Pro Se (Season 6, Episode 21)
Premise: Three people are stabbed to death in a clothing store, and the schizophrenic suspect, a law school graduate, insists on defending himself.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 6, Episode 21
- 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
- Denis O’Hare as James Smith, Ann Dowd as Patricia Smith, Maryann Plunkett as Joanne Ellis, David Aaron Baker as defense attorney Lowe, Carolyn McCormick as Dr. Elizabeth Olivet
- Director
- Lewis H. Gould
- Writers
- René Balcer & I.C. Rapoport
Summary
The Investigation
“Pro Se” begins in a vintage clothing store where the owner, Irving Marx, his cashier and a bakery worker named Linda Bowers have been stabbed to death, and a fourth woman, Joanne Ellis, is left with a head wound. A clerk points the detectives to a teenager who argued with Marx over a blouse, but he and his girlfriend both describe a ragged white man rocking outside the shop.
Neighbors say the man had been staring at Bowers for weeks after she gave him free pastries; officers who answered her complaint about him dumped him in a park, and a man at her building says he later drew a Korean War-era bayonet on him. A soup kitchen priest knows him as James, and a clinic identifies James Smith, a schizophrenic who stopped coming in for his medication months ago. Briscoe and Curtis corner him in a library and subdue him.
Smith’s record shows a stalking arrest 16 months earlier that Kincaid settled with a harassment plea and a fine. At his arraignment Smith recognizes her and asks for the same deal, and reporters seize on it.
The Trial
Back on medication, Smith, a University of Michigan law graduate, fires his Legal Aid lawyer and wins the right to represent himself, with Mr. Lowe kept as standby counsel. His sister, Patricia, says he sees himself as a biblical warrior and once tried to strangle a girlfriend, and she reminds Kincaid that she called to warn her. The victims’ families sue Kincaid and the city. When Smith switches to an insanity plea, Schiff wants a fast deal; Kincaid says she cut the first one his way, and he takes her off the case, but McCoy keeps her as second chair.
McCoy argues depraved indifference: Smith knew he turned violent off his pills and quit them anyway. Dr. Olivet backs that theory, but Smith uses his cross-examinations to put Kincaid’s old plea deal in front of the jury. He rejects six years in a secure hospital plus lifelong supervised medication until Patricia testifies about his despair and a past plan to kill himself.
Spoiler, the ending: Smith pleads guilty to first-degree manslaughter and gets six to 18 years, but he slips into delusions during his allocution. Afterward, guards find a stash of pills he quit taking the day after his sister testified.
Why it stands out
- The title refers to Smith’s choice to act as his own lawyer; Denis O’Hare plays him.
- Kincaid’s earlier plea bargain with Smith becomes part of the story, costing her the case assignment from Schiff and leading her to consider resigning.
- McCoy’s depraved indifference theory makes Smith’s decision to stop his medication, not his state of mind during the killings, the central question.