Hunters (Season 9, Episode 13)
Premise: A paroled car thief is found shot in the trunk of a towed car, and the hunt for his fugitive brother-in-law pits the detectives against a pair of bounty hunters who leave two more people dead.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 9, Episode 13
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Rey Curtis (Benjamin Bratt)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Abbie Carmichael (Angie Harmon), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- Nick Sandow as bail agent Andy Grenada, Christopher McHale as bail agent Ron Difka, Stephen DeRosa as Al Festov, Robert LuPone as defense attorney Mark Branson, Kerry O’Malley as Millie Sheridan Bender
- Director
- Richard Dobbs
- Writers
- Story: William N. Fordes; Teleplay: Gerry Conway
Summary
The Investigation
“Hunters” begins with a murder found by tow-pound workers, who discover Douglas Bender, a paroled car thief, shot three times and left in the trunk of his wife’s Honda. His wife, nurse Millie Bender, insists he had gone straight. Collect calls lead to her brother, Max Sheridan, Bender’s former partner, who skipped bail on a Georgia truck hijacking charge. Millie admits her husband gave Max a ride and some cash.
Following Max’s trail, the detectives find that bail agents Andy Grenada and Ron Difka, working for bondsman Al Festov, are a step ahead of them, posing as police and beating witnesses. A 9mm pistol turns up in Max’s abandoned hotel room, and a parolee’s prints lead to a planned cargo theft at Kennedy Airport. While police wait there, the bounty hunters storm the apartment of Millie’s babysitter with shotguns, killing Millie and the sitter, Janet Tuckman, and wounding Max. They claim he drew a gun, and Schiff declines to charge them.
Max is arraigned for murder, but a judge rules he will go back to Georgia unless New York indicts within days. The pistol is traced through a crooked dealer who sold guns under the names of the elderly and the dead to a jailed bail jumper, who says bounty hunters took it when they arrested him. An expert concludes that Max had probably never drawn the revolver tucked in his belt, and that the hunters fired with the women in the line of fire.
The Trial
Grenada and Difka are charged with murder. McCoy asks for remand on Grenada but lets Difka go on his own recognizance, and the move works: Grenada says Difka shot Bender by mistake, thinking he was Max, and that Festov had them hide the body, plant the gun on Max and bring him in dead or alive. Festov’s lawyer, Mark Branson, moves to dismiss, arguing that the first shooting was an accident and that bail agents may use deadly force.
At the hearing, McCoy argues that Festov knew Difka had been court-martialed and discharged from the Marines for a violent assault, making the Bender shooting foreseeable. Grenada testifies that he fired because Difka shouted that Max had a gun. Branson cites the century-old Supreme Court case Taylor v. Taintor, which grants bounty hunters broad powers.
Spoiler, the ending: The judge, while condemning the bail agents, dismisses the depraved-indifference charges for Bender’s death and finds too little evidence that the apartment shooting was a conspiracy. The hunters are left facing only a low-level felony charge of tampering with evidence and are freed on $2,000 bail.
Why it stands out
- The bounty hunters’ legal defense rests on Taylor v. Taintor, a Supreme Court ruling that the judge notes has never been overruled.
- McCoy splits the defendants by seeking remand for one and release for the other, prompting Grenada to talk.
- A 1930s boxer listed as owning 22 guns turns out to be a nursing home resident whose name a dealer used on permits.