Recap / Law & Order S14E1 "Bodies"

Teleplay By William N. Fordes

Story By William N. Fordes & Michael S. Chernuchin

Directed By Constantine Makris

While investigating the murder of a teenage girl, Briscoe and Green discover her case mirrors similar ones involving other young teens and women who vanished. The connecting thread is that they were all out at night far from their residences, needing taxis to get home. The trail leads them to Mark Bruner, a loner who lives in a squalid apartment. After a tense moment with a knife where he may or may not have been trying to provoke the detectives, he is arrested. His DNA matches on two victims and he is identified by a witness in a lineup, leading to his arrest on two counts of rape and first-degree murder.

His initial public defender, Jessica Sheets, is extremely uncomfortable defending him, even by her usual standard of clients, who include an eleven-year-old who decapitated his mother and a mass shooter. Sympathetic to her plight considering what her client is accused of, though noting there is something she seems to be hiding, McCoy doesn’t fight her petition to be removed as Bruner’s counsel. Tim Schwimmer, an enthusiastic young defender is assigned to replace her. He unsuccessfully asks Serena out, then gets a small win in court getting the identification thrown out on an obscure technicality. The DNA is still enough to convict Bruner and McCoy offers a deal of life if Bruner confesses, agreeing to take the Death Penalty off the table. Bruner, not caring whether he lives or dies, decides to toy with the DAs office. He reveals he has way more than two bodies to his name and even has them in storage. When McCoy asks for verification, Bruner, ignoring Schwimmer’s pleas to stay silent, reveals he not only told his attorney, but his lawyer went and verified the story himself. Schwimmer admits this is true, but is adamant in not revealing the location, claiming he cannot violate Attorney-Client privilege.

The story is leaked to the media, creating a public outcry and mass protests outside Legal Aid, but Schwimmer will not talk without Bruner’s permission. Bruner, enjoying the chaos, refuses even after being offered a deal that allows parole after twenty-five years, knowing it will never be granted. Outside Rikers, McCoy has a revelation: Bruner mentioned the bodies are under “lock and key” which means that Schwimmer became an accessory by unlocking the site then re-locking it once he finished. He has Schwimmer arrested, charged with over ten counts of accessory after the fact.

The trial goes extremely poorly for Schwimmer, as McCoy uses a parade of distraught parents of missing young women to condemn the young attorney for his actions. On the stand, Schwimmer tries to convince the jury that he must remain silent or the legal system risks falling apart. When McCoy points out Bruner has already been convicted of two murders and sentenced to death, so revealing the location can’t make his situation any worse, Schwimmer still refuses to budge. The jury convicts quickly, but Schwimmer remains stoic and defiant. McCoy is convinced a week in Rikers will convince Schwimmer to talk; Serena isn’t so sure, but McCoy remains hopeful.

This episode contains examples of:

