Law & Order

[Opening narration]

Narrator:
In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime; and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
I specifically asked for him to be put on suicide watch. Apparently here at Riker's that mean that they watch you commit suicide.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
You know, if I didn't already know you don't have kids, I'd know you don't have kids.

[Rifling through 30-year old evidence]

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
I got one word for you, Rey - plastics.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
We got a hit on the fake fur.

Det. Rey Curtis:
Yeah, you'll never guess what they make them out of.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Recycled soda bottles. What else did you find out?

Ben Stone:
Although justice must be tempered with mercy, it must still maintain a sense of retribution.

Ben Stone:
The jury should look like society. People that represent the victim as well as the defendant

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
Even though you are a taxpayer, you know, we don't actually work for you personally.

[Trying to keep a suspect from escaping through a window]

Det. Ed Green:
Rock, paper, scissors, gun.

Emil Skoda:
That's just a load of rehearsed crap.

Jack McCoy:
I remember how hard it was when I realized my father was a son of a b*tch. I can't imagine what it must be like when you realize you raised one.

Jack McCoy:
You played me, you son of a b*tch!

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
I'm trying to decide what to arrest you for - obstruction of justice, harboring a fugitive or just being a general pain in the ass!

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
We had a deal, you son of a b*tch!

Jack McCoy:
You son of a b*tch! You played me!

Adam Schiff:
You do what you have to do, you're still welcome to my scotch.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
I want to go to law school so I can learn how to turn gold into lead.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
I told you, you should have gone to bed with her. You're getting the grief without getting the gravy.

Jack McCoy:
Your grief might seem a little more real had you not just admitted you cut off your wife's head.

Det. Ed Green:
If you're going to lie, be creative or we'll get bored.

Jack McCoy:
Sometimes you have to make deals with the devil.

Jamie Ross:
Just make sure you don't get your eyebrows singed.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
Boy, I'd hate for somebody to trace me by what I read.

Det. Rey Curtis:
You read, Lennie?

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
If he's not Fallon, who the hell is he?

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
Well the FBI says he's not in the witness protection program but they mighta had their fingers crossed.

Jack McCoy:
Never get Freudian on a man holding a pickle.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Do you believe him?

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
I believe on a good day he couldn't hit his ass with both hands.

Danielle Melnick:
Julian Prusse is accused of a crime but that doesn't make him Hannibal Lecter.

Danielle Melnick:
Hello, Jack. Ok, let's talk turkey. What are you up to?... And don't give me that party line about Prusse being a threat to society.

Jack McCoy:
When you argue, I have this compulsive need to argue back.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
[in disgust to Det. Ed Green] Ed, I sold my plantation over a century ago.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
Love - a dangerous disease instantly cured by marriage.

D.A. Arthur Branch:
Sometimes the good you do won't do you any good.

Adam Schiff:
A motive pulled straight from the tabloids. And what about means and opportunity? Are you getting that from comic books?

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
Just like the Bates Hotel. They check in but they never check out.

[a victim has died, apparently during S&M sex]

Medical Examiner Elizabeth Rodgers:
No defensive wounds.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
That's odd.

Medical Examiner Elizabeth Rodgers:
Yeah, the fun part for these guys is the struggle AFTER they've been tied up.

[pause]

Medical Examiner Elizabeth Rodgers:
Or so I've heard.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
I'd like it if you two became real partners.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
And I'd like it if my ex-wives got partners. No more alimony.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
I'd better go. I'm late for my daily spanking at One Police Plaza.

[upon learning that an old gangster had himself killed to frame his cheating young wife and her boyfriend]

DA Branch:
Well, I guess it beats dousing yourself in rum and lighting up a Cohiba.

EADA Jack McCoy:
You can re-write the law when you're appointed to the Supreme Court.

D.A. Arthur Branch:
God willing.

ADA Jack McCoy:
There comes a time in everyone's political career when you have to expect a couple over easy in the kisser.

[handcuffing a suspect]

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
You've heard of the Seven Rings of Saturn? These are the Two Rings of Riker's.

ADA Serena Southerlyn:
So, her sex life is way better than mine, so what?

Ben Stone:
I'm not the one on trial here, and I'm the one who asks the questions!

Det. Ed Green:
[a suspect, who'd complained of radiating pain in his neck, tries to escape from his apartment; Green goes to apprehend him] That's good, now radiate your ass up against the wall!

[the driver of a Jaguar has been shot; a carjacking is suspected]

Det. Ed Green:
Just give up the car! Man, when are people gonna realize it isn't worth your life?

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
Spoken like somebody who's never owned a Jag.

Det. Rey Curtis:
When I filled out my ethnicity, I had to put "Other"...

Jack McCoy:
[waiter brings a drink bought by the defense attorney in the last case] Take it back.

ADA Claire Kincaid:
You can't forgive anyone, can you?

Jack McCoy:
Nope. Besides, that was bourbon; I'm drinking scotch.

[looking at a murder victim]

Det. Ed Green:
Bare foot, cross painted on her chest. Looks like we're dealing with some religious nut.

[watching Van Buren and Fontana tear into each other]

Det. Ed Green:
Look, we can sit here and argue politics all day long, but there's still gonna be a dead girl in the morgue.

Medical Examiner Elizabeth Rodgers:
I got another body coming in. Guy took a javelin to the chest.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
Why are you still in this line of work?

Medical Examiner Elizabeth Rodgers:
Free javelins.

[phone rings, Rodgers answers]

Medical Examiner Elizabeth Rodgers:
Rodgers.

[pause; she hands the phone to Green]

Medical Examiner Elizabeth Rodgers:
Your lieutenant.

[Green looks at the receiver but won't touch it]

Det. Ed Green:
What's that on the receiver? Brains?

Medical Examiner Elizabeth Rodgers:
Egg salad, maybe.

Det. Ed Green:
You got another phone?

[looking at a hospital sign that says "Pediatric Oncology"]

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
Now there's two words that should never go together.

ADA Jack McCoy:
If that's the way you feel, Danielle, move to suppress.

Danielle Melnick:
Right. Judge Logan's gonna rule FISA violates the Fourth Amendment. How many beers have *you* had?

Jack McCoy:
The last time I checked, "Stupid" isn't a defense for murder!

Capt. Donald Cragen:
What'd he say?

Det. Mike Logan:
He told us to go to hell

Capt. Donald Cragen:
Well, at least he's got a way with words.

Ben Stone:
I'm a Catholic - I can feel guilty about anything.

Arraignment judge:
Life is beautiful. All God's children are innocent.

Adam Schiff:
Flipped a coin in my head. Came up tails. Talk to the boy.

Adam Schiff:
People see the devil as an allegory.

ADA Jack McCoy:
I'm not so sure I do.

Abbie Carmichael:
Horns and a pitchfork, Jack?

[about gay marriage]

Jack McCoy:
Let 'em marry. Why shouldn't they be as miserable as the rest of us?

Abbie Carmichael:
Ugh. Doctors. I can't believe my mother wanted me to marry one.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
It wasn't the eighteen floors from the window to the street that killed her, it was the sudden stop.

Det. Rey Curtis:
You're a Catholic.

Jack McCoy:
Not at work. Sorry.

ADA Jack McCoy:
Sometimes Lennie Briscoe doesn't hit it out of the park.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
I don't like to be second guessed! [referring to Ed Green] I've been walking on eggshells the whole time he's been here!

Abbie Carmichael:
Gentleman, if we can just lower the amount of testosterone...

Det. Mike Logan:
Interviewing suspect: When is your birthday?

Suspect:
March 20.

Det. Mike Logan:
What year?

Suspect:
Every year. I have a birthday every year!

Adam Schiff:
Always think you have a smoking gun, till the smoke blows in your face.

Ben Stone:
Unless the victim qualifies for sainthood, we shouldn't prosecute? Lyndon Johnson tried governing by opinion polls... It didn't work.

A.D.A. Paul Robinette:
Could be he's lucky.

Capt. Donald Cragen:
Could be next week I'll be doing shampoo commercials.

Adam Schiff:
A first-year law student could punch more holes in your case than Con Ed has in Third Avenue.

Adam Schiff:
I wouldn't count your chickens. Your omelet just hit the fan.

Det. Mike Logan:
[to a girl who's being unhelphul] Listen... Somebody blew your boyfriend's brains out with a 48, okay?

ADA Claire Kincaid:
Where's our notice?

Ben Stone:
The client's dog ate it!

Det. Mike Logan:
Put the burrito down, se?or.

Det. Mike Logan:
Praise the Lord, pass the ammunition.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
[reading off a video case containing a snuff film] "The girls next door, the girls you've always dreamed about. Behind closed doors for the first time."

Det. Mike Logan:
For the LAST time.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
"Oh hello Mrs. Russell, you daughter was raped and shot in the head". You want me to do it?

Sergeant Max Greevey:
Patient is dead. But don't worry, the doctor is fine.

[last lines]

D.A. Nora Lewin:
Have we set a grand jury date for Ms. Lawrence?

Jack McCoy:
And call what witnesses? The only ones we can find are two men who'd rather go to jail than tell the truth.

D.A. Nora Lewin:
So we indict Collins for perjury.

Jack McCoy:
We can't prove he lied.

D.A. Nora Lewin:
Lawrence and Collins both walk?

Jack McCoy:
We got dissed. Apparently two careers are worth more than a person's life.

A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn:
In a weird way, the dismissal hurt Collins more than the indictment. When his fans found out he wasn't the killer, his CD dropped ten places on the charts.

Jack McCoy:
At this rate, he might have to go out and actually shoot somebody.

Sgt. Max Greevey:
I don't wanna see this guy without back-up.

Det. Mike Logan:
Back-up? I don't wanna see him without nuclear weapons.

Jack McCoy:
If I don't leave here with a guilty plea, Mr. Corley, I promise, you'll do 45 years hard time. They'll wheel me out of my retirement home to be at your parole hearings.

[in the middle of a sting operation, the victim's sister unexpectedly showed up and threw something in Corley's face]

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
What did you throw on him?

Callie Newton:
Vinegar.

A.D.A. Alexandra Borgia:
So, are we done?

Terrence Putney:
You mean am I going to file a complaint against Lt. Van Buren? I have two daughters myself.

Christine Hill:
Anita, I can't lose another child.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
And you won't if you let me put this man away, but girl, you got to come clean!

Christine Hill:
Why are you all over me?

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
You remember when I was a rookie, and I wanted to quit because all the crap I was taking on the job? Well, you said to me "Don't let them beat you." And the reason I hung in was because you wouldn't let me give up, and I'm not gonna let you give up now.

Barrington:
The clientele at Rock Ridge insists on anonymity.

Detective Joe Fontana:
Look, pal, it's been a very long day. Will you just please give us the name?

Barrington:
Please don't raise your voice, sir.

Detective Joe Fontana:
Don't tell me not to raise my voice. We've come all the way up here from New York.

Barrington:
It doesn't matter if you came all the way from the Vatican. We don't release the names of our clientele.

Detective Ed Green:
Hey, look here, before my partner smacks you, let me show you what kind of work your clientele does.

[showing Barrington pictures of Emily]

Detective Ed Green:
This is before. This is after.

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
Emily Newton's tox screen. Positive for zolpidem and Oxycodone. It's Ambien and Percocet, which she was prescribed by the burn unit. But on the night she died, she took a handful of each.

Detective Ed Green:
You said she died of strangulation.

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
She did. After she drugged herself into oblivion.

Detective Joe Fontana:
She doped herself up so she wouldn't feel anything.

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
All she had to do was get on a chair, rig the noose, and wait for the cocktail to kick in.

Eddie Clayman:
I'm not into that rough stuff any more. I got my medication.

Detective Rey Curtis:
You taking it?

Eddie Clayman:
Hell, yeah. You can check with my clinic.

Detective Rey Curtis:
Then why are you chasing hookers down 14th Street?

Eddie Clayman:
C'mon, man. It's springtime.

