LAW & ORDER {LAW AND ORDER}: DEEP VOTE {ELEVENTH SEASON FINALE} (TV)
Summary
The eleventh season finale in this series of dramas that deals with the investigation, arrest, and prosecution of criminals. The first half of each episode concerns the police procedure that leads to the arrest of a suspect, while the second half covers the efforts of the district attorney to prosecute the case.
In this episode, one Martha Krasner is shot dead in what may be a simple road-rage incident or a cleverly disguised hit, but after finding nothing suspicious in her personal or career life, the detectives discover that she may have been confused with a similar-looking woman driving an identical car. The true target, investigative journalist Kate Pierce, admits that she has antagonized a number of dangerous people, including the Caputo crime family, but when the detectives trace Martha's stolen car back to the gunman, Marty Blatt, and inform him that he killed the wrong woman, he reveals that he was hired by a different criminal, Albert Bennato, because of a story relating to election fraud.
Pierce admits to investigating the cause but refuses to reveal her sources, and the Board of Elections Commissioner tells Carmichael that a "mistake" caused a number of old voting machines in the 63rd district to break down on election day, though technician Joey Eckert soon admits to rigging them on purpose. Senator Anne Benton, who "won" the questionable vote, acknowledges being Bennato's lawyer in the past but declines to elaborate further, and McCoy attempts to legally force Pierce to name her source, though the judge shoots him down. When Bennato is finally found, he claims that Benton herself ordered the hit on Pierce, and he bargains to reduce his sentence by offering another piece of crucial evidence: the location of the "missing" 1,865 paper ballots, collected when the machines mysteriously crashed.
Benton is arrested and quickly released without bail, and a frustrated Carmichael admits to McCoy that she's considering taking a new job at the U.S. Attorney's office. McCoy demands to count the recovered votes in order to invalidate Benton's claim that she would've won even without them and therefore had no motive to kill Pierce. The judge overrules Benton's lawyer's argument about chain of custody, but McCoy is then slapped with a restraining order and forbidden from completing the count. In the appellate court, McCoy argues that proving Benton's involvement in a murder should take precedence over all other matters, but the restraining order is upheld, essentially ruining their case against her. Desperate, McCoy visits Pierce and points out that Martha Krasner was an innocent party who deserves justice, and Pierce finally gives in and tells him her source on the story: Matthew Coulter, Benton's own chief of staff. Commercials deleted.
Details
- NETWORK: NBC
- DATE: May 23, 2001 10:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:45:41
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: B:71744
- GENRE: Drama, police/detective
- SUBJECT HEADING: Drama, police/detective; Drama, legal; U S - Elections; Murder
- SERIES RUN: NBC - TV series, 1990-2010
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Jeffrey Hayes … Executive Producer
- Barry Schindel … Executive Producer
- Dick Wolf … Executive Producer, Created by
- Arthur W. Forney … Co-Executive Producer
- Richard Sweren … Co-Executive Producer
- Kathy McCormick … Co-Executive Producer
- Lynn Mamet … Supervising Producer
- William N. Fordes … Supervising Producer, Writer
- Roz Weinman … Producer
- Gary Karr … Producer
- Kati Johnston … Producer
- Lewis H. Gould … Producer
- Kathy O'Connell … Associate Producer
- David Black … Consulting Producer
- Jace Alexander … Director
- Matt Witten … Writer
- Mike Post … Music by
- Jerry Orbach … Cast, Detective Lennie Briscoe
- Jesse L. Martin … Cast, Detective Ed Green
- S. Epatha Merkerson … Cast, Lt. Anita Van Buren
- Sam Waterston … Cast, E.A.D.A. Jack McCoy
- Angie Harmon … Cast, A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael
- Dianne Wiest … Cast, D.A. Nora Lewin
- Deborah Hedwall … Cast, Senator Anne Benton
- Joe Grifasi … Cast, James Linde
- Kate Jennings Grant … Cast, Kate Pierce
- Peter Jay Fernandez … Cast, Matthew Coulter
- Dan Grimaldi … Cast, Albert Bennato
- Daniel Oreskes … Cast, Jeff Waites
- John Carter … Cast, Judge Harlan Newfield
- Michael Shawn Lucas … Cast, Elliot Krasner
- David Roya … Cast, Marty Blatt
- Robert Poletick … Cast, Carl Feinberg
- Stewart Steinberg … Cast, Rabbi Mendel
- Ann Talman … Cast, Emily Snowden
- Douglas Wert … Cast, Detective Tom Remington
- Brad Calcaterra … Cast, James Reynolds
- Stephen Bienskie … Cast, Simon
- Brian Connors … Cast, Gerald Harmon
- Lou Liberatore … Cast, Dale Brody
- Helmar Augustus Cooper … Cast, Judge Lawrence McNeil
- Karen Shallo … Cast, Judge Anna Shiro
- Barbara Spiegel … Cast, Arraignment Court Judge Harriet Doremus
- William Parry … Cast, Appellate Judge #1
- Hope Clarke … Cast, Appellate Judge #2
- Wade Mylius … Cast, Jimmy Coleman
- James Ransone … Cast, Mark Dale
- Anthony Grasso … Cast, Joey Eckert
- Catrina Ganey … Cast, Homeless Woman
- Timothy Britten Parker … Cast, Forensics Tech Hoeck
- Liz Larsen … Cast, CSU Technician Jessica Reed
- Nancy Ticotin … Cast, Detective Reina Perez
- Joe Ponazecki … Cast, Louis
- John Patrick Amedori … Cast, Zack
- Amy Margolis … Cast, Receptionist
- Lee Michael Cohn … Cast, Man
- Veronica Blackwell … Cast, Counter #1
- Bob Ader … Cast, Counter #2
- Guy Whitlock … Cast, Court Clerk