S22.E06: Vicious Cycle

[Door County Cherry]

Quote

A fashion designer is killed on the night of his boutique opening.  Cosgrove and Shaw must track down a suspect with little evidence and no witnesses; Maroun is shocked to find her own name of the defense's witness list. 

[Broderbits]

"I'm in the hospital! You can't arrest me!"

Right. Hope he spends some time in the prison law library.

[dttruman]

Looks like it involves all the 5 finger discount incidents that have been plaguing NYC, gun violence, and so much more

10 minutes ago, Broderbits said:

"I'm in the hospital! You can't arrest me!"

Right. Hope he spends some time in the prison law library.

I wonder why he was in the hospital, was it something to do with the LGBTQ stuff? Some AIDs related treatment or what not? That's where I thought the plot was going.

[dttruman]

Looks like Maroun has dropped the ball on one of her cases or is getting sloppy. I wonder if this is a subtle character assassination attempt by the writers?

[Broderbits]

36 minutes ago, dttruman said:

wonder why he was in the hospital, was it something to do with the LGBTQ stuff? Some AIDs related treatment or what not? That's where I thought the plot was going.

He was shot in the leg.

[Door County Cherry]

11 minutes ago, Broderbits said:

He was shot in the leg.

Yep.  And they even said why he was in the hospital before they went to visit him.  I gotta say, I would have loved if they got there only to find out that someone else shot them.  In fact, if I were the defendant, I think I would have made that claim. 

I can always tell when Eid is heavily involved in an ep. The sound and production always feel so OTT.  

This episode made me want to scream.  So much potential.  So much fuckery.  At first, I thought we'd get a decent judge. His decisions made sense and were believable. But then he let the defense attorney call Maroun.  She could have established the same set of facts by cross examining the witness with an amazing leap in English speech.  

And they liked to focus on how people got the wrong impression of police.  Meanwhile, they arrest a citizen for pulling a gun on "cops" even though they didn't identify themselves as cops until after she pulled out the gun. And they they threated to arrest a lawyer just for being annoying.  

They're close. I don't know why they make it so freakin' hard.  

[dttruman]

14 minutes ago, Broderbits said:

He was shot in the leg.

Now I remember, my bad. Since Sutton was shot to death and he was shot in the leg and there was no gun found, I thought they were going in another direction, like with addicts, HIV and AIDs, along with the LGBTQ  of the fashion scene.

[Raja]

With ADA Maroun consulting with the Lieutenant and then the arraignment I was asking myself what was up they they found time to use her in the manner that they used ADA's from Robinette to Rubiroso

[buckboard]

The whole handling of the "Maroun didn't mention a gun" story made me want to scream.  The ADA's "defense" of her: "How many cases did you get right?" was terrible.  It didn't matter how many she got right, just that she didn't follow through on this one.  And she seemed surprised by the question.  Wouldn't he have spoken with her before she testified? 

He needed the jury to understand why no gun was mentioned before.  He could have asked her on re-direct to explain to them just as she had explained to him when she was first got the subpoena..   The gun wasn't mentioned in the police report, she was crazy swamped, the witness didn't speak understandable English and she didn't get back to the witness before she was transferred to homicide.  Yes, she should have spoken to the witness and so should the attorney who replaced her.

Also, could the police have tracked down where the gun came from?  
 

[Xeliou66]

I may be in the minority but I really liked this episode. It was a tad heavy handed in places with its focus on the recent increase in crime, particularly stuff like shoplifting, but it is a very relevant topic and the show has never shied away from those.

The case was very good, I liked how they tracked down the killer from the stuff at the warehouse, it was good detective work, and I really like the Cosgrove/Shaw pairing, Shaw has fit as good as any new character in L&O history, and I liked how they solved the case. There were a few humorous moments I thought in dealing with the criminals, particularly with the guy saying they couldn’t arrest him because he was in the hospital. There was more action again in this episode, with a foot chase and the model with the gun, not a big deal but I would prefer those couple of minutes be used to flesh out the case some.