Professor Crochelle:
[describing man at the scene of the murder] Mid-to-late 20s, uh, brownish hair, "entitled".

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Entitled to what?

Professor Crochelle:
To everything.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
You're using the authority of this office like a foot on the neck.

Jack McCoy:
We've done that before.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
We usually have one leg to stand on.

Dr. Emil Skoda:
You sure there was there no connection between Clayman and the dead girl?

Detective Rey Curtis:
Just the connection of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Dr. Emil Skoda:
He's not your man.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Mind sharing how you know that?

Dr. Emil Skoda:
The killer knew her. Draped a scarf over her face; wanted her to preserve some dignity.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Dignity.

Dr. Emil Skoda:
[shrugs] Best he could do under the circumstances.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Like that carjacking a couple years ago.

Detective Rey Curtis:
Then why cut her up?

Dr. Emil Skoda:
Make it look like a lunatic had done it. See these cuts? They're hesitation marks. He was having a hard time at first, got bolder as he went along.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
So you're saying he staged the whole thing?

[Skoda gives a shrugging nod]

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Do you think Eddie Clayman could have put all this on to throw us off the track?

Dr. Emil Skoda:
I think you've got the wrong guy.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Hold Clayman on a parole violation 'till we sort all this out.

Dr. Emil Skoda:
Whoever killed Sarah Kincaid knew her, and cared about her. Have you talked with her boyfriend?

Detective Rey Curtis:
Her father said that she wasn't seeing anybody regularly.

Dr. Emil Skoda:
She was pregnant.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
So she did something with somebody nine weeks ago.

Mike:
What is it with you guys? First darts, now pool.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Never mess with a civil servant, my friend.

A.D.A. Claire Kincaid:
Jack called me.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Jack? Jack turned into a pumpkin.

Shelly Denton:
You haven't seen them? They went on the news. They called him a monster. They called me a whore for having kids with him. When I met him, she had been like that for six years. Robert dedicated his life to her. He fought to get money for her care.

Detective Joe Fontana:
Fought how?

Shelly Denton:
A malpractice suit. It took him four years to get a settlement.

Detective Ed Green:
How much money are we talking about?

Shelly Denton:
3.2 million.

Detective Joe Fontana:
And who will control this money now?

Shelly Denton:
Guess.

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
With that butcher looking at me like a carcass on a meathook?

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
Guess what? A psycho did do it.

D.A. Arthur Branch:
[to Serena] You're fired.

ADA Serena Southerlyn:
[pauses, shocked] Is this because I'm a lesbian?

D.A. Arthur Branch:
No, no... of course not.

ADA Serena Southerlyn:
Good... that's good...

ADA Serena Southerlyn:
[after being fired] Is this because I'm a lesbian?

[Fontana and Green are questioning the bartender in an obviously mobbed up "social club"]

Detective Ed Green:
If you don't talk, I'm sure Granados will.

Bartender:
I thought you don't know where he is.

Detective Ed Green:
Oh, we're gonna find him. Doctors say in his condition he ain't gonna get that far.

Detective Joe Fontana:
[leans in close and whispers] You know what I've got here, tovarisch? Huh? In about ten seconds, I'm gonna start smilin' like a village idiot and peelin' off hundred dollar bills onto your shiny brass bar.

Bartender:
What are you talkin' about?

Detective Joe Fontana:
And then my partner here is gonna start droppin' "thank yous" and "tell us more" like there's no tomorrow.

Detective Ed Green:
Which means, if your friends back there aren't deaf, dumb, and blind, you're gonna have a little trouble.

Bartender:
Don't.... I don't know why he was here. I put him on books as favor.

Detective Ed Green:
A favor to who? Andropov?

[the bartender is very reluctant to answer]

Detective Ed Green:
Where's Granados?

Detective Joe Fontana:
Here comes the first C-note. Is there anything you'd like us to tell your widow?

Bartender:
I'll tell you what I know. There is this doctor...

Stripper:
Can you guys make it quick? I gotta cram for my psych exam before the happy hour crunch!

Detective Rey Curtis:
Wouldn't you do better in a library?

Stripper:
Hey: I'm covering my tuition and fulfilling a public service.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Oh, which one's that?

Stripper:
Read the literature. Clubs like this, they boost a man's testosterone level. He leaves here feeling confident. More productive...

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
...and broke.

Stripper:
Then everybody's happy!

Sean Russo:
[leaving police station] I want these sons of b*tches sued! And this one... [looks at Curtis]... I want his badge.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
I just got off with the United States Attorney; she called you an obstructionist.

Jack McCoy:
Under the circumstances, I consider that a compliment.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
You recognize this girl? [shows headshot of Kimberly Davis]

Man working in pizza restaurant:
She an actress?

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
She moonlights at a hooter bar when she's not playing Lady Macbeth.

Ambassador Peter Sarno:
I'm going to call your boss; I'm going to get both of you busted down the ranks. You would be lucky if they let you work arraignment from the drunk tank on Saturday nights!

Jack McCoy:
We don't have much of a social life as it is.

Ben Stone:
I guess you just weren't clever enough.

Phillip Swann:
I got this far, Ben.

Ben Stone:
A lot of effort to wind up right back where you started. And in polite society, Sir, you don't call people by their first name unless they ask you to - I didn't do that. You're not a friend, and you're certainly not a colleague.

[Discussing Arthur Branch, the new DA]

Jack McCoy:
Nice fella.

ADA Serena Southerlyn:
And his politics?

Jack McCoy:
Nice fella.

Detective Ed Green:
My aunt had a spaniel that didn't like tall men.

Detective Ed Green:
[Phil calls Ed a primate repeatedly] I want to ask your opinion on Einstein's theory because I'm not sure he was right.

Phil:
Headline: 'Cop Cracks Relativity'.

Detective Ed Green:
No, not that theory, Phil. His theory on genius. See - and correct me if I'm wrong - Einstein argued that genius has no personality. But after talking to you for this short amount of time, I realize that you actually prove the negative. You definitely have personality. And it makes this primate want to whoop your ass. Now say somethin'.

Detective Ed Green:
When I was 22, I read "The Razor's Edge" and didn't eat steak for two months.

Greg Landen:
[repeatedly] Allahu Akbar. I am a slave to Allah.

Jack McCoy:
We already tried to cut a deal with Mr. Landen.

Anwar Mohammed:
I know. Couldn't we work out something with no prison time? A mental facility, perhaps?

Jack McCoy:
I'm sorry. You've known me a long time, Anwar. You know the political climate played no part in my decision.

Anwar Mohammed:
Maybe it should. The boy's one step from a terrorist.

Jack McCoy:
I'm sure things haven't been easy for you this past year.

Anwar Mohammed:
It's been a terrible year. But when people need you, somehow your ethnicity disappears.

Jack McCoy:
And those who don't need you...

Anwar Mohammed:
I don't need them. Well, Jack, if it's any consolation, I'll do my best to keep Greg's rhetoric to a minimum in the courtroom.

Jack McCoy:
Have you met him yet?

Anwar Mohammed:
Yeah. And that's why he's getting nowhere near the stand. Believe me, I don't want his religious beliefs in the courtroom any more than you do. I'm representing Greg Landen because he needs my help. But please don't ever confuse his politics with my faith.

[last lines]

D.A. Arthur Branch:
Well, at least at his allocution, Landen apologized to the entire Muslim community.

ADA Serena Southerlyn:
Olivet was right. He wasn't a true believer. He was just a humiliated adolescent.

D.A. Arthur Branch:
All in all, I'd say we're damn lucky this was just one screwball kid.

Jack McCoy:
Angry kid, full of rage. He was just looking for a target.

ADA Serena Southerlyn:
Isn't that what a terrorist is?

Jack McCoy:
What's scary is how easy it is to create one.

D.A. Arthur Branch:
[Landen has decided to represent himself] That kid is an idiot savant.

ADA Serena Southerlyn:
Or just an idiot.

D.A. Arthur Branch:
Don't fool yourself. He just outlawyered our office, his own counsel, and the judicial branch.

Ben Stone:
She uses an out-of-date prison library and her work is better than anything I've seen from a Wall Street law firm.

Adam Schiff:
"The truth is ugly, so we put our prophets in prison."

Ben Stone:
Oscar Wilde?

Adam Schiff:
Charles Manson.

Detective Mike Logan:
This isn't church. Church is stain glass windows and nuns running around with rulers hitting you.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
The gospel according to Logan.

Detective Mike Logan:
My old lady held a rosary in her left hand while she beat the crap out of me with her right hand. Next time I go to church, six of my best friends are carrying me.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
She spent 8 years riding horses, he's the one with 4 years' experience in building explosives.

A.D.A. Claire Kincaid:
How about a motive?

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Maybe he saw a burning bush.

Priscilla Blaine:
Mama... are you awake? I couldn't sleep. I haven't slept in days. Last night in the dark, I looked at myself in the mirror and all I could see were the whites of my eyes... and I knew how scared I really was. Are you dreaming, Mama? Remember Abilene, Mama? How the towns clicked by and I begged you to stop the train? Lexington, Nashville, Little Rock. I was sick for a thousand miles... and I hated you for it. Well, Mama, you sleep. Me, I'm getting off this train. I'm tired now, Mama. When you wake up, don't be angry that I'm gone. It's my turn to sleep.

A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn:
Gardner's accepted our offer of man two. She intends to ask the judge for the minimum.

Jack McCoy:
A mayor and an oil executive. I'm sure she'll make a strong case. I think there were mitigating factors.

A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn:
Based on what they did or who they are?

Jack McCoy:
They were kids. Kids armed to the teeth, put in a place where most of the time they couldn't tell who was for them and who was against them. We need to be careful how we judge.

Jack McCoy:
This has to be a first: a lawyer's negligence benefiting his case.

[a witness has a mental condition causing him to sometimes act irrationally]

Ben Stone:
Your psychiatrist tells us that you have moments of rational thought. We're going to take care of you, and you're going to go back in there and have one of those moments.

Ben Stone:
The appeal is based on the defendant's Fourth Amendment rights. You didn't have a warrant when you searched his place of abode.

Det. Mike Logan:
"Abode" huh? It was in the damn bushes!

Christian 'Lemonhead' Tatum:
Lemonhead Tatum: As he was taken into custody by Det. Logan: Oh! The monkey wrapped his tail around the flagpole, around the flagpole, around the flagpole.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
If you'll pardon my ignorance, isn't your theory getting to be like theirs? They say he was an outraged boyfriend, you say he was an outraged would-be boyfriend.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
There's a world of difference between a jealous lover and some horny bastard who's mad he can't get to first base.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Eloquent. Can't wait for your closing argument.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Scannel is a major drug dealer. This Johnny Stivers works for him. Stivers doles out drugs to Sharon Lasko. Wild idea, but her death just might have something to do with drugs.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
[last lines] This kid falls in love with a girl he has no chance in the world to get.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
And in a stupid, hopeless attempt to impress her, he shows her a million dollars worth of cocaine.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Yeah, I guess etchings don't work anymore.

A.D.A. Claire Kincaid:
And as a result he ends up having to kill her.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
A story for Sophocles.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
Or Larry, Moe and Curley.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Yeah. I always loved those guys.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
She told you someone showed her a trunk full of cocaine.

Frederick Scannel:
Did she?

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
Yes, and I think it was your cocaine.

Frederick Scannel:
And that's not very likely. I don't have any cocaine.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
And you didn't like hearing that from some dizzy bimbo at a party.

Nance:
Do you have a theory here, McCoy, or are you just spraying Cheez Whiz into the wind?

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
We'd offer to call a lawyer for you except that you are one.

Detective Ed Green:
He thinks he's Spiderman.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Yeah, only without the superpowers.

Detective Ed Green:
When are people gonna learn? Just give up the car; it's not worth a life.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Spoken like somebody who never owned a Jag.

Detective Nina Cassady:
I recognize the logo on this bra. Frisky Kitty; lingerie shop off Time's Square.

