Trophy (Season 6, Episode 12)
Premise: Two new murders of Black boys lead to a confession that exposes a wrongful conviction McCoy won five years earlier, and Kincaid ends up prosecuting the colleague who hid the evidence.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 6, Episode 12
- 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
- Laila Robins as defense attorney Diana Hawthorne, Isiah Whitlock Jr. as Simon Brooks, David Garrison as defense attorney Gerald Fox, Jerome Preston Bates as Ernie Bigelow
- Director
- Martha Mitchell
- Writers
- Story: Ed Zuckerman; Story & teleplay: Jeremy R. Littman
Summary
The Investigation
“Trophy” begins with the body of 12-year-old Derrick Walters, killed by a blow to the head and carrying a note that reads “They must be destroyed.” It matches the notes of Andrew Dillard, whom McCoy convicted of killing five Black boys and who is still in prison. Briscoe and Curtis trace Derrick to a grocery store, where a security guard shooed him from the magazine rack, and then to Ernie Bigelow, a freelance basketball scout whose account of catching a train falls apart.
Bigelow is cleared when a second boy, Sean Monroe, is pulled from the water strangled, with the same note and his crucifix missing. Sean’s friends say a uniformed man grabbed him for shoplifting on Broadway. The detectives return to the guard, Simon Brooks, who keeps a Bible but will not swear on it. He confesses that he killed both boys as sinners and also killed all of the earlier victims, and the parents identify religious items he kept from each child. His mother had kept him medicated after Dillard’s arrest, but she died two months ago.
The Trial
Schiff faces the press, and Dillard, awaiting release, sues for $50 million. His lawyer produces a detective’s statement, never disclosed, in which a witness saw victim Jaleel Franklin walking into Central Park with Brooks. The detective says he gave it to McCoy’s co-counsel and former lover, Diana Hawthorne, who points back at McCoy. Schiff suspends McCoy. Kincaid learns the handwriting expert initially could not tie Dillard to the notes and firmed up his opinion after Hawthorne urged him to.
The city settles with Dillard for $3 million. McCoy argues Hawthorne’s conduct let Brooks keep killing, and she is charged with criminal facilitation. Kincaid tries the case with McCoy as a witness. Defense attorney Fox makes McCoy admit the affair, his promotion soon after the verdict and a trip to Ireland with her. Hawthorne testifies she only did what McCoy taught her, and Kincaid suggests the conviction was her gift to him.
Spoiler, the ending: After Hawthorne tells McCoy privately that she did it for him, Kincaid accepts her plea to facilitation in the fourth degree: six months in jail and the loss of her law license. Kincaid tells McCoy she took the deal because she believed he wanted it.
Why it stands out
- Schiff suspends McCoy, who spends the trial on the witness stand while Kincaid prosecutes.
- Preparing for a deposition, Kincaid cites McCoy’s handling of a witness statement in the Rowland case, the Season 5 prosecution seen in “Competence.”
- Fox also confronts McCoy with Hank Chappell, an innocent man McCoy convicted the previous year.