The legal stuff was strong as well - I liked how they went about proving their case with good legal work, and I loved Jack’s scenes as usual, he’s awesome and I liked him telling them not to cut a deal, and his reassuring Maroun she’s a good lawyer and telling her there’s no time for self-pity and getting her back on track. Price did a good job in his prosecution of the case, and I loved the judge, his rebuking the defense attorney was great, I think the defense attorney objected more than any defense attorney in history. I did wonder about allowing Maroun to testify at a trial she had been a prosecutor on but I bought that the judge would allow it, after all denying the motion could allow the defense an appeal. I liked how they disproved the killer’s self defense claim and convicted him.

I liked seeing Maroun interact with the police, the more DA/police interactions the better.

Overall I enjoyed this episode a lot, I have no major complaints about it, the case was compelling, each character had a good role and the investigation and legal stuff was good. A solid episode that flowed well from start to finish, good episode IMO.

[Door County Cherry]

14 minutes ago, Xeliou66 said:

I bought that the judge would allow it, after all denying the motion could allow the defense an appeal.

The bar for calling a prosecutor as a witness would likely be quite high.  The only reason the defense attorney wanted to call Maroun was for the theatricality of it all and to make it seem like the prosecutor was shifty.  Maroun didn't have any evidence to offer in this case.  Essentially, the defense attorney was trying to impeach a witness she never even cross-examined by calling the prosecutor. In addition, the prosecutor agreed to stipulate that the gun wasn't mentioned originally which is the fact they wanted in evidence.  I don't think chicanery clears the high bar. 

22 minutes ago, Xeliou66 said:

There were a few humorous moments

I did like Cosgrove's "fashion police" line. 

[The Wild Sow]

8 hours ago, dttruman said:

Since Sutton was shot to death and he was shot in the leg and there was no gun found,

And where is the gun?  It wasn't found at the scene and the defendant didn't have it when he was arrested, nor was it found at his house.  So presumably he ditched it somewhere.  

Now, if the thief (sorry, forget his name!) was claiming that Sutton had the gun -- just produce it or tell the cops where to find it.  There are still bullets in the chamber (2 in Sutton, one in Castillo's leg (aha, remembered his name!)  Should still be 3 - and if those bullets have fingerprints, they'll show who loaded the gun.  I really thought the cops could have and should have looked a little harder for that gun!

8 hours ago, Door County Cherry said:

Meanwhile, they arrest a citizen for pulling a gun on "cops" even though they didn't identify themselves as cops until after she pulled out the gun

Yes!  She didn't pull a gun on "cops" - she pulled a gun on strange men in plain clothes who were accosting her! 

[shapeshifter]

I'm glad that the writers are leaning into the ol' snark line at the end of the opening crime scene:

• [SHAW FLASHES HIS SUIT JACKET DESIGNER LABEL OF "SUTTON" (THE VICTIM) TO COSGROVE] 
• [COSGROVE] Guess that makes you the "fashion police."

 

10 hours ago, Door County Cherry said:

 would have loved if they got there only to find out that someone else shot them.  In fact, if I were the defendant, I think I would have made that claim. 

I thought they were going there as soon as we learned the Career Criminal was shot in the leg.

Isn't the first suspect (the guy in the warehouse) also culpable for handing out the guns?
Are they illegal guns?


 

7 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

I think the defense attorney objected more than any defense attorney in history.

Heh. Yeah.
They should bring her back for another episode and have Randy Dworkin appear too so he can say:
"And I object to so much objecting, Your Honor."😉

Would all of her objecting (including at least 3 times during the opening statement) preclude any hope of the Career Criminal filing an appeal? 
Or would her plethora of objections pave the way for an appeal by implying that there was a lot to object?
I don't think this was covered in any of my video "courses" from the School of L&O. 😉



 

8 hours ago, buckboard said:

The ADA's "defense" of her: "How many cases did you get right?" was terrible.  It didn't matter how many she got right, just that she didn't follow through on this one.  And she seemed surprised by the question.  Wouldn't he have spoken with her before she testified? 