Detective Ed Green:
[his interest in how she knows piqued] Really?

Detective Nina Cassady:
I went there for my sister-in-law's bachelorette gift, but thanks for assuming I have crappy taste in lingerie.

Molly Preston:
I want to talk to my dad.

Detective Nina Cassady:
He's gonna meet you down at the station. We can do this here in front of all your friends, or we can step outside and do it in private.

Molly Preston:
I know my rights. I want my lawyer.

Detective Nina Cassady:
You know that right? Here's the whole civics lesson.

Detective Ed Green:
[standing her up and cuffing her] Molly Preston, you're under arrest.

Molly Preston:
Wait!

Detective Ed Green:
[leading her out of the room] You have the right to remain silent.

Molly Preston:
I didn't do anything wrong! You can't do this!

Detective Ed Green:
Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law.

Jackie Scott:
[half to herself] Pick a lane.

D.A. Arthur Branch:
[turns around] Hmm?

Jackie Scott:
The old man used to say to me, "Jacks...life is like a street. Like a dangerous New York City street. You pick a lane. And don't you let *anybody* cut you off." You can't cut me off, Arthur. I won't let you.

D.A. Arthur Branch:
I don't have to.

Detective Rey Curtis:
Mmmm, how do you want to work the Baltimore angle? There's a housekeeper, Helen Crane? We should talk to her.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
We know people down there.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Pembleton?

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
No, the one whose ex-wife I was sleeping with.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
[to Curtis] Tell him he'll have to be more specific. [Curtis holds up his hand to say "No thanks"]

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
The mediocre pool player.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Munch! [laughs]

[last lines]

Jack McCoy:
Ramirez claims he didn't see the assailant, but he's suggesting it was the girl's father.

Dr. Emil Skoda:
And you want to know if he's blowing smoke?

Jack McCoy:
For starters. Does this crime fit the pattern for incest?

Dr. Emil Skoda:
Sure. Why wouldn't it?

Jack McCoy:
This was a violent rape, Emil. This wasn't seduction. It was punishment.

Dr. Emil Skoda:
It's all about submission. Guys who get into this like to think they're seducing their kids, but they're not. They're dominating them.

Jack McCoy:
That still doesn't explain a father hating his child so much he'd literally rape her to death.

Dr. Emil Skoda:
Give me another twenty years as a shrink, I'll come up with an explanation.

Jack McCoy:
I'm gonna need some strategies to deal with Janaway.

Dr. Emil Skoda:
Don't hold your breath for a confession.

[heavy sigh]

Dr. Emil Skoda:
Jack, you're about to look into a very ugly corner of the human heart. Bring a shovel.

Jack McCoy:
[turning off a news report about the murder] These anonymous sources, the wouldn't be wearing blue, would they?

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Those leaks did not come out of my squad.

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
They got the M.E.'s report before we did.

Jack McCoy:
I want these leaks stopped, Lieutenant.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Do you want me to compile an enemies list while I'm at it?

Jack McCoy:
I don't see anything funny here.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Well, a case this big, we're going to get leaks. We might as well get used to it.

Jack McCoy:
No, that's not good enough. By the time we present this case to a jury, the details will be clues in the Daily News Sunday crossword.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Which could be the whole point of leaking the information in the first place. The Janaways know people who know people in the department.

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
The Janaways are the anonymous source?

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Why not? If they got a heads-up that this investigation's about to turn back on them, these leaks could just be preemptive.

Jack McCoy:
Have your people talked to Mrs. Janaway about her husband and her daughter?

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
They're going to try today.

Jack McCoy:
Good. This time, let's try to stay one step ahead of the media.

Jack McCoy:
[to a pedophile] You're an adult. Your victims are children. There's nothing you could say that would make me feel sorry for you.

Jack McCoy:
I talked to the ADA in Brooklyn. He's under a lot of pressure to make drug cases. He can't be seen playing favorites.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
So it's Cathy's bad luck that she's the daughter of a white cop. This ADA, can't you... scratch his back a little bit?

Jack McCoy:
I offered to beg off on a couple of cases with concurrent jurisdiction. He turned me down. I got nothing else to offer him. He's a dog with a bone.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Yeah, the bone happens to be my kid.

Jack McCoy:
I know, Lennie. I'm sorry.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Thanks anyway.

Detective Rivera:
You know, McCoy, you want to put the bad guys behind bars, sometimes you gotta get your hands dirty.

Jack McCoy:
The problem is, Detective, sometimes it doesn't stop at the hands.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[to Curtis, before testifying before the grand jury] If I'm not out in an hour, call for backup.

Detective Rivera:
You're gonna take the word of a dope dealer over a cop?

Detective Rey Curtis:
Wearing a badge doesn't make you a cop.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Hey, not everybody's in it for truth, justice, and the American way. I mean, the taxpayers want the drug problem to go away, so they lean on the politicians. The politicians want to keep their jobs, so they lean on you guys. The DAs lean on the cops, the cops lean on their snitches. And sometimes somebody leans a little too hard and somebody gets hurt.

Jack McCoy:
Lennie, please. I don't want to have to cite you for contempt.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
You do what you gotta do. I'm not helping you pin a body on a cop just for doing his job.

Eric Hoffman:
[referring to his co-op application] I was turned down because I run this establishment. Only ten adult bookstores left in Times Square, and I'm the only owner born in this country.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Well I hate to burst your red white and blue bubble, Mr Hoffman, but you were turned down because you lied on your application.

Eric Hoffman:
I told them I was in the entertainment business. You see these videos? That's entertainment!

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
You know I don't see "Hello, Dolly!" up there.

Car dealer:
[to Briscoe, sitting in a Mercedes convertible in his showroom] Well, how does it feel?

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Like I can't afford it.

Car dealer:
[referring to the Mercedes convertible] What would it take to get you into this car, Detective?

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Next week's lotto numbers.

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
You knew all along Tashjian killed Kaiser, didn't you? [pause] Don't worry: I'm not going to run to the Ethics Committee.

Jack McCoy:
I didn't know with absolute certainty. One way or another, I had to get Tashjian on the stand.

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
Well, hats off!

Jack McCoy:
Sometimes you have to make deals with the devil.

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
Just as long as you don't get your eyebrows singed.

Jack McCoy:
Anyway, Tashjian owed somebody half a million dollars. I'm sure they'll be around to collect it one of these days.

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
And as for the Ethics Committee, you owe me one! [Ross leaves. McCoy snickers. Cut to intertitle: "Sam 'Bunny' Russo is currently serving a sentence of life without parole. Three months after testifying against Russo, Steven Tashjian was gunned down outside his office. The killers remain at large. His assets, including his co-op, were liquidated to settle his debts". Cut to closing credits]

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
Who would you ask if you needed a hitman?

Detective Rey Curtis:
[jokingly referring to Briscoe] I'd find an old cop, preferably one with a lot of alimony.

[searching through piles of trash]

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
How many apartments are in this building?

Det. Mike Logan:
30.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
Do they ALL have to eat eggs?

Dr. Elizabeth Olivet:
That hurt, Jack.

D.A. Jack McCoy:
I warned you.

Dr. Elizabeth Olivet:
You betrayed a confidence.

D.A. Jack McCoy:
You went to bat for a woman who shot her husband in cold blood and who would have killed anybody else she found in his office. If I had to betray a confidence to ensure she goes to jail... so be it. These are the rules we live by.

Dr. Elizabeth Olivet:
This isn't your finest hour, Jack.

D.A. Jack McCoy:
Nor yours.

D.A. Arthur Branch:
Religious fervor.

Jack McCoy:
The nitroglycerin of the 21st century.

Edward Manning:
You're ruining me as a man of science!

Executive A.D.A. Ben Stone:
Sir, you did that yourself. I'm just asking you to tell the jury how you did it.

Executive A.D.A. Ben Stone:
He's not your typical killer.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
He is! He killed somebody.

[Discussing a small steel spring that is radioactive]

Scientist:
So do you have any suspects with nuclear reactors in their basements?

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
As a matter of fact, we do.

Adam Schiff:
Terrific. Now to win a larceny trial all we have to do is prove how the universe ends.

[after convicting a physics professor of 2nd degree murder]

Ben Stone:
But on the other hand he killed a woman, so I had to play it by the book.

Adam Schiff:
You feel bad about that?

Ben Stone:
Twenty-five years - he's not your typical killer.

Adam Schiff:
He is - he killed somebody.

Edward Manning:
So what?

Ben Stone:
Uh, Dr. Manning, the link between Dr. Weiss and your wife, we lost it. Now you're the only person who can testify that you saw Dr. Weiss at your wife's apartment. And you're also the only person who can supply motive.

Edward Manning:
Can I? What motive is that?

Ben Stone:
I don't want to play games with you, sir. Don't play games with me. We know what you did to Dr. Weiss.

Edward Manning:
Oh, I see. So you want me to announce to the world that I'm a scientific thief and a fraud.

Ben Stone:
No, sir, I want you to tell the truth.

Paul Robinette:
Miss Borgia. Paul Robinette.

A.D.A. Alexandra Borgia:
Oh, I hear you used to have my office.

Paul Robinette:
Well, you were probably still in high school. Tell Jack McCoy "hello" for me.

Mrs. Gaines:
For 10 years, I stayed in a nightmare marriage just so she could have a real home. I fought for custody for her, but he had more money, more lawyers. He turned me into an addict and then used it against me! That bastard, he stole her away from me. He told her lies about me. He made her afraid of me... I loved her!

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
But you hated your husband more.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[on Detective Rey Curtis] I've got ties older than him... and some shoes, too, I think.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
The last original thought Capetti had, he left swirling in the bowl.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
When I was a kid growing up around here, worst thing that could happen was you skinned your knee playing Johnny on the pony.

Det. Rey Curtis:
I don't remember my childhood being that rosy.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
When was that, last week?

A.D.A. Claire Kincaid:
It's hard to believe those two were ever in love.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
Passionately, I'd say. Where do you think all the hate comes from?

EADA Ben Stone:
I don't mind when you want to make new law, Norman, but next time I wish you'd choose a more deserving client.

Prof. Norman Rothenberg:
We can't always choose them, Ben.

EADA Ben Stone:
So it doesn't concern you that justice won't be done?

Prof. Norman Rothenberg:
My only concern is the law. I'll leave justice to a more majestic authority.

[an elderly witness has called the police department]

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
[Hangs up phone] Any one of you have a girlfriend in a nursing home?

Det. Mike Logan:
That would be Lennie.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Your day of reckoning isn't today.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
So, I heard you went in hot pursuit today.

Det. Ed Green:
Yeah. Perp tried to climb out the window.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
I'm surprised you didn't push him.

Det. Ed Green:
[pause] Me, too.

Det. Ed Green:
This guy was stabbed AND shot?

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
New York's a tough town.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
If you're gonna play stickball in Canarsie, learn Brooklyn rules!

Art Samuels:
[speaking of the deceased] He had a lot of energy. I, on the other hand, have a wife.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
My condolences.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[finding out the deceased was shot] I liked this guy better when he had a heart attack.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
[about the defense attorney] Maybe he's just an idiot.

[discussing a serial killer's defense attorney]

D.A. Arthur Branch:
Yeah, who is that stupid S.O.B. anyway?

ADA Serena Southerlyn:
Tim Schwimmer, legal aid, and he isn't exactly stupid.

D.A. Arthur Branch:
He listened to his client when he told him about fifteen other bodies?

ADA Serena Southerlyn:
Yes.

D.A. Arthur Branch:
He then confirmed his client was telling the truth by taking a peek at those bodies?

ADA Serena Southerlyn:
...Yes.

D.A. Arthur Branch:
Fine. What's dumber than stupid?

D.A. Adam Schiff:
You can't force the other side to play. You put a check in the win column and you count your blessings.

Executive A.D.A. Ben Stone:
In any other circumstances, that's exactly what I'd do.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Why does this kid deserve such special attention?