• Ambiguous Situation:
  • If Bruner was trying to provoke the detectives into killing him. His body language and behavior seems to imply he know he has been caught and that drawing a large knife would keep him from prison. On the other hand, he quickly complies with the order to drop the weapon; this could be a sign he changed his mind and wanted to use his secret location as a means to cause further pain.
  • What exactly Bruner told his first lawyer that made her freak out. It's strongly implied to be a threat on her life, but she cites privilege and refuses to confirm exactly what was said. Given how he tells Serena he wishes she got into his cab, it could have been along those lines as well.
  • If Schwimmer ends up talking. He is certainly not the type of person who looks like he will do well in prison and if McCoy is willing to void his conviction he may finally give up. On the other hand, he is a prime example of The Determinator.
• Amoral Attorney: Played with. Schwimmer isn't evil, but his sense of duty to his client goes way beyond the point of reason. To wit, Bruner gleefully sold him out to the prosecution and Schwimmer still feels protecting his secret is worth going to prison over, even though it's pointed out to him that at this point keeping quiet has literally no benefit for himself or his client. He tries in vain to convince the jury he is the good guy, but is convicted on all counts.
  • Also defied by Bruner's first attorney, Jessica Sheets. She's defended some downright horrible clients, but that's her job and she always does the best she can for them. Bruner terrifies her to the point that she immediately begins taking action to get herself removed from the case, correctly pointing out to the prosecutors that she can't defend someone she's that scared of. It's also all but stated that Bruner threatened her life, but the reason it's all but stated is that Sheets refuses to state it herself because she doesn't want to break privilege.
• Artistic License – Law: The way Attorney-Client privilege is handled is one of the biggest examples in the series.
  • The episode is a dramatization of the case of Robert Garrow Sr.. In that case, the two defense attorneys were cleared of legal and ethical charges. The fact pattern is taught at every level of law school ethics education and was part of the plan for the model attorney ethics code. Given that the real life events took place in the 70s, there is no way Jack or Serena wouldn’t have known the ethics of the situation.
  • That said, in the Garrow case the lawyers were tried with violating health codes by not reporting the location of the decompoing bodies. Here, Schwimmer is charged with being an accessory since he had to unlock and re-lock the location, a novel legal maneuver that is challenged unsuccessfully by his attorney.
  • Schwimmer's conviction means he is automatically disbarred, so he is no longer held by privilege. Lawyers sent to prison can't be forced to break with their past cases, unless they were sent to prison as part of a conspiracy in a particular case. Even then, they only have to talk about the case they were convicted in, which is exactly what happens to Schwimmer. The episode ends with McCoy and Serena disagreeing on whether Schwimmer will break, rather than Schwimmer being forced to talk.
• Ax-Crazy: Mark Bruner. As if his murders weren't enough of an indication, he's also very stunted and creepy in his interviews, not reacting to the detectives' comments or giggling at inappropriate times.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Schwimmer certainly has an interesting code of ethics, clumsily hits on Serena and got his degree at night school. On the other hand, he was good enough to get promoted to a murder case at Legal Aid, he wins a suppression hearing and gets the lineup tossed out, but admits he didn't even think his argument would work. When Branch finds out what he did with the secret location, he refers to the young man as an idiot.
• Everyone Has Standards: Jessica Sheets gets assigned some downright horrific cases through legal aid, up to and including an eleven-year-old child who decapitated his mother for no apparent reason, and gives every single case the best defense she possibly can because that's her job. Even she flat-out refuses to defend Mark Bruner; she desperately tries to get the prosecution to plead his case out, and when they won't deal she cuts to the point and more or less begs them not to oppose her motion to be recused.
  • On the prosecution side, McCoy can't in good conscience plead out Mark Bruner knowing the evidence against him, but he stands with Jessica in front of the judge when she files to be relieved from the case and refuses to oppose.
• Giggling Villain: Bruner is constantly cracking up during his meetings with the district attorneys.
• Halfway Plot Switch: Starts as the investigation into the murder of a teenage girl, then becomes an issue of how far the Attorney-Client privilege goes.
• Honor Before Reason: Nothing will get Schwimmer to break privilege. Not public outrage, not crying mothers, not an arrest, not a conviction. Shortly before the jury convicts, Serena tells him given the heinous nature of the case, no bar association would disbar him for talking. He simply replies “Shame on them.”
  • Subverted with Jessica Sheets, the attorney on the case before Schwimmer. She says herself that she defends "the scum of the earth" for a living, but even she's terrified of Mark Bruner, to the point that she motions to recuse herself when it becomes clear that the prosecutors won't plead him out.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Bruner has no reason to refuse to reveal where he hid the bodies of the girls he raped and murdered, other than he enjoys the fact he can refuse to give the families closure.
  • Bruner later says the only way he'd consider admitting where the bodies were was only after McCoy has retired, if only so he can make sure McCoy can receive no credit.
• Not Afraid to Die: Part of the reason Bruner refuses to disclose the location of his victims' bodies. He doesn't view dying in prison as any better than the death penalty, knows full well that there's not much of anything they can or are even willing to offer him as incentive, and is thus indifferent to McCoy's plea offers.
• Ripped from the Headlines: Not quite ripped from the recent headlines, given the timing involved, but the story is a clear dramatization of the famous hidden bodies case in New York in the 70s (see Artistic License – Law above for a link).
• Serial Killer: Mark Bruner has raped and strangled at least seventeen teenage girls.
• Smug Snake: Bruner, who shows absolutely no remorse for the heinous crimes he has committed. As noted above, he may have changed his Suicide by Cop plan in order to cause more pain by holding onto his secret. He also takes glee in revealing what Schwimmer knows, despite his attorney's pleas for his silence. The fact Schwimmer is willing to go to prison for someone like this makes him seem even more foolish.
• Slippery Slope Fallacy: Schwimmer's reason for his staunch resolve in not revealing where Bruner hid the bodies of his victims. Even though he is told no one would hold it against him for doing the right thing, Schwimmer argues breaking lawyer ethics is a slippery slope that will lead to worse justifications in the future. The jury, however, doesn't agree with Schwimmer's plight and convict him as an accessory for his ethical silence.
• The Sociopath: Mark Bruner is an obvious example, being a serial killer who eventually decides to use the bodies of his victims to manipulate the district attorneys for shits and giggles.
• Spotting the Thread: Briscoe and Green realize that their initial victim and the others with the same M.O. all had night time activities that required them to use taxis. This leads them to Bruner whom they arrest.
• Take a Third Option: Defied; Schwimmer refuses to consider anonymously leaking the location to the press or police to get out of his situation.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • As much as Serena dislikes Bruner and Schwimmer, she thinks McCoy prosecuting the latter is going too far. She even considers the conviction a loss, since Schwimmer remains mute.
  • Schwimmer gets this from all sides for keeping the location of the bodies secret. On the stand, McCoy reminds him Bruner has been convicted and has two death sentences. At worst, this means Bruner just gets more of them. At best, it is inadmissible against him, but he's already spending life in prison anyway.
• Would Hurt a Child: Mark Bruner's victims were all teenage girls of the high school or early college age.