Competence (Season 5, Episode 6)
Premise: Lt. Van Buren kills an unarmed, mentally disabled 14-year-old during an attempted ATM robbery, and the question of who had a gun follows the case into court.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 5, Episode 6
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Mike Logan (Chris Noth), Lt. Anita Van Buren (S. Epatha Merkerson)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Claire Kincaid (Jill Hennessy), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- Samuel E. Wright as Jerome Osborn, Omar Scroggins as Zack Rowland, Charles Dumas as Donald Van Buren, Carolyn McCormick as Dr. Elizabeth Olivet
- Director
- Fred Gerber
- Writers
- Michael S. Chernuchin & Mark B. Perry
Summary
The Investigation
“Competence” opens with Lt. Anita Van Buren firing her service weapon for the first time in 12 years when two teenagers come up behind her at an ATM while her sons wait in the car. One boy dies with a bullet in his back and no gun is found. Van Buren says the boy who ran pointed a Raven .25 at her, but her sons saw no weapon, and Capt. Burnett, who runs the shooting inquiry, orders her squad to stay away.
The dead boy is James Gordon, 14, whose mother says he was mentally retarded and could barely dress himself. A second blood type on his shirt suggests the bullet passed through the other boy first, and a hospital gunshot report leads Briscoe and Logan to Zack Rowland, 14, who has a wounded arm. Zack says James only asked the woman for a dollar and that neither of them was armed.
McCoy takes the shooting to a grand jury, presses Van Buren on whether race shaped her reaction, and the grand jury declines to indict. He tells her the no-bill does not prove her account. The detectives return to Gwen Sheffield, James’s friend from school, who admits Zack threatened to shoot her and shows them where he hid a gun on his roof. It traces to a candy store, and the owner’s former employee, Tony Rowland, admits selling it to his younger brother Zack for $50.
The Trial
Rather than accept a robbery plea, McCoy argues that James was too impaired to form criminal intent and so could not legally be an accomplice, which makes his death during the robbery a felony murder chargeable to Zack. Zack is re-arraigned for second-degree murder, and defense attorney Jerome Osborn calls the case a racial scapegoating.
Over Kincaid’s objection, McCoy withholds Gwen’s statement that James wanted money to buy her a bracelet, calling it irrelevant to intent. Dr. Olivet testifies that James could not reason or plan, though Osborn notes he rode the bus to school alone. Osborn accuses the office of hiding evidence; the judge declines to sanction anyone but lets him call Gwen, who says James promised her the bracelet.
Recalling a teacher’s account that James spent two weeks learning to spell Gwen’s full name, McCoy suspects he had already bought an ID bracelet. Van Buren visits James’s grieving mother, Marjorie, who says James sold his baseball cards, and a bracelet engraved “Guinevere” turns up.
Spoiler, the ending: Zack Rowland takes a plea deal. Afterward McCoy tells Van Buren that his father was a cop, and that he would have sought an indictment against him too.
Why it stands out
- Lt. Van Buren becomes the subject of the case, facing a grand jury and sessions with Dr. Olivet after the shooting.
- McCoy’s murder theory turns on the dead boy’s mental competence: if James could not form intent, he was a victim rather than an accomplice.
- McCoy reveals that his own father was a police officer.