Executive A.D.A. Ben Stone:
Because he's pleading for the wrong reason. His lawyer tells him that he's born bad. We tell him he's raised bad. He buys both stories. Sees his life as a dead end.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Maybe he knows his life better than you do. Your job is to convict not to rehabilitate.

Executive A.D.A. Ben Stone:
He's a 14-year-old kid who gave up.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
So you're doing him a favor.

Executive A.D.A. Ben Stone:
If he gave up his illusions, right, but he gave up hope and I drove him to that. Now anything might happen to that kid in prison.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Gary Gilmore. Westley Dodd. Two unrepentant killers. Everybody wants them dead until they agree and then we turn them into folk heroes.

Executive A.D.A. Ben Stone:
We had nothing to do with their fates.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
You want them to start naming churches after you, I'd get another profession. Take the kid's plea. Move on to the next case.

[to a reluctant witness]

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
There's no such thing as hooker-client confidentiality.

Detective Ed Green:
[holding blood-stained ashtray in hotel room] Looks like a couple of cracks to the skull with this did the trick.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
That's why I always get a non-smoking room.

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
[examining murder victim] Good news: death came quickly.

Detective Ed Green:
And the bad news?

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
My cable's on the fritz.

Hotel Manager:
[seeing bloody sheets on hotel bed] My God, what happened here?

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
My guess? the miracle of birth.

Detective Mike Logan:
[carrying out a baby] If he's a day old, call the Guinness Book of World Records.

Detective Kevin Bernard:
Robbie, put the rat down!

D.A. Nora Lewin:
I hear it was all smiles in the Shaeffer family.

Jack McCoy:
I have to admit, it was nice to get somebody out of jail for a change.

[a cop has been murdered]

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
I just got the page.

Detective Ed Green:
[to the witnesses who called in the DB] Excuse me, fellas.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Any idea how it went down?

Detective Ed Green:
No, not yet.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Kearsey get any rounds off?

Detective Ed Green:
Yeah, two.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Hopefully one of them's in the killer.

Det. Ronnie Blair:
[going to notify his partner's widow of his death] You ever done this before?

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Yeah. Twice. Two times too many.

Detective Ed Green:
Mr. Miller? Please don't make us disrespect your house of worship.

Latiff Miller:
You already have.

Detective Ed Green:
I need you to come with me.

Latiff Miller:
I want to go out the front.

Detective Ed Green:
The back is better.

Latiff Miller:
So you can shoot me?

Detective Ed Green:
If they shoot you, they're gonna have to shoot me, too.

D.A. Nora Lewin:
How's our case?

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
We've had better.

Jack McCoy:
The shot that killed Kearsey came from Miller's girlfriend's apartment. We can put Miller inside.

D.A. Nora Lewin:
Any witnesses? A gun?

Jack McCoy:
Neither one.

D.A. Nora Lewin:
Any chance for a deal?

Jack McCoy:
You make a deal for manslaughter, you break faith with every cop in the city.

Jack McCoy:
[his closing argument] Jake Kearsey and Latiff Miller didn't go out on the morning in question to have a gun battle. One thing we'll never know for sure is what set off the explosion that left Detective Kearsey dead. The defendant has plausible explanations for everything that happened, but you also have the luxury of placing those explanations in context. Latiff Miller promoted cop killing thirty years ago. He admitted dishonesty in his job, and his claim of self defense is belied by his own actions. He ran from the crime scene, hid from the police; when he was captured, he proclaimed his innocence, and now that he's facing the death penalty, it's not "I didn't kill him", it's "I had to kill him". So... ask yourselves, if Detective Kearsey were here to give his side of the story, would it look anything like Latiff Miller's? The defense urges you to see the world through Latiff Miller's eyes. Do that, ladies and gentlemen, if you want to contaminate the truth with Mr. Miller's anger and racial mistrust. Acquit Mr. Miller if you think it's fit to allow him to avoid the moral consequences of his actions by portraying himself as the victim. The victim here is Detective Kearsey, who innocently went to the wrong apartment looking for a witness and wound up dead. I don't doubt that Mr. Miller has encountered racism in his life. But it's not a free pass to commit murder.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Ok, let me see if I got this straight: Stanley Somebody who's a fashion photographer someplace, lives in some appartment probably in a building at 114th and Riverside, and has a message about a murder of somebody who might be named Dee-dee.

Ellen Rattinger:
That's right!

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Yeah, thanks for coming in.

Dr. Emil Skoda:
He likes rollerblading and Nintendo, so do I.

Dr. Emil Skoda:
You want me to make a diagnosis based on the word of an amateur?

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
Yeah.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
Adam, why are we pussyfooting around?

D.A. Adam Schiff:
[referring to Anderton] The man has a 4 billion dollar war chest. Three years ago, the Atlantic Star Cable merger, he took on the SEC and won.

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
[sarcastically] He's rich; he's powerful; maybe we should let Robin Leach try the case?

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
It would help if we could tell the jury what turned Terry into an arsonist.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
He was angry at his father. That's an emotion I can understand.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
[looking at a photo of Terry Lawlor in his school yearbook] Looks pretty harmless in a jacket and tie.

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
You all do!

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
Your grandson needs psychiatric help.

Carl Anderton:
Absolutely not.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
I don't understand you, Mr. Anderton. We're offering him...

Carl Anderton:
What? The chance to stay in a loony bin till some state employee decides he can leave? [pause] You know, I know what this is really all about, Mr McCoy. [pause] You're going after my grandson to embarrass me. [McCoy shakes his head] Yes! Personally, professionally, publicly. [Walks right up to McCoy] I know your type. You think that to bring down a man who's accomplished something in life it builds you up. You're not going to get away with it. I put a fair offer on the table. You turn it down, I'll go public and I'll expose you for the vindictive, envious little man you really are. [McCoy stares at Anderton in astonishment]

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
[referring to Carl Anderton] Last year he made a surprise takeover bid for Commonwealth Airlines. One week later, he withdrew the bid, and accused the FAA and the stockholders of conspiring against him. It's classic manic-depressive behavior.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Doesn't make sense. Runs a Fortune 500 company.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
So did Howard Hughes.

Hotel Worker:
Fifty cents! I've been working hotels for 40 years, and I ain't seen a two-bit tip since those Kennedys been in office. You see what I'm getting' at? Then this duke asks me about getting a girl, and I tell him, 'A big tipper like you don't need no girl!'

Jasmine:
You should have sent your partner. I don't usually do discipline, but I would love to teach him some manners.

Jolene Curtis:
I thought you said you weren't a cop.

Det. Sgt. Maxwell "Max" Greevey:
I lied.

[on Jasmine being bailed out quickly]

Det. Sgt. Maxwell "Max" Greevey:
Look at that. In and out.

Detective Mike Logan:
Just like work.

Det. Sgt. Maxwell "Max" Greevey:
What do you think?

Detective Mike Logan:
Of a hooker who's got a lawyer looks like he spends more on clothes than I make in a year? I think whoever's paying his bill ought to adopt me.

Cookie Molina:
Look - the heart - that's not the part of the anatomy the girls are interested in.

Detective Mike Logan:
Come on, Max, a lot of vics have kids.

Det. Sgt. Maxwell "Max" Greevey:
Yeah, but until you have one of your own, you won't understand.

Detective Mike Logan:
You Cookie Molina?

Cookie Molina:
Who wants to know?

Detective Mike Logan:
Hey, I thought Cookie was a girl's name.

Det. Sgt. Maxwell "Max" Greevey:
He gonna make it?

Doctor:
Nurse's pool says no.

Det. Sgt. Maxwell "Max" Greevey:
How much is in it?

Doctor:
Thirty bucks.

Det. Sgt. Maxwell "Max" Greevey:
If they were sure, there'd be at least a hundred.

Doctor:
He's got a chance.

[Lennie is retiring]

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
So what's it been for you and me... 11 years?

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Something like that.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
It's the longest I was ever with any woman.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Now that's pitiful.

[a package delivery man has been murdered]

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
When you absolutely, positively have to kill someone overnight.

[McCoy is able to nail Belinda for conspiring with Adele to kill her husband and take the same deal, despite being let off for killing Adele's]

Belinda Gardner:
12 people still acquitted me.

Jack McCoy:
Yeah. That's gotta burn.

D.A. Jack McCoy:
I'm at this job for three minutes and I'm already set to be crucified!

D.A. Jack McCoy:
The more I learn about Mr. Nolan, the less I want to make a deal with him.

Foster Keyes:
I didn't do nothing!

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Good, then you can come out of the closet.

[last lines]

A.D.A. Connie Rubirosa:
Until we dug up the dirt on the Quinlans, I would've bet on a "not responsible" verdict.

Jack McCoy:
It was a good catch, Connie.

A.D.A. Connie Rubirosa:
And what if Tory was a well-adjusted kid from a good family?

Jack McCoy:
Not our facts. Hope you never have to try that case.

A.D.A. Connie Rubirosa:
I take it you'll be recommending the minimum?

[Jack nods]

A.D.A. Connie Rubirosa:
It was a good win, Jack.

Jack McCoy:
Nobody won.

Kenny 'Twist' Stark:
[to his lover] Hey no baby, I don't wear rubbers... it's more fun bareback!

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[finds a man hiding in the closet with a golf club] You got a permit for that putter?

Neil Pressman:
He's a real piece of work, isn't he?

Jack McCoy:
So was Ted Bundy.

Eddie Chandler:
When I was a kid and I'd come home from school, I'd watch TV for hours on end, straight through till bedtime.

Neil Pressman:
What kind of shows did you watch?

Eddie Chandler:
Cop shows, action shows: The Mod Squad, The A-Team, Starsky and Hutch.

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
Mr. Chandler.

Eddie Chandler:
Eddie, as in Eddie Munster.

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
You don't seem to be taking this serious at all.

Jack McCoy:
What we watch and how we respond to it is entirely up to us.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[Briscoe and Curtis have just discovered a dead man wearing women's lingerie] Always wear clean underwear. You never know when you might be in an accident.

ADA Jamie Ross:
I believe in monsters and things that go bump in the night, Jack. May they rot in hell, along with their attorneys.

[about ADA Claire Kincaid's death]

Jack McCoy:
You know, before it happened... she wanted to quit. I talked her out of it.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
Yeah, well... I could have kept walking past that bar.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
You're taking the Salva case.

Jack McCoy:
Salva will plead out. An answering machine can handle it.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Nothing on the front page of The Post is that easy. You'll need a second chair.

Jack McCoy:
I'm doing fine on my own.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
You're not getting paid all that money to look up cases in the library.

Jack McCoy:
If I need somebody, I can borrow Crocker for the afternoon.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Crocker... What do you know about Jamie Ross?

Jack McCoy:
Not much. She used to work at Gorton and Steinhart.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
She was married to Neal Gorton. She asked to stay on the case.

Jack McCoy:
She's been in the office for less than six months.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
She's had five years as a criminal defense attorney. Eight homicide trials, seven acquittals

Jack McCoy:
...and a kid in day care. I need somebody who can put in the late hours.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
...to watch the answering machine? I like her. So will you.

Chuck Rodman:
[angrily, after McCoy and Ross have refused to cede jurisdiction to the Feds] So, what am I, the dog or the pony?

ADA Jamie Ross:
I don't know what you're talking about.

Chuck Rodman:
I blew off a staff meeting to come here for this. Now, I came here in good faith and I expected to leave with a capital case.

ADA Jamie Ross:
I never promised you anything.

Chuck Rodman:
Persona non grata, Jamie. Your calls don't get returned. [storms out]

ADA Jamie Ross:
[winks at McCoy] He'll get over it.

Ben Stone:
[a former judge has pleaded guilty to criminal harassment and is elocuting his guilt. Stone's lost his patience] Your honor, this is insufficient. The defendant is behaving as if someone else committed this crime...

Arthur Gold:
You want him on his knees, Ben?

Judge Joel Thayer:
Walter...