Price did actually ask Maroun this exact question in private earlier.
I think Price thought Maroun's genuine too-many-too-count response was good to keep in his back pocket if needed for the jury to see, rather than over-prepping her?

[dubbel zout]

48 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

Would all of her objecting (including at least 3 times during the opening statement) preclude any hope of the Career Criminal filing an appeal? 
Or would her plethora of objections pave the way for an appeal by implying that there was a lot to object?
I don't think this was covered in any of my video "courses" from the School of L&O. 😉

I don't think a lot of objection is a cause for an appeal. I was a jury member on a trial where the defense lawyer made a lot of them, and after a while we all sighed in frustration, leading the judge to scold us, heh. 

That defense lawyer was pretty good, I thought. I hope they have her back to be a thorn in Price's side. He needs it.

[blackwing]

I found this episode interesting.  This show typically seems to have a fairly liberal slant, so I was kind of surprised when the detectives complained that they arrest people but the politicians, judges and DAs don't want to incarcerate.  Then observations from both the prosecutors and detectives about the revised bail laws.  And of course, the comments about serial looters being able to steal everything and nobody does anything about it.

If I didn't know any better, I'd say the writer of this episode lives in Chicago.  There was rampant looting in Chicago in connection with the George Floyd protests.  The States Attorney declared that she wasn't going to prosecute anyone, and it seems she's also created the belief that no one will get prosecuted for petty thefts of a few thousand dollars or so.  I'm sure things like this are happening in other cities too, but seemed like a direct complaint about Kim Foxx to me.

I didn't like how Maroun blamed herself for Castillo being on the streets, or that they called it a "mistake".  She did her best, she was overworked, she tried to get a translator and never could.  Then she got transferred to a different division.  Why wouldn't whoever took the case over from her have followed up and gotten a translator?  It's as much that person's "fault" as it was Maroun's.  

Didn't like the smugness of Castillo in the courtroom so I was happy to see him get taken down.  I'm assuming the defense attorney was a public defender?  I chuckled when she said she would call him as the bailiff moved to cuff him, and he told her "don't bother".

14 hours ago, Door County Cherry said:

This episode made me want to scream.  So much potential.  So much fuckery.  At first, I thought we'd get a decent judge. His decisions made sense and were believable. But then he let the defense attorney call Maroun.  She could have established the same set of facts by cross examining the witness with an amazing leap in English speech.  

Exactly... I don't know why Price didn't bring that up.  The defense attorney wanted to establish that the witness in the original Castillo case never said anything about a gun.  But she had passed on cross examination.  She had her opportunity already, but it's as Price said, she wanted to embarrass Maroun and try to paint her as unreliable.  I don't understand why the judge wouldn't have at least asked defense attorney why she didn't want to ask the witness the same questions.

5 hours ago, The Wild Sow said:

And where is the gun?  It wasn't found at the scene and the defendant didn't have it when he was arrested, nor was it found at his house.  So presumably he ditched it somewhere.  

Now, if the thief (sorry, forget his name!) was claiming that Sutton had the gun -- just produce it or tell the cops where to find it.  There are still bullets in the chamber (2 in Sutton, one in Castillo's leg (aha, remembered his name!)  Should still be 3 - and if those bullets have fingerprints, they'll show who loaded the gun.  I really thought the cops could have and should have looked a little harder for that gun!

Agree.  Last week, Detective Yee combed all the security footage in the area and not only did she 1) have footage of the killer walking from his home to the docks, but 2) have footage of the killer depositing the murder weapon in a dumpster.  This week's crime was committed in an area that is more frequented, shouldn't there have been cameras everywhere?  She should have been checking every camera in the area.

2 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

Isn't the first suspect (the guy in the warehouse) also culpable for handing out the guns?
Are they illegal guns?

