Performance (Season 5, Episode 14)
Premise: A videotape that seems to show a girl’s rape and murder leads detectives to a high school clique that keeps score of its sexual conquests.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 5, Episode 14
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Mike Logan (Chris Noth)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Claire Kincaid (Jill Hennessy), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- Monica Keena as Corey Russell, Peter Facinelli as Shane Sutter, John MacKay as Michael Sutter, Dash Mihok as Ethan Quinn, Shane McDermott as Kyle Winters
- Director
- Martha Mitchell
- Writers
- Story: René Balcer; Teleplay: Ed Zuckerman; Story & teleplay: Jeremy R. Littman
Summary
The Investigation
“Performance” starts at a bachelor party where the guests watch a rented amateur porn tape and see a teenage girl handcuffed, assaulted and apparently shot. Briscoe and Logan trace the tape through a video store to its distributor, Nick, who says a young man sold him the footage for $500 under the name Malcolm Zanacek, which proves to be fake.
Technicians date the recording to November and pick out a tattoo on the girl’s thigh. A tattoo artist remembers a client named Corey, and her former boyfriend leads the detectives to her mother’s home, where Corey Russell, 16, turns out to be alive; the gunshot was fake. She says strangers raped her after a night of drinking. Under another clip from the same seller, the detectives find a family birthday dinner taped over, which leads them to the Sutter family and their son, Shane.
Confronted with Shane at school, Corey admits she knows him, names Kyle Winters as the cameraman and tells police that Shane did not have her consent. Both boys are charged with first-degree rape.
The Trial
Kyle refuses a deal to testify against Shane. A classmate tells Kincaid that both belong to the Mack Rangers, a school clique that awards a point for each girl and punishes girls who refuse; one, Beth Ritchie, was assaulted in the school pool and later transferred. McCoy uses the club as motive, Corey testifies Shane raped her as Kyle filmed, and Shane admits on the stand he had 17 points and was in third place.
Both boys are convicted, but an appeals court overturns the verdicts, finding the club evidence was improperly used as motive, and orders a new trial without it. McCoy responds by having police arrest six Mack Rangers at school for conspiracy to commit rape. Member Ethan Quinn seeks immunity and says Shane bragged that Corey fought him hard.
Spoiler, the ending: Facing the new evidence, Shane pleads guilty to rape for a two-year sentence and admits in front of his father that he forced himself on Corey. Kyle Winters takes a deal for 18 months, and Schiff urges McCoy to drop the conspiracy case against the others.
Why it stands out
- The supposed snuff film turns out to be staged; the girl on the tape is alive, and the gun was fake.
- An appeals court reverses the rape convictions over the club evidence, and McCoy answers by charging the whole clique with conspiracy to commit rape.
- On cross-examination, Shane admits he had 17 points in the club’s competition and was in third place.