Judge Walter Schreiber:
*Judge Schreiber*, to you. Now, I've heard all the dodging and weaving I can take on this one. You wore the same robes I do- you know the drill. Now, if you want to dance, you can come back and dance at a trial, so let's hear it. *All* of it.

Judge Joel Thayer:
[takes a deep breath and begins] In an effort to convince Janet Rudman of my love... of the sincerity of that love...

Ben Stone:
[not letting him drift this time] Judge Thayer, please answer the question. Did you threaten Molly Rudman?

Judge Walter Schreiber:
[Thayer is silent. Gold, his lawyer, looks slightly panicked. And Schreiber has had it] *I require an answer.*

Ben Stone:
Judge Thayer- sir, for the last time- for the *very* last time- did you threaten Janet Rudman's child?

Judge Joel Thayer:
Yes.

A.D.A. Claire Kincaid:
I don't think this has to do with Ben. It has to do with me. I had a prior working relationship with Thayer.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Oh, really? Doing what?

A.D.A. Claire Kincaid:
I was his clerk.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
And? And what's the problem, Miss Kincaid?

A.D.A. Claire Kincaid:
I had an affair with him.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Well that's just dandy.

Ben Stone:
You... you had an affair? Why the hell didn't you tell me this?

A.D.A. Claire Kincaid:
I told you to take me off the case.

Ben Stone:
I would have, if I'd known this!

A.D.A. Claire Kincaid:
I'd hoped there was some part of my personal life I could keep personal.

Ben Stone:
Oh, great!

A.D.A. Connie Rubirosa:
What kind of pathological prosecutor would actually charge him? [Cutter slowly raises his hand]

D.A. Jack McCoy:
Eight and a half million, that's how many children are sold into slavery each year.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Well this plantation has closed.

Executive A.D.A. Michael Cutter:
Jack, meet the Johnsons. Among other things they're being charged with murder.

Detective Cyrus Lupo:
[to the Johnsons] Let's go say hi to some of your friends. [takes them to a cell]

Detective Kevin Bernard:
[to a Haitian girl] Come on sweetheart, it's alright, your working days are over.

Executive A.D.A. Michael Cutter:
An A misdemeanor? I'm quaking in my boots, Jack.

Abbie Carmichael:
I have a solution that will make us all happy.

ADA Jack McCoy:
What's that?

Abbie Carmichael:
No deals for anybody. Let's hang 'em all.

Abbie Carmichael:
This isn't a couple of teenagers who killed their newborn because they were scared. These are two adults who went to a lot of trouble to dump a dying child and to cover their tracks. I may be the new kid here, but to me, this sounds like murder.

Abbie Carmichael:
This report says the child was 2 and a half years old, Marian was 13 months. They autopsied the wrong kid, send it back.

ADA Jack McCoy:
Why don't you take yourself down and get acquainted with the medical examiner? [cut to]

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
It's the same kid, bone age doesn't lie.

Dr. Emil Skoda:
[about the 7 year old] You saw him, he can't connect the dots. He can't grasp others exist past his own needs.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Sounds like half the people I know.

ADA Jack McCoy:
[after being told every Russian baby sent to America gets the doctor $20,000 which he claims goes to the kids at the orphanage] Doesn't it say that the orphanage only gets $2,000 per child? Where does that other $18,000 go? To your Jaguar, your summer home, that $1500 suit you're wearing now?

Abbie Carmichael:
We have a week to finish our objectives.

ADA Jack McCoy:
[holds out his hand] Do you agree we're too busy?

Abbie Carmichael:
[turns his hand up and smacks it] Deal.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
We take this to a judge and say what, 'the devil made them do it?' She'll say we need an exorcist.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[after obtaining a warrant from a reluctant judge] Good thing you booked time with the grand jury.

Abbie Carmichael:
What grand jury?

ADA Jack McCoy:
Arresting a seven year old kid for murder? A kid with a laundry list of psychological problems? What was Carmichael thinking?

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Why don't you ask her?

ADA Jack McCoy:
I will. And I don't like the way she got the parents removed as guardians.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Sounds like you're sorry you didn't think of it first.

ADA Jack McCoy:
[his first words to Abbie] I understand you're opening a children's wing on death row.

[after Jack offers a plea deal to the defendants in exchange for testifying against the other, with no takers]

Abbie Carmichael:
So... who do you want to put on trial?

ADA Jack McCoy:
All of them.

ADA Jack McCoy:
[discussing Abbie] Her tactics are high-handed, and she doesn't have enough experience for major felonies. Four years in Special Narcotics is nothing.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
A 95% conviction rate isn't nothing. She's earned her stripes. Work with her.

Jack McCoy:
Mr. Dworkin is a first-rate attorney. Hell, he's a magician. He put the facts into a box, sawed the box in half, and out popped thousands of years of the most despicable hatred known to man. Like any good magician, he kept you busy with what he was saying, hoping you wouldn't notice what he was doing with his hands; hoping you wouldn't catch him trying to hide a corpse, trying to make a murdered man disappear. I'm betting you saw through the trick. So the only question is will you pretend it worked, or will you make this illusion disappear? One bookie killed another bookie; that's it. Period. The defense hardly bothers to say otherwise. Mr. Dworkin just now all but said his client killed Mr. Meeks. Not once did he claim Mr. Strelzik was innocent. Like I say, he's a good attorney. He knows no one would believe him. Instead he had the deeply offensive idea to use your sympathy for Israel to put a killer back on the street. Mr. Dworkin wants you to choose culture over citizenship. Visceral hatred over codified laws; he's counting on at least one of you saying to himself "I'm a Jew first, and only after that an American." I asked you back when you were selected for this job whether you could look at the facts presented without passion or prejudice, and each one of you swore under oath that you could. I know it's hard, but if you don't, all of this is meaningless.

Dawn Sterling:
Can I help you?

Detective Ed Green:
We need to speak with Reverend Sterling.

Dawn Sterling:
About what?

Detective Ed Green:
Is he home?

Dawn Sterling:
I'm his wife, perhaps I can help?

Detective Ed Green:
You can help by answering the question.

Dawn Sterling:
My husband is a minister! A man of God! I mean, do you really think he'd be involved in the murder of a homosexual prostitute? Look, why do you hate us so much? Well is it because we have the courage to worship the lord? Because we believe in the sanctity of marriage? Because we renounce homosexuality?

Dawn Sterling:
What's your objective Mr McCoy? To destroy my church? To further humiliate me and my congregation?

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
The truth.

Dawn Sterling:
The Truth is my husband killed that man Cantwell, he even said so in his damn suicide note!

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
I don't believe him or you.

Dawn Sterling:
James told me that the only way he could save our church was to kill the man threatening to ruin it. He felt that by killing one to save a hundred and fifty thousand was worth it.

Attorney Jeffers:
How come you didn't tell the police?

Dawn Sterling:
Because, I loved my husband. More than anything in the world!

Danielle Melnick:
Look McCoy. My client may be legally sane, but it doesn't mean he's not crazy.

Danielle Melnick:
Before you go anywhere near a death sentence you have to prove rape.

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
Are you alleging his semen beamed into her vagina?

Michael Dobson:
You know I don't need you to tell me I'm a sonuvabitch. Been one for a long time. The hours are good and there's no heavy lifting. But I happen to be a sonuvabitch whose wife was shot by another sonuvabitch.

A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn:
I was doing catch-up on discovery.

D.A. Arthur Branch:
Discovery? You're halfway through trial.

Jack McCoy:
The defense disclosed dozens of boxes of paperwork. They're trying to drown us.

A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn:
They have nine paralegals, and we just have me. But I don't think they meant to disclose this.

Jack McCoy:
[Serena hands him a sheet of paper] Miss Southerlyn, you've outdone yourself.

D.A. Arthur Branch:
Do I get to see it?

[Jack hands the paper over]

D.A. Arthur Branch:
Well, let's see if Dr. Cedars can wiggle his way out of this one.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Were you born a smart-ass, or did it just come with the job?

Jack McCoy:
I'm a pussycat. You should've met my old man.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Lawyer?

Jack McCoy:
Cop.

A.D.A. Paul Robinette:
Bunker spent 30 years defending the Constitution. I wonder if he ever read it.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
I doubt if he ever got past the Declaration of Independence: "All *men* are created equal."

[about Max Greevey's killer, who'd also considered trying to kill Max's wife]

Capt. Donald Cragen:
'Maybe threaten his old lady'... too bad he didn't take that route. Marie would have kicked his ass!

Judge Manuel Leon:
Technically, Mr. Magidan, you have been convicted of Murder in the First Degree, which is reserved for the killing of a Police Officer in the line of duty. The death penalty, having been ruled unconstitutional by the Court of Appeals in Albany, renders me powerless to sentence you to the punishment you so richly deserve. Therefore, this court sentences you to twenty five years to life imprisonment. The People have requested the strictest possible limitations on any possibility of parole, and I see no reason to disagree.

Dr. Elizabeth Olivet:
You ever hear about the seven stages of grief?

Det. Mike Logan:
No

Dr. Elizabeth Olivet:
The first one's denial

Det. Mike Logan:
[after beating up defenseless suspect, pulls out gun] Get on your knees.

Marie Greevey:
Oh Mary, Mother of God!

Det. Mike Logan:
[hearing Marie's screams over the phone] Marie? Marie! MARIE!

Det. Mike Logan:
What the hell is this? You expect me to sit on my ass while my partner's killer walks around free?

Executive A.D.A. Ben Stone:
Either way, that is exactly what is going to happen. Because if the first confession is coerced, then so is the second, and the third, no matter how many times you Mirandize the suspect.

Capt. Donald Cragen:
Coercion is a judgment call, Stone. My guy never laid a glove on the son of a b*tch.

Executive A.D.A. Ben Stone:
That doesn't matter. If he coerced the first confession, it is still "fruit of the poisonous tree."

Det. Mike Logan:
What "fruit!" What's it some stupid technicality?

Executive A.D.A. Ben Stone:
[to Cragen] Perhaps you can explain the concept to your men, so they don't let another cop killer walk. [starts to leave, then pauses and turns back] I doubt if Max Greevey would've considered it a "technicality."

Adam Schiff:
Blame it on the CIA. They haven't been fingered in years.

A.D.A. Paul Robinette:
Life is hard, Otis, it's even harder when you're stupid.

Detective Mike Logan:
Hey, suppose Kelani isn't the only smuggler on the plane? You think Transmission Travel gives frequent swallower miles?

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
All I know is, 20 years ago, two Cuba Libres and I'd have the passenger list.

Executive A.D.A. Ben Stone:
The conspiracy is a house of cards. The slightest breeze, and it all comes tumbling down.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Only no little piggy has started huffing and puffing.

Jack McCoy:
Ask me how I sleep at night.

Consuela Rubirosa:
How do you sleep at night?

Jack McCoy:
Like a baby.

Christopher's Attorney:
We move to stay this proceeding, Your Honor, pending resolution of litigation that is the basis of the indictment... several civil matters that the People, for some reason, are trying to criminalize.

Judge Morris Torledsky:
Sorry, Counselor, but it's the People's ball; they get to decide where to play.

Christopher's Attorney:
Then we plead not guilty.

Judge Morris Torledsky:
At last. I was beginning to think you get paid by the word.

Tibor Nichols:
[Accused of electrocuting horses] Trust me, sir. The horses don't feel a thing.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
I'd like to shoot 120 volts through his rectum and see what he says then.

Detective Rey Curtis:
How about we at least get a search warrant.

A.D.A. Claire Kincaid:
To search what - earth?

Detective Rey Curtis:
[arriving at crime scene] Victim: Mister Wickets. You got a first name?

Susan Bauer:
His first name IS Mister. He's a horse.

Susan Bauer:
[referring to the dead horse's manure] Solid fecal balls, and it's warm.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
I'll take your word for it.

Detective Rey Curtis:
I didn't become a detective to investigate dead animals.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[voice imitating Mr. Ed, the talking horse of the eponymous 1960's TV series] Oh come on, Wilbur. Somebody killed a horse. You're not going to let him get away with it, are you?