I was wondering the same.  Why wasn't Eddie being arrested for selling stolen goods?  Why wasn't Eddie arrested for distributing guns to his network of thieves?  He's running a larceny ring, that seems like it would be a felony.  They put Redhead on the stand and gave him immunity, but I really hope that Eddie is getting arrested next.  He distributed guns and one of his thieves killed a man in the course of carrying out a theft for Eddie.  Eddie is an accessory to murder.

[shapeshifter]

40 minutes ago, blackwing said:

I didn't like how Maroun blamed herself for Castillo being on the streets, or that they called it a "mistake".  She did her best, she was overworked, she tried to get a translator and never could.  Then she got transferred to a different division.  Why wouldn't whoever took the case over from her have followed up and gotten a translator?  It's as much that person's "fault" as it was Maroun's.  

Since every episode of this season has had missing details of the story, I fanwanked that Maroun was especially devasted——over her part in the justice system's failure to get the Career Criminal off the streets before he murdered the victim——because the victim was someone who was using his wealth in a tangible and personal way to revitalize the neighborhood for the people who were living there, rather than some sort of urban renewal scheme that uproots inhabitants.

[milkyaqua]

1 hour ago, blackwing said:

If I didn't know any better, I'd say the writer of this episode lives in Chicago.  There was rampant looting in Chicago in connection with the George Floyd protests.  The States Attorney declared that she wasn't going to prosecute anyone, and it seems she's also created the belief that no one will get prosecuted for petty thefts of a few thousand dollars or so.  I'm sure things like this are happening in other cities too, but seemed like a direct complaint about Kim Foxx to me.

Californian here, this is going on in a lot of major cities here as well with every party blaming the other.

[Raja]

40 minutes ago, milkyaqua said:

Californian here, this is going on in a lot of major cities here as well with every party blaming the other.

I thought it was ripped from San Francisco headlines 

[Andyourlittledog2]

4 hours ago, Raja said:

5 hours ago, milkyaqua said:

Californian here, this is going on in a lot of major cities here as well with every party blaming the other.

I thought it was ripped from San Francisco headlines 

I now live in a rural county in Oregon. Here it was the opposite problem. A few years ago it got so bad that people were coming from out of state even to commit crimes against property and shoplifting because there was no room in the jail to keep them when arrested so they were basically arrested and then let go over and over again and never bothered to show up for court with impunity. The problem wasn't the police or the prosecutors though. It was the citizens. Too large a percentage of the citizens of the county were very conservative anti-tax and absolutely refused to approve taxes to fund the sheriff's office. We were down to one sheriff and one deputy for the entire county patrol and they could only answer calls during the daytime hours unless it was a major crime against a person. The jails were full. We even had an SOS group (Save our Sheriff) that collected cans(!) to help fund the sheriff's office. Finally it got so bad that some tax bonds were approved and we were able to staff up again and actually arrest people and prosecute them for crimes.  Now Oregon has a public defender shortage and new laws requiring no bail for less serious crimes. It's less serious unless you are the one it was committed against and the criminal is thumbing his nose at you. This state, I swear.

I thought this episode was pretty good, uncomfortable flashbacks aside. But the defense attorney allowed to call Maroun to the stand and Maroun not strongly defending the knowledge of the gun was wrong to me.  She let the defense attorney keep stating that the witness didn't mention a gun. But the witness said she did, she just wasn't understood. I would have hammered that fact home.

Edited November 4, 2022 by Andyourlittledog2

[Door County Cherry]

11 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

I don't think a lot of objection is a cause for an appeal. I was a jury member on a trial where the defense lawyer made a lot of them, and after a while we all sighed in frustration, leading the judge to scold us, heh. 

That defense lawyer was pretty good, I thought. I hope they have her back to be a thorn in Price's side. He needs it.

If anyone watched even a little bit of the Heard/Depp trial, Depp's attorneys did a lot of objecting.  It was annoying but definitely not considered wrong. 

The defense attorney was played by Liza Colon-Zayas who currently stars in The Bear on Hulu (very good) and is married to L&O David Zayas. 

