Remand (Season 6, Episode 10)
Premise: An arsonist looking for a deal claims a notorious 30-year-old rape and stabbing was the work of a mob collector, setting off a retrial of the man Schiff convicted in 1965.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 6, Episode 10
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Rey Curtis (Benjamin Bratt)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Claire Kincaid (Jill Hennessy), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- Edouard DeSoto as Salvador “Sal” Munoz, Talia Balsam as defense attorney Teri Marks, Anita Gillette as Cookie Costello, Leonardo Cimino as Mr. Costello, Marina Durell as Olivia Valerio
- Ripped from the headlines
- Based on the Kitty Genovese case.
- Director
- Jace Alexander
- Writers
- René Balcer & Elaine Loeser
Summary
The Investigation
“Remand” begins with a fatal arson at a Christmas tree lot. The arsonist, Danny, offers a trade: a drinking companion once bragged about stabbing Cookie Costello, a young woman raped and stabbed 14 times outside her East Village building in 1965 while neighbors failed to call for help. Sal Munoz confessed and has spent 30 years in Attica. Schiff, who prosecuted Munoz, resists reopening it but has police find Mike Farina (called Bobby in the episode).
Farina, a former collector for bookies, says he heard the unreleased details from lawyer Nick Taradash, who defended Munoz. The original detectives left Cookie’s gambling arrest and her work for a bookie out of their report, and hint at rough treatment of suspects back then. Bookie Eddie Murrows places Farina in New Jersey that night, an alibi a widow there supports, but the detectives learn Taradash had also represented Cookie on her gambling case.
The Trial
Taradash’s former officemate, Teri Marks, uses the undisclosed conflict to win Munoz a new trial, then gets his confession suppressed because he was never told of rights that Miranda would later require. With the knife lost, the detectives find a neighbor, Mrs. Santoro, who glimpsed the attacker, and test the dress Cookie’s father kept. Its semen matches Munoz at odds of about one in 200, but a second DNA source is amniotic fluid: Cookie was pregnant, and she reveals the father was Farina.
Schiff orders the information withheld, but after Marks attacks the original investigation, Cookie testifies about the pregnancy and her gambling. Marks accuses her of shielding Farina for 30 years out of fear, and Cookie breaks down. The judge bars testimony from Munoz’s former girlfriend, Olivia Valerio, that he once threatened to injure her in the same way.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury finds Sal Munoz not guilty of rape and attempted murder. Schiff admits he let this case become personal.
Why it stands out
- The episode is based on the Kitty Genovese case, echoed in the neighbors who failed to call police.
- Schiff was the original prosecutor and recalls sitting at the victim’s hospital bedside 30 years earlier.
- The defense wins suppression of a confession taken in 1965, before the Supreme Court decided Miranda.