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Brandson calls the insurance company and says he doesn't want the money.

Detective Rey Curtis:
Necropsies are expensive, so they called it off.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
No necropsy, no proof Mister Wickets didn't die of natural causes. You think the department would go a couple of grand to find singe marks on a horse's ass?

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
To investigate no crime? I can't even get pencils with erasers.

Detective Rey Curtis:
So the guy has a zillion dollars. He just buys his way out of a beef?

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
[sarcastically] Unbelievable, in the United States!

Detective Rey Curtis:
[after phoning a cruise ship looking for Ruth Thomas] They can't find her.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Maybe she's on the poop deck.

A.D.A. Claire Kincaid:
Christopher's horse-trading records are insanely complicated. He covered his tracks. He wasn't so cautious about his mating rituals.

Jack McCoy:
Should I be taking notes?

A.D.A. Claire Kincaid:
[smiles] If you want to go broke.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
You've got your assignment, Detective.

Detective Rey Curtis:
Fine. You want me to question the horse's friends and neighbors? Find out if maybe he was having some problems in his love life? It's a nothing case.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Say something one... more... time.

Lt. John Flynn:
[after shooting drug dealer] You make them when you have to, right, Lennie?

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Dead on.

Lt. John Flynn:
[to fellow officers after shooting drug dealer in sting] I was just telling the fellows: a situation like this, what we strive for is a uniform recollection of events. Rat squad wants to hear the same words come out of everybody's mouth. Right, Lennie?

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Well, we don't want to confuse them.

Lt. John Flynn:
[referring to the dead drug dealer] So, about seeing him reach, was that a yes or a no?

Detective Rey Curtis:
I saw movement. I can't tell what it was.

Lt. John Flynn:
Lennie, do us all a favor. Tell your partner here how things are done.

Detective Rey Curtis:
Five of us are watching and Flynn's the only one to see Morales reach for his gun.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Hey, Sonny Liston got knocked on his ass by a punch nobody saw.

Two-Tone:
[after Briscoe has broken up his illegal dice game] Do I know you?

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[gesturing at Two-Tone's elaborate braids] Yeah - we got the same hairdresser.

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
[after asking lawyer to divulge a privileged secret] I'd definitely owe you one.

Gary Gaviola:
As a D.A., or the best-looking women to ever set foot in this office?

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
As a D.A.

Gary Gaviola:
[pause] What's the question again?

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
Did Spence admit stealing evidence against Hector Garcia from the property room at the 116?

Gary Gaviola:
I'm gonna get up and open the door for you. If I don't fall and break my arm on the way over there, then you can assume my deceased client confessed to the crime in question.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[seeing Hellman in the men's room] You get off on that, Judge? Humiliating innocent people?

Judge Lawrence Hellman:
Are you upset because your corroborating witness is a liar and a slut?

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
You sick son of a b*tch! [approaches Hellman: is restrained by Hellman's aides]

Judge Lawrence Hellman:
What the hell do you think you're doing?

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
You and Flynn deserve each other. I hope you both rot in hell. [walks out]

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[talking to Flynn in church] You know the worst part, John? You used to be a good cop.

Judge Janice Goldberg:
Shall we take this from the top?

Carla Perazzo:
No need to, your honor. Dom is dead, and I did it. I knew exactly what I was doing.

Judge Janice Goldberg:
I'm not supposed to express personal opinions in the courtroom, but I've got to tell you, Ms. Perazzo, you make me proud to be an American.

Carla Perazzo:
Thank you.

Judge Janice Goldberg:
Cheating on you, was he?

Carla Perazzo:
Yeah.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Can't say I blame his brother. I've known Rafael less than a day and *I* wan't to kill him...

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Love: a devastating disease instantly cured by marriage.

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
[referring to murder victim] Tox screen shows she had one drink, tops. No signs of sex.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Sounds like my last date.

Maitre D':
[referring to the victim and her husband] She gave him a big hug.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
No kiss?

Maitre D':
You married?

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
I've toyed with the notion.

Detective Ed Green:
How do you suppose Rafael put in his eight hours at the office and had dinner with the missus at the same time?

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
If I knew, maybe I could have held onto wife number two.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[referring to Rafael Celaya] Married ***and*** a Mets fan - he's a glutton for punishment.

Detective Ed Green:
[cuffing Carla Perazzo after she has just deliberately run over her husband] Are you out of your skull?

Carla Perazzo:
Not anymore.

Don Perazzo's mistress:
[after Don Parazzo has been run over by his wife] You know he just leased that Cadillac for her about a month ago?

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Turns out a Volkswagen might have been a safer bet.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[Rafael Celaya is moaning in the back of the police car] From what I've been told at least I was a happy drunk.

Detective Ed Green:
From what ***I've*** been told, I wouldn't go that far.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Three deaths and a kidnapping; I'm only on my second cup of coffee!

A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn:
The defendant killed her husband, your honor.

Gwen Berman:
She ran him over four times with her car.

Judge Janice Goldberg:
I admire her restraint.

Jack McCoy:
Let me get this straight, Mr Celaya. You'll admit you killed Ana Berse?o.

Reynaldo Celaya:
That's right, only her real name is Marcela.

Jack McCoy:
But you still claim you're not guilty?

Reynaldo Celaya:
That's right.

Matthew Clemens:
It's what philosophers call a conundrum.

Matthew Clemens:
Maybe I should explain: Reynaldo was charged and convicted ten years ago of killing his wife. Problem was she wasn't dead - she just ran off.

Reynaldo Celaya:
And now you can't do nothing to me. What's it called?

Matthew Clemens:
Double jeopardy.

Reynaldo Celaya:
That's when you can't be charged for killing the same wife twice.

Matthew Clemens:
Gotta love the Constitution.

ADA Thomas Hume:
10 years, that's a long time; that's like 400 murders ago.

Detective Ed Green:
You were cheating on your husband with Reynaldo, and Marcela was cheating on Reynaldo with somebody else: am I getting this right?

Patricia Botten:
Happens all the time, at least around here.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
And all this time I've been living in the wrong housing complex.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Was it Cain who slept with Abel's wife, or the other way around? I forget.

Rafael Celaya:
[referring to the victim] She was an evil woman, you know? She was married to Reynaldo and she was cheating on him.

Detective Ed Green:
With you!

Rafael Celaya:
She'd cheat on him, she'd cheat on me soon enough!

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
You guys are weird, Rafael, but it's hard to believe you're ***that*** weird.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[about to assist in an emergency childbirth] All right, uh, bring me some towels and boil some water.

Detective Ed Green:
Do doctors really do that?

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
George Clooney does, and that's good enough for me.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
[referring to babies] She couldn't have one of her own, so she figured she'd take someone else's?

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Worked for Tony B.

Detective Ed Green:
Who's that?

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Took my bike when I was 12.

Detective Ed Green:
[answering his cellphone, about to go home after the dealing with three murders and one kidnapping in one day] We've got a jumper!

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
I may join him [cut to closing credits]

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[shirt soaked, after arresting Reynaldo Celaya in a carwash] Does this say wash and wear?

Leland Barnes:
[growls] You shoulda been at the top of the list.

A.D.A. Alexandra Borgia:
[last lines]

A.D.A. Alexandra Borgia:
Are you okay Jack?

[McCoy does not respond to Borgia, still wondering why Robert Barnes chose to kill his own father instead of him]

A.D.A. Alexandra Borgia:
Jack?

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
[softly] I thought he was shooting at me.

[first lines]

Narrator:
[voiceover narration] In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups, the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.

A.D.A. Alexandra Borgia:
Arthur gave you the out. You could have handed this case off.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
Would you let intimidation affect the way you prosecute a crime?

A.D.A. Alexandra Borgia:
I'm not talking about intimidation. I'm talking about getting killed.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
Doesn't make a difference. It's about the law. It doesn't work if we don't make it work.

[he leaves; she follows him into his office]

A.D.A. Alexandra Borgia:
Off the record?

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
By all means.

A.D.A. Alexandra Borgia:
Trying this case, frankly even standing next to you lately, scares the hell out of me. Enough time, this guy is gonna figure out a way, police protection or not.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
Okay, maybe.

A.D.A. Alexandra Borgia:
That's not reassuring.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
Honestly, I'm scared to death. Don't tell Arthur. But handing off this case? It doesn't take my name off the list.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
Your Honor, Mr. Barnes shouldn't be able to use the law to break it.

Detective Mike Logan:
[Going through the victim's clothes] Is this his stuff?

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Yeah, here. Watch out for lice.

Detective Mike Logan:
No lice, lots of lint. Kid was travelling light.

Detective Ed Green:
You know Tina was seeing Ruffino, too, right?

Christoff:
I didn't like it, but I was in no position to tell her what to do.

Detective Joe Fontana:
Does he know about you?

Christoff:
I don't think so. Wait a minute, you don't think that's why he might've tried to bump me off, do you?

Detective Joe Fontana:
[sarcastic] Hmm, let me take a guess... yeah, it's a thought.

Jack McCoy:
Congratulations, Paul. You just bullied a judge.

Hotel Manager:
Excuse me, have you any idea when you'll be done in here? The hotel is fully committed.

Detective Joe Fontana:
This is a crime scene. It... it says so right there on the tape.

Hotel Manager:
Yes, but that doesn't tell me when I get the room back.

Detective Joe Fontana:
Can I see you just for a sec?

[he leads the manager a couple feet into the room]

Detective Joe Fontana:
It's gonna take however long it takes, do you understand me? And if you get in our way, or don't cooperate with us, we're gonna turn this whole hotel into a crime scene. And that's gonna be really bad for business. Now, excuse us.

Detective Joe Fontana:
So are you a Cubs fan or a White Sox fan?

Angela Gusmarino:
How'd you know?

Detective Joe Fontana:
You're kidding me, right? You sound just like my cousin Rose.

Angela Gusmarino:
Cubs, of course.

Detective Joe Fontana:
Me, too. What neighborhood you from?

Angela Gusmarino:
The Patch.

Detective Joe Fontana:
I'm from Little Sicily. I went to St. Michael's.

Angela Gusmarino:
No kidding. My little brother went to St. Mike's.

Detective Joe Fontana:
What's your last name?

Angela Gusmarino:
Gusmarino.

Detective Joe Fontana:
Are you related to Nick Gusmarino?

Angela Gusmarino:
He's my uncle.

Detective Joe Fontana:
I'll be damned. It's a small world, isn't it?

D.A. Arthur Branch:
Cosmetic surgery. It's an epidemic in this country. Whatever happened to aging gracefully?

A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn:
Only a man would say that without a trace of irony. Men age gracefully, Arthur. Women just age.

Detective Joe Fontana:
I had a conversation last night with Angela Gusmarino's uncle.

Jack McCoy:
Yes?

Detective Joe Fontana:
And he heard a rumor that Angela and Dr. Lawrence had an affair; that the affair ended badly, and that's why Angela's testifying against him.

Jack McCoy:
Any proof of that?

Detective Joe Fontana:
I talked to some of the women in the office; no one knew anything about it. But I thought I'd tell you about it. In case the defense heard the same rumor, you wouldn't get caught in the switches.

Jack McCoy:
What do you think?

Detective Joe Fontana:
I think Angela Gusmarino is a straight shooter.

Jack McCoy:
Maybe the defense started the rumor, got cold feet.

Detective Joe Fontana:
Could be. In any case, I hope you nail the son of a b*tch to the wall.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[referring to Curtis's marital breakup] I thought if you said enough "Hail Mary"s, all was forgiven.

Detective Rey Curtis:
God forgives you, not your wife.

Carmela Rago:
[after Briscoe and Curtis come into her strip club, trying to identify the murder victim from her breast implants] I'm Carmela; what do you want?

Detective Rey Curtis:
[satisfied she is not the victim] Call your mother.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[Trying to identify the victim from her breast implants] Cheer up Rey, could be worse.

