 minutes. The gauntlet began outside the suite of Capt. Allard Bunker, and Lt. Ruth Mendoza, who was sent on leave during the hearing, says Bunker ordered her out so he could speak privately with Hagen.
The Trial
When the Navy closes ranks, Stone indicts Walters so he can hold Bunker under a material witness order. Bunker says Hagen accused him of tolerating harassment and that he left with a blonde. That woman, escort Tammy White, says he turned violent with her that night. The Navy admits Hagen had filed a harassment complaint against Bunker at Annapolis that stalled his career, and Bunker is arrested for second-degree murder.
At trial, Walters says he has no memory of striking Hagen. Stone presses Bunker on why the other Annapolis instructors became admirals while he did not, and Bunker lashes out about White on the stand.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury finds Bunker guilty of second-degree murder, and the Navy clears Walters of all charges.
Why it stands out
- The story is based on the 1991 Tailhook scandal.
- Julianna Margulies guest-stars as Lt. Ruth Mendoza, Hagen’s roommate aboard ship.
- Stone indicts a man he believes innocent as a legal lever to question the captain.