Custody (Season 6, Episode 14)
Premise: The killing of a corrupt social worker leads to a birth mother who took her son from his white adoptive family, and former ADA Paul Robinette defends her by putting the system on trial.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 6, Episode 14
- 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
- Richard Brooks as defense attorney Paul Robinette, Amber Kain as Jenny Mays, Scott Lawrence as Michael Walters, Lee Brock as Donna Corbin
- Director
- Constantine Makris
- Writers
- Story: René Balcer; Story & teleplay: Morgan Gendel
Summary
The Investigation
“Custody” begins with the body of social worker Lawrence Bello in a playground, his neck bruised and his briefcase pried open nearby beside a screwdriver. Bello’s last visit was to foster parents Henry and Sharlene Patterson, who admit two of their three foster children exist only on paper; Bello invented them and took half the monthly state checks. A search of agency files shows he pulled up the record of the Corbin family on the day he died.
The Corbins’ adopted son, Alex, was snatched at the children’s zoo that morning, and a caller has said the boy is fine without naming a price. Curtis suspects the birth family. A rehab counselor recognizes the boy by a birthmark as the son of former crack user Jenny Mays, who lost her parental rights while hospitalized with pneumonia. Her landlord points to her boyfriend, electrician Michael Walters, whose tools and bloody shoes tie him to the killing. He reveals where Mays took the boy, and police stop her bus at the Port Authority as she heads for Massachusetts.
The Trial
Paul Robinette, now a defense attorney, says Mays only wanted to see her son. McCoy pursues felony murder, and Kincaid finds Mays moved her bank account a week before the abduction, supposedly to help parents in Springfield who turn out to be dead. Walters admits Mays wanted the address at any cost. Robinette forces the judge off the case by recalling a dinner remark about sterilizing addicts.
At trial Robinette concedes Mays planned the abduction but argues the state stole a Black child for a white family. He exposes Mrs. Corbin’s expunged drug arrest and calls an expert on transracial adoption. McCoy describes the neglect the boy suffered, and on cross Mays concedes she would have wanted him back whatever the adoptive parents’ race.
Spoiler, the ending: After three days the jury deadlocks, since it cannot convict on murder without the kidnapping, and the judge declares a mistrial. McCoy says his last offer stands, and Robinette agrees to take it to his client. Robinette tells McCoy that Ben Stone once asked whether he saw himself first as a lawyer or as a Black man, and that he now realizes he had answered wrongly.
Why it stands out
- Richard Brooks is back as Paul Robinette, the former ADA, now opposing McCoy as defense counsel.
- Robinette invokes his old boss Ben Stone twice: as a supposed witness against the judge, though Stone is traveling in Europe, and again in the final scene.
- The felony-murder count depends on proving Mays planned the abduction before Bello was killed.