Detective Rey Curtis:
Yeah, the torso could have had a hip replacement.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[to Lisa Lundquist, after she has asked Curtis to take a look at a screenplay] Hey, why don't you take him to dinner? Go ahead, pick his brain all night!

Lisa Lundquist:
Well, that'd be great! I don't expect you to do it for free. We can work out some sort of consulting fee.

Detective Rey Curtis:
Not eating with Lennie is payment enough.

Eddie Newman:
I'll tell you a little secret: the key to being a successful director is communicating with as few people as possible.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[walking along the beach] I've still got the wrong shoes. Feel like Nixon at San Clemente.

Gus:
[jogging on the beach with Grant, when the police stop Grant with a court order to get a blood sample] What's this all about?

Evan Grant:
They think I murdered Heidi Ellison.

Gus:
Well, that's ludicrous! Officers, I can tell you that Evan has more compassion in one fingernail that all the characters I've ever played put together.

Detective Rey Curtis:
You see what you got me into?

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Yeah, I got you a date with a real good-looking woman: I'm a real son of a b*tch.

Lisa Lundquist:
I hope Lennie wasn't too offended that we didn't him to join us.

Detective Rey Curtis:
Are you kidding? When he found out he had a Jacuzzi in his room, he forgot all about us!

Detective Rey Curtis:
[to Lundquist, after their dinner] Take this. It's my room key: 912. It's all yours! [pause] I'll stay with Lennie.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[after Curtis moves into his room] What! She wanted to shack up, and you turned her down?

Detective Rey Curtis:
I told her I was married.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Why? Rey, you should not disappoint this woman. She provided valuable information - and she looks great!

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
Grant's lawyer wants to meet as soon as possible. He might be looking for a plea.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Oh, that's too bad. I was hoping this time Grant might escape to the Bahamas.

Neil Gorton:
Nice coat!

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
Thanks! You paid for it!

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Rey, all I know is you're young, unattached, devillishly handsome and we're going to LA! If that isn't destiny, what is?

Det. Ed Green:
There must be ten, fifteen grand here. Where'd you get the money, Bobby?

Bobby:
Bite me!

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
[to Ed] Go ahead. Bite him.

Det. Ed Green:
A civil court judge needs a gun?

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
Maybe she hands out too much alimony.

Jack McCoy:
At first I thought the cops were wrong; they weren't. Walter Grobman hired someone to kill his wife because he felt eclipsed. He's destroyed her life for no good reason. Why she's shielding him I will never understand, but I know my job: I'm going to convict this narcissistic son of a b*tch.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
You find the slugs?

CSU Jessica Reed:
No. Blood over here can't be hers. She might've hit him two out of two. Good shooting.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
Fair. Good would be him laying here dead.

Det. Ed Green:
APB went out quick. If the carjacker's got two gunshot wounds, how far can he get? I'm feeling lucky.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
Last time I got lucky was 1986.

Det. Ed Green:
It's all in the attitude, Lennie.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
You got no record. Why do you want to do this the hard way?

Det. Ed Green:
Nice leather upholstery. Cleans up pretty good, but not good enough.

Dr. Matthew Carton:
What's that mean?

Det. Ed Green:
Blood in the seams. You read the papers?

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
A New York state judge was shot over this car. You can probably figure out what that means for you.

Anson Scott:
I don't know a damn thing about any judge. I sell used cars.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
Yeah, the trouble is the people who were using 'em aren't finished with 'em yet.

Jack McCoy:
I bought you dinner. I didn't know what you liked, so I got you salad, low-cal dressing...

Abbie Carmichael:
Low-cal?

Jack McCoy:
Excuse me?

Abbie Carmichael:
I burn it, I don't store it... What did you get?

Jack McCoy:
Ribs.

Abbie Carmichael:
Great. [takes the ribs] Looks good. I'll eat, you graze.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
For all you know, you don't know anything. Between Internal Affairs and you, the Red Sox couldn't have done a better job of botching it up.

Raymond 'Ray-Ray' Davis:
I told you, but I ain't tellin' nobody else. I don't want no trouble with The Man.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Oh, you don't have to worry, Mr. Davis. In this house, I'm The Man.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[looking at victim's watch] It stopped tickin' when he took a lickin'.

Borough Chief Commander Dietz:
Let's not jump to conclusions. We don't know what kind of crime it is yet.

Reverend Theodore Dempsey:
A black man was beaten to a bloody pulp and dragged a quarter of a man behind a vehicle over a dirt road. You call that a love crime?

Internal Affairs Detective:
Those bozos couldn't find their ass with both hands and a flashlight.

Abbie Carmichael:
[referring to a possible federal plea bargain] By the time the Feds get done with Dietrich they'll be naming bird sanctuaries after him.

Jack McCoy:
[referring to his attempt to invalidate a federal plea bargain] This is my line in the sand.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
One phone call from me, this is dead in its tracks.

Jack McCoy:
You could do that. I'd refile it as a private citizen.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
It's nice to have choices.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
[after the US district court has ruled that federal plea bargains are illegal] Preposterous decision. Hogties every federal prosecutor in the country. And, thanks to you, we're part of it.

Jack McCoy:
The decision will be reversed on appeal. Six months from now. By then Dietrich and the other two will be on death row.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
...or your letter of resignation will be on my desk.

Abbie Carmichael:
[pointing to wall of McCoy's office] My longhorn pennant will look good over there.

Detective Rey Curtis:
[after Fratelli been picked out of a lineup and agreed to co-operate] He blinked.

Abbie Carmichael:
Yeah, thanks to Mr Davis.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Good ol' Ray Ray. The trick was giving him a number he couldn't forget: three. Rhymes with "squeegee"

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Two of New York's finest on Death Row. There's going to be fallout.

Jack McCoy:
You think we should have let the Feds take the heat?

D.A. Adam Schiff:
We'll know the next time one of us needs a cop.

Jack McCoy:
Your first death sentence. You OK with it?

Abbie Carmichael:
There's only one thing bothering me: Ray Ray, the squeegee man. The cops told him which one was Fratelli.

Jack McCoy:
I know; I told them to. Perfectly legal. We were never going to use the identification at trial anyway.

Abbie Carmichael:
Legal or not...

Jack McCoy:
Major felonies, Abbie. Welcome to the bigs.

[Lennie has just found out that one of his daughters has been murdered]

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
She was my baby, Rey. What am I gonna do now?

Det. Rey Curtis:
You're coming home with me, partner.

Moskowitz:
We got one shot-up teacher and a parking lot full of shell casings. Two kids admit being in the vicinity. There's a uniform inside babysitting them.

Det. Rey Curtis:
You got these cars listed yet?

[Moskowitz hands him a slip of paper]

Det. Rey Curtis:
How many shots in all?

Moskowitz:
We recovered two slugs from the victim's car, four from the bus, and the one the doctors are pulling out of the victim.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
[approaching] Lousy shooting.

Det. Rey Curtis:
Good enough.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
[the rape case has been dismissed] Are you appealing the ruling?

Jack McCoy:
What the hell was Judge Wright thinking?

D.A. Adam Schiff:
He hasn't had a thought since the Carter administration.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
Hey, you did all right in there, sweetheart.

Cathy Briscoe:
Don't you get it, dad? My life is over. I'm not gonna be able to get a job. I'm always gonna be known as the meth addict nurse, who stole drugs for her dope-dealer boyfriend.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
Why don't you come and stay with me for a while 'till you get back on your feet, huh?

Cathy Briscoe:
Dad, please! Did you hear what I just said?

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
Honey, people make mistakes and start over all the time. I did.

Cathy Briscoe:
Thanks. But right now, I feel like you made a mistake having me in the first place.

Dr. Emil Skoda:
[discussing the alleged rape of a mentally handicapped teenager] She's a sweet girl with an IQ of 65. And the school thinks exposing her to ridicule from normal kids somehow does her good.

Jack McCoy:
She understand what she did?

Dr. Emil Skoda:
Not in any meaningful way. She'd do whatever it takes to please whoever she was with.

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
Would that be obvious to another teenager?

Dr. Emil Skoda:
That'd be crystal clear to anyone who talked to her for two minutes.

Jack McCoy:
Those boys are gonna claim the last thing they did in that music room was talk.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
So, Randy, daddy sprung for bail, huh?

Det. Rey Curtis:
Stand up.

Randy Baxter:
Sure. Beats doing squat thrusts for goofing on Fat Frankie.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
[cuffing Randy and his friends] You're gonna have to make bail again.

Det. Rey Curtis:
You're all under arrest for the rape of Valerie Maxwell.

Randy Baxter:
You're kidding. No way.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
Way, Randy. You're gonna be doing your squatting and thrusting in Rikers. Let's go.

Defense Attorney Painter:
A rape charge requires a victim, Mr. McCoy.

Jack McCoy:
A retarded girl is raped and sexually assaulted with a foreign object and you don't see a victim?

Defense Attorney Painter:
You have proof the girl's incompetent?

Jack McCoy:
Are you kidding? An IQ of 65?

Det. Rey Curtis:
Lady, covering up a felony is a felony.

Mrs. Davenport:
You asked me if Sally was one of the girls and I said no.

Det. Rey Curtis:
And you didn't think rape was worth mentioning? What the hell kind of place are you people running here?

Mrs. Davenport:
We investigate what's been reported. I spoke with the boys, I spoke with Valerie. They said she consented, she said she consented.

Det. Rey Curtis:
She told her sister something different.

Mrs. Davenport:
Well, maybe Sally heard what she wanted to hear. She's very protective of Valerie.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
Isn't Valerie the older sister?

Mrs. Davenport:
Valerie's developmentally challenged.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
Challenged how?

Mrs. Davenport:
She's retarded.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
[exchanging disbelieving looks with Rey] Three boys gang up on a retarded girl and you just say "Oh, okay." What, are you afraid of a lawsuit?

Mrs. Davenport:
I'm a guidance counselor, not a cop.

Det. Rey Curtis:
So call a cop when you need one!

Mrs. Davenport:
When I need one, I will. There was no rape. Talk to Valerie yourselves.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
Count on it.

D.A. Jack McCoy:
What do you do for recreation Mike, juggle chainsaws with my neck on the line?

Jenny Snyder:
[Crying] Oh, my God. You two are so pathetic! You run around, like, throwing bombs at each other when everything was falling apart!

Don Snyder:
I don't want you to say another word. Do you understand me? Sweetheart, do you understand me?

Jenny Snyder:
So, now, like, you're going to be my father again, is that it?

Dr. Claire Snyder:
Jenny, honey, don't.

Jenny Snyder:
Mom, I'm sorry.

Don Snyder:
Come on, let's go. We're getting out of here.

Jenny Snyder:
[Screams] You can't tell me what to do! Not anymore! [to Claire] You were drinking you were taking that drug and passing out every night. [to Don] And you were following that stupid b*tch around and the whole time she was making a fool of you. She didn't love you she just wanted your money.

Dr. Claire Snyder:
Don't do this. Do not throw your life away. Stop.

Jenny Snyder:
[Crying] I took some Dazzle from my mom. The same night we carried you out of the bath. I hid it at Dad's and I just waited for the right time.

Jack McCoy:
What happened the night Kate died?

Jenny Snyder:
Dad had to work late. Kate went to her apartment to paint. I got the Dazzle, I left Tim at Dad's and I went over to Kate's. We hung out for a while... She was so happy 'cause I was, like, finally coming around. So I asked her to see the roof. She was always bragging what a great place she had, how cool her life was. And after a while she put her glass down and I just put it in when she turned her back. We kept talking, and then after a couple of minutes she got really dizzy. I helped her so she could lean against the rail and then I... Everything was falling apart. Someone had to do something. You weren't going to do it. So I did.

A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn:
What happens when you mix midazolam with wine?

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
Like they say, "Don't operate any heavy machinery."

Prostitute:
[in scotch section of liquor store] Lot of good labels up there. It'd be nice to share a taste.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
You asking me for a date?

