Blood Libel (Season 6, Episode 9)
Premise: An art teacher at an elite public high school is strangled in her classroom after uncovering a teacher who sells grades, and an anti-Semitic message hidden in the yearbook points to a former class president.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 6, Episode 9
- 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
- Jackey Vinson as Matt Hastings, Chris Cooper as defense attorney Roy Payne, Jeanne Ruskin as defense attorney Alice Marsdale, Mark Zeisler as Richard Kovax
- Director
- Constantine Makris
- Writers
- Story: René Balcer; Story & teleplay: I.C. Rapoport
Summary
The Investigation
“Blood Libel” begins when custodian Johnny Cobb finds art teacher Sarah Aronson, 28, strangled with her handbag strap in her classroom at Advanced Studies, a selective high school, after hours. Blood that is not hers is found at the scene. Her husband reports hang-up calls, and her friend Lana Halstead points to math teacher Richard Kovax, once her mentor.
Student Mattie Braverman admits she paid Kovax $300 a semester for better grades and that Aronson found out. Kovax says he ended the scheme and told students who had stopped it; his gym alibi and the lab work clear him. The lab says the killer’s blood shows a predisposition to diabetes. An art expert links threatening anti-Semitic notes in Aronson’s locker to student Eddie Camarillo’s drawing style, and Camarillo’s yearbook quote, read with those of wrestling teammates Ashton, Hastings and Niels, spells out an anti-Semitic slogan.
Dr. Sabloff, who runs the school, recalls seeing Matt Hastings leave the building one evening with an alarm key. Lacking a warrant, the prosecutors use the wrestling team’s drug test, allowed under a recent Supreme Court ruling, and the lab finds high sugar in Matt’s sample. He is arrested.
The Trial
Defense attorney Alice Marsdale gets the test suppressed because the police singled out Matt’s sample, and Judge Busey dismisses the charges. The case is rebuilt through hate literature in Matt’s room and his former girlfriend, Loren Nadel, who says Camarillo copied a school key at his father’s shop. Camarillo admits he gave Matt the key after Aronson recognized his drawing and Matt said he would talk to her. Matt is re-arrested and the evidence is reinstated.
Marsdale brings in Roy Payne, who has written briefs for the Klan, to argue that Jews framed Matt to protect Kovax. The judge lets Payne ask prospective jurors whether they are Jewish. Payne suggests Briscoe could have tampered with blood evidence and accuses Sabloff of lying; Briscoe tells McCoy his father was Jewish and he was raised Catholic. Pressed about classmates headed to the Ivy League, Matt blurts out a slur about Aronson.
Spoiler, the ending: After repeated deadlocks, the judge declares a mistrial. A juror tells CNN the vote was 11 to 1 to convict, and Marsdale signals she will discuss a plea while Payne heads for the lecture circuit.
Why it stands out
- Briscoe reveals that his father was Jewish and that he was raised Catholic.
- The arrest rests on a school drug test of athletes, which the judge rules was misused as a back door to a murder suspect.
- The trial ends in a hung jury rather than a verdict.