Savages (Season 6, Episode 3)
Premise: An undercover detective is shot dead, the killer turns out to be a respectable accountant, and the DA’s office must decide whether to seek New York’s newly restored death penalty.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 6, Episode 3
- 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
- Victor Garber as Paul Sandig, Maria Tucci as Helen Brolin, Gareth Williams as Ted Quinlan, Barbara Garrick as Jenny Sandig, Lynne Thigpen as Judge Ida Boucher
- Director
- Jace Alexander
- Writers
- Morgan Gendel & Barry M. Schkolnick & Michael S. Chernuchin
Summary
The Investigation
“Savages” begins with a man known as Bobby Cassidy found shot six times in a loft. A girdle under his clothes, an old undercover trick, reveals he was Det. Bobby Croft, and an officer at the scene notes that killing a cop is now a capital crime in New York. Croft had been setting up a $125,000 heroin buy from Ted Quinlan, a dealer posing as an antiques importer, and the money and drugs are missing.
Quinlan says he was at dinner with his accountant, Paul Sandig, and Croft’s last known call went to that restaurant. When Curtis gets rough with Quinlan in an interrogation room, Van Buren stops it and orders him released. Quinlan’s records reveal a second company with accounts at the Bronx bank where Croft used an ATM the day he died. A bank employee admits she helped Sandig dodge federal reporting rules with repeated $9,000 deposits, and that when Croft came in asking for the same favor, she warned Sandig.
Tapes found in a locked storage space at Sandig’s office catch an insurance investigator offering Sandig information on Cassidy, and the investigator admits he had pegged Cassidy as a cop. A search of Sandig’s house turns up a .38 revolver and the heroin, and he is charged with first-degree murder.
The Trial
Kincaid opposes capital punishment and McCoy favors it; Schiff, after debating a retired judge friend who opposes it, files notice to seek death. Defense attorney Helen Brolin gets the tapes suppressed because police cut open the locker with only the consent of an office mate who was not a legal partner. With no proof Sandig knew Croft was a cop, the capital charge collapses.
McCoy revives it under a different provision, murdering a crime witness, by giving Quinlan immunity to testify that he sold heroin to Croft. Judge Ida Boucher reinstates the charge, and the jury convicts. Brolin then argues to an appeals panel that executions violate substantive due process; the panel, split three to two, says the issue is not ripe until a death sentence is imposed. At the penalty hearing, Sandig’s wife says drug dealers threatened the family. Sandig admits he earned nearly $1 million laundering money and begs for his life.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury, polled one by one, unanimously sentences Paul Sandig to death by lethal injection.
Why it stands out
- The episode tackles New York’s newly reinstated death penalty, with characters crediting Gov. George Pataki’s campaign for its return.
- McCoy and Kincaid clash openly over capital punishment, a split that runs through the episode.
- McCoy warns that without the death penalty, more Ellie Neslers will bring guns into courtrooms, a callback to the case behind the season premiere, “Bitter Fruit.”