Prostitute:
My mama told me never to date a cop. They fool around on you.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[Shows her photo of victim] How about this guy? Anybody around here date him yesterday?

Prostitute:
I didn't, but he's cute.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
You've been at this too long, honey. He's dead.

Detective Rey Curtis:
[Referring to the victim] Hey, here we go. Michael Webber. Outstanding warrant. He's a wanted man.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Who wants him? The FBI? The Mafia? Fidel?

Detective Rey Curtis:
Worse: ex-wife. The warrant's from family court. Webber v. Webber. He owed Mrs Webber for alimony and child support.

Detective Rey Curtis:
How many child support payments did you ever miss, Lennie?

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
My ex just kept my checkbook. If I ever forgot, she knew how to forge my signature.

Jack McCoy:
We already got the father.

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
[Referring to Arlene Webber] But she's guilty too.

Jack McCoy:
We put her in jail, her son dies alone.

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
Everybody's got a sad story.

Jack McCoy:
It won't be an easy case to make. Webber's dead. Her father won't talk.

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
We can look for other evidence.

Jack McCoy:
You feel burned?

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
You feel sorry for her?

Jack McCoy:
Call me a sentimental fool. [long pause] There's no statute of limitations on murder. [picks up file on the case] We'll keep it. Right on top of the pile. [cut to closing credits]

Max Schaeffer:
They think I killed Mike.

Leon Storch:
They do? You didn't, did you?

Max Schaeffer:
No.

Leon Storch:
Well then just tell them the truth! I never saw anybody get hurt by the truth!

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
[watching through the mirror] This man says he's an attorney?

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
Suspects are entitled to a lawyer, not a good lawyer.

Detective Rey Curtis:
Having a child sick with leukemia, waiting for a bone marrow donor, if it'd been me, I would've shot Weber and scraped his bone marrow out myself.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
I don't think that's how they do the operation, Rey.

Detective Rey Curtis:
You know, when we were in Billy Weber's hospital room, he had a brand new video game system.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Oh, Nintendo CD-Rom?

Detective Rey Curtis:
Yeah, kid had a bunch of new games.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Ooh, Crash Bandicoot?

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Excuse me, young parents? My daughter's idea of high tech toys was Barbie's convertible.

Detective Rey Curtis:
No Lennie, we're talking five-six hundred dollars' worth of games.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Lots of folks gonna remember this face.

Detective Nina Cassady:
It doesn't place.

Detective Ed Green:
He slaughtered five people in a burger joint in '97.

Detective Nina Cassady:
The Midtown massacre? That I remember.

Detective Ed Green:
I was working Narcotics around the corner at the time. I was one of the first to respond. I testified at his trial.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
They put him on death row.

Detective Ed Green:
Three times over, but they changed the law before they got the needle in him. This is the bastard that's supposed to be dead.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
How do you tell someone somebody wants them dead?

Detective Ed Green:
Quickly?

Detective Ed Green:
"Crooked cops: exception or the rule?". Is this typical of your work?

Kate Pierce:
I'm an investigative journalist.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Pissed anybody off lately?

Kate Pierce:
If I'm doing my job right.

Kate Pierce:
I'm not a hero, Miss Carmichael. But when you take a job like this, it comes with certain risks. Things a journalist has to put above her own safety.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Look at this: Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard. Either we're looking for a philosophy student, or we got one very depressed criminal.

Jack McCoy:
I'll subpoena him. He'll testify with no preconditions.

Dave Carney:
Absolutely not. He'll take the Fifth.

Jack McCoy:
I'm conferring immunity right now. You're taking the stand tomorrow morning, Mr. Talbert.

Dave Carney:
He won't testify.

Jack McCoy:
Are you sure about that, Mr. Talbert?

Warren Talbert:
I am not sending my daughter to jail.

Dave Carney:
What are you going to do, Mr. McCoy? Cite him for contempt? He gets thirty days in jail and you still get nothing. For God's sake, he's just trying to save his daughter.

Jack McCoy:
No deal. Ms. Ross, get an officer in here. Mr. Talbert, I'm having you arrested pending a contempt hearing.

Dave Carney:
McCoy...

Jack McCoy:
I've had enough of him, his daughter, and her boyfriend. If I could indict him as a co-conspirator, I would. This baby is dead. I hope they all go to jail for it. Place this man under arrest and get him out of my office.

[last lines]

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
Baby's dead, and no one's responsible.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
No one was responsible when it was alive, either.

Jack McCoy:
Warren Talbert's still in jail. We could get him for obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
[wearily] We got beat. Just send him home to his family.

Executive A.D.A. Michael Cutter:
I'd like to show you something... People's 32 this is the wallet that Walter Benning was carrying when he was shot. And I want to show you these photos of his children and grandchildren. Photos that are stained with... I can't, I can't do this there's, there's been too much heartbreaking testimony. Just too much. We're dealing with an issue here that goes to the very mystery of our existence. What is life? When does it begin? At conception? At viability? At birth? And in good faith, we seek guidance from our moral leaders, from scientists. And we want so much to do the right thing, you know, the-the just thing. And we want reason and empathy to lead us to an answer, and-and we struggle so much to find that answer. Why? Because... because despite all our differences, we are joined in one belief that every life is special and unique and imbued with inalienable rights, and that belief compels us to reject the violence... and the unreasoned chaos that Wayne Grogan's act represents. Thank you. ?

Detective Kevin Bernard:
[a man has been killed in a church, during a service] It has to be said: can I get a witness?

Danielle Melnick:
You turning soft on me, Jack?

Jack McCoy:
You know I'm a sucker for an execution. I'm just here for the tortellini.

Coffee Shop Clerk:
[Briscoe and Curtis are investigating the disappearance of a coffee shop owner] He usually likes to keep a close watch on the cash drawer, but he hasn't been around in a couple of days. Anyway, how about a free large latte on the house?

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
Maybe for the kid here, but I'd like a regular coffee.

Coffee Shop Clerk:
Okay, how would you like it?

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
Uh, regular?

Woman:
Three kids home with the flu for a week!

Detective Rey Curtis:
Yeah, I know how it is.

Woman:
No you don't; you get to go to work.

Detective Rey Curtis:
[to Briscoe, after leaving the woman's apartment] Remind me to buy flowers for Deborah tonight.

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
[referring to Hallacy] You really believe she heard the voice of St Michael?

Jack McCoy:
I don't doubt she thinks she did.

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
Can we convince a jury she didn't?

D.A. Adam Schiff:
They tried that with Joan of Arc.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
[referring to Hallacy] All right, split the difference. Prove that a saint can commit a murder.

Jack McCoy:
[in closing summation] What do you make of Rosa Hallacy and her calling? I can't answer it myself. Mr Wade says you can't convict her because she's a good person, maybe even a holy person. I'm not sure I disagree with his characterization, but it brings you right back to the contradiction: can a righteous person commit a wrongful act? What I do know is that Rosa Hallacy is flesh and blood like you and me. We can't let Rosa Hallacy assert for herself the power we vest in our Supreme Being. She may hear God, but she may not play God! Just because she has a divine mission, it doesn't exempt her from the code of human behavior. When she squeezed the life out of Kira Grayson in the back room of her apartment, she violated that code. Her passion for God, however tangible and heartfelt, rendered her oblivious to the mortality of Kira Grayson. She's responsible for the consequences of her convictions. And just as her God holds her accountable, so should we!

Det. Mike Logan:
I've been eager myself. It's not a crime.

[Briscoe and Logan arrest a rock star]

Manager:
We'll sue you for false arrest. We're going to get our lawyers.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
Oh, lawyers. I'm so scared. You hear that, Mike?

Det. Mike Logan:
Oh, I'm shaking in my blue suede shoes.

Julia Wood:
I went to the bathroom. When I came out he was naked. He pinned me to the floor, he pulled up my skirt. Do you know what it's like? You're helpless. You just close your eyes and wait for it to be over.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
[pause] Julia, I'm gonna get a cup of coffee, you need anything? [Julia shakes her head, Anita leaves the room] Give her a ride home.

Det. Mike Logan:
We dropping it?

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
No.

Det. Mike Logan:
What, did she slip you a note or something?

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
"Close your eyes and wait for it to be over"? This girl was raped.

Det. Mike Logan:
[finding out Clarence sent the limo home after taking Julia to his room] Clarence told us he was going dancing.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
You go dancing, you don't send the limo home.

Det. Mike Logan:
How does Clarence take rejection?

Sharon Carmichael:
About as well as Andi when I tell her she can't have rocky road. Problem for Mike is I scream louder than she does.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
[about Van Buren] Maybe she's got some insight that we don't, what do *we* know about what's going through a woman's mind when she's being groped?

Det. Mike Logan:
You forget the other girlfriend said he's a pussycat.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
But you forget she's on the payroll, we need to ask someone else.

Det. Mike Logan:
Maybe the ex-Mrs. C-Squared?

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
I hate to think the stories my ex-wives could tell about me.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
[Julia's decided not to testify] It's for the best, it'll save us trying to explain what the hell that girl was doing in his room after midnight.

Executive A.D.A. Ben Stone:
We don't ask a 70 year old mugging victim what he was doing riding the subway alone at night.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
We should, it would make our jobs easier.

Executive A.D.A. Ben Stone:
You're right, there'd be no more victims.

Executive A.D.A. Ben Stone:
She said no.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Sure, and I tell my grandson 'Your mother doesn't want you eating candy before dinner', but if I leave him alone with a jar full of M&Ms...

Executive A.D.A. Ben Stone:
Julia Wood is not a piece of candy, Adam.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
To Clarence Carmichael, she is.

[as Carl Reger is being arrested by Briscoe and Green]

Carl Reger:
My lawyer will have your jobs!

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
Good. Can we have his?

Detective Ed Green:
You going somewhere?

Jay Brannigan:
I thought I'd go to Maine for a few days, do some fishing.

Detective Ed Green:
I thought you were sick.

Jay Brannigan:
I'm feeling better - hey, what the hell are you doing?

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
[finds large bundles of cash] Woohoo! The price of worms must've gone through the roof.

Detective Ed Green:
Lennie, when I grow up I want to be as smart as you.

[last lines]

Jack McCoy:
We were conned.

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
Does it occur to anyone she might be conning us now?

Jack McCoy:
Carl Reger committed murder and this was all an elaborate charade to get him off the hook?

D.A. Nora Lewin:
Can we prove that?

Jack McCoy:
No. Not with what we've got.

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
Right. We're sure one of them killed her, we're just not sure which one.

D.A. Nora Lewin:
We're sure enough. Let's close this case. Move on.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
Divorce lawyers... God's way of telling you to stay single.

Det. Rey Curtis:
Or married.

Det. Rey Curtis:
[listening to a pair of divorce lawyers argue] They're worse than my kids.

[last lines]

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
Redfield agreed to full restitution of the missing assets, and he gets off with having his license pulled for three years. He'll probably count this as a win.

Jack McCoy:
He can drive up to Bedford and crow to Atkins about it.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Where on earth did these people learn their ethics?

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
Law school.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Of course.

[first lines]

Announcer:
[voiceover narration] In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups, the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
Freedom of the press isn't free, Mr Bailey, but turning over your mailing list won't cost you a cent.

Gerald Bailey:
I can't believe this: it's extortion.

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
It's leverage.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
[Looking through the list of people who had mail-ordered an assassination handbook] If you see one of my exes in there, let me know.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
A manic-depressive commits suicide: somebody call Ripley's.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
[after hearing Sawyer confess to killing Franklin] Why? What did Franklin ever do to you?

Alan Sawyer:
He was a knight templar. He was 600 years old. He told me he was trying to kill me.

Detective Rey Curtis:
Who said that?

Alan Sawyer:
King Philip and Pope Clement.

Lori Franklin:
He stabs my father *three* times, he *confesses*, and he gets to go home? What about my father's *rights*? Doesn't anyone care about them?