[Sake614]

The shoplifting and walking out while employees do nothing or the manager holds the door is absolutely a thing here in NY. It’s the subject of daily Posts on my community FB group. The drugstore shelves are empty because of it. There’s no point in the store trying to do anything because it isn’t a violent crime and therefore not bail eligible under the new law. So yes, even if the cops were called and arrested the perp, he’d be out on the street doing it all over again in a few hours. Or as one cop put it, ‘before we even finish the paperwork.’ its gotten so bad that RiteAid is considering putting EVERYTHING in the NYC stores under lock and key.

im sure it’s happening all over the country, but it was a very NYC ripped from the headlines story 

[Joimiaroxeu]

Shaw suddenly showing the label of his jacket was kind of corny to me but Cosgrove's fashion police line was killer!

$100k here, $500k there. Sutton was promising a lot of money around right before he died. I'm betting he owed money to the wrong people and was behind on the payments. (ETA: oops, guess that would've a bad bet. 😏)

"Chile please." Who would talk like that to an ADA? Such snarky disrespect could come back to bite that guy in a future case.

Castillo's defense attorney was a piece of work. Did she really want to be smirking during a murder trial?

I think this was my favorite episode of the entire reboot so far..

This L&O nostalgia take from reddit cracked me up:

Quote

MAROUN: I am so sorry for what happened today... don't know where to begin. Are you here to fire me?

MCCOY: Yes

MAROUN: Is this because I'm a lesbian?

...Executive Producer DICK WOLF

[shapeshifter]

46 minutes ago, Joimiaroxeu said:

This L&O nostalgia take from reddit cracked me up:

Quote

MAROUN: I am so sorry for what happened today... don't know where to begin. Are you here to fire me?

MCCOY: Yes

MAROUN: Is this because I'm a lesbian?

...Executive Producer DICK WOLF

It had to be a deliberate call back to Rohm, right?

[dubbel zout]

Cosgrove is whistling again, ugh.

[Raja]

1 hour ago, dubbel zout said:

Cosgrove is whistling again, ugh.

He does seem to really like his new partner.

[GiandujaPie]

Surprised no one has mention this yet, but Maroun's angst over letting a previous defendant get away and back on the street to commit another crime was almost an exact duplicate of a similar storyline with Claire Kincaid. In Claire's case, she pled out a homeless man for a less serious crime and then that homeless man eventually killed a woman in the subway. The homeless man's sister contacted Claire and said she had warned Claire about this man's psychological problems during the previous case and said he was dangerous but Claire never called her back. Claire was guilt ridden over that oversight and Jack had almost the exact same conversation with her that Price had with Maroun about being overworked and having too high of a caseload. I was hoping at the end when McCoy talked to Maroun that he would mention that. 

I thought the whole case was ridiculous. When the defense attorney objected during the prosecution's opening statement, she said that it was her client that was defending himself because the victim was the one with the gun. If that were true, why wouldn't they have told the police and had the police try to find out if the victim did actually have a gun? It was a ridicuolus argument and she should not have been allowed to get away with it. 

[Samsnee]

Hey it’s Tina from The Bear!

The defense objecting during opening statements is a new one. Like she couldn’t say it during her own opening statements?

[GHScorpiosRule]

10 hours ago, Samsnee said:

The defense objecting during opening statements is a new one. Like she couldn’t say it during her own opening statements?

It's happened before. But the other way. Defense was making a speech or something and Jack objected. I think it also happened in "Hubris"  when the killer was defending himself and made statements not in line with opening statements or something. And Jack objected then too. Both times, sustained and the defense attorney and killer were warned to stop it.

Edited November 8, 2022 by GHScorpiosRule

[dttruman]

15 hours ago, Samsnee said:

Hey it’s Tina from The Bear!

The defense objecting during opening statements is a new one. Like she couldn’t say it during her own opening statements?

It's happened before. But the other way. Defense was making a speech or something and Jack objected. I think it also happened in "Hubris"  when the killer was defending himself and made statements not in line with opening statements or something. And Jack objected then too. Both times, sustained and the defense attorney and killer were warned to stop it.

Do you think they did that to kind of shake things up? Did she do that as some kind of activist lawyer to show that the judicial system is unfair to her client and people like him?

Edited November 8, 2022 by dttruman
added GHScorpiosRule comment

[TV Anonymous]

Petty criminals could just steal things in New York with zero repercussion? It seemed horrible. What is the case IRL that was being reflected in this episode?

[dttruman]

8 hours ago, TV Anonymous said:

Petty criminals could just steal things in New York with zero repercussion? It seemed horrible. What is the case IRL that was being reflected in this episode?

I think it represented the absurdity of all the ripping off of all these small retail drug stores with no repercussions for the criminals because of the "No Cash Bail" along with the indiscriminate vicious acts of violence by the so-called mentally ill.

Edited November 17, 2022 by dttruman

[Raja]

3 hours ago, TV Anonymous said:

Petty criminals could just steal things in New York with zero repercussion? It seemed horrible. What is the case IRL that was being reflected in this episode?

A mixture of no cash bail, no room in jails for misdemeanor convictions and increasing the threshold for a felony prosecution in the California headlines 

[edhopper]

Bail Reform is getting criticized, but didn't cause the crime increase.

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/facts-bail-reform-and-crime-rates-new-york-state#:~:text=The Times Union reviewed state,of these%2C 429 cases led

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/07/politics/bail-reform-violent-crime-fact-check

Bail reform was scaled back in NY and it was first put in place because most arrested got out on bail and only poor people were kept in jail. Some innocent, incarcerated for months.

[KeithJ]

On 11/3/2022 at 8:51 PM, Door County Cherry said:

Meanwhile, they arrest a citizen for pulling a gun on "cops" even though they didn't identify themselves as cops until after she pulled out the gun.

Two guys come up on her, call her by name, have their badges covered and don’t identify themselves.  She was probably fearing something really bad was going to happening so she pulls her legal gun out.  They then arrest her for pulling a gun on police. 
 

What really bothers me is that, on pretty much all police shows, when they stake out a place waiting for a bad guy, they yell “stop police” when they’re like two blocks away and know the perp is going to run.  But here, for a fashion model, they pretty much just ambush her.

[KittyQ]

I got that the defense attorney's first objection might have been intended to throw Price off stride, but after getting overruled by the judge, you'd think she would avoid doing again, unless she's not very good as an attorney, because annoying the judge wouldn't necessarily help her case. She didn't have the personality of a Randy Dworkin, who was a bit obnoxious but very smart, so I thought maybe she just wasn't that good. 

I think that the issue of rampant stealing is happening in many places, and frustrating everyone who wants to be able to buy what they need at reasonable prices, because one thing that happens with a lot of losses is that companies may raise prices to help offset those losses and maybe increased insurance costs. Police shortages don't help, lack of bail doesn't help, so everyone is frustrated and cranky about it.

[incandescent]

On 11/7/2022 at 3:56 PM, GiandujaPie said:

Surprised no one has mention this yet, but Maroun's angst over letting a previous defendant get away and back on the street to commit another crime was almost an exact duplicate of a similar storyline with Claire Kincaid. In Claire's case, she pled out a homeless man for a less serious crime and then that homeless man eventually killed a woman in the subway. The homeless man's sister contacted Claire and said she had warned Claire about this man's psychological problems during the previous case and said he was dangerous but Claire never called her back. Claire was guilt ridden over that oversight and Jack had almost the exact same conversation with her that Price had with Maroun about being overworked and having too high of a caseload. I was hoping at the end when McCoy talked to Maroun that he would mention that. 

Pro Se! To be more specific, since I watched it recently, the schizophrenic man was charged with stalking a woman, got let off with a slap on the wrist despite a history of assault because he looked more respectable at the time, then began stalking another woman and killed her and two others and gave another victim injuries that would last a lifetime. One of L&O's best episodes, IMO. But, shockingly, I think this episode did a better job at conveying Maroun's guilt, while Claire came off very defensive almost the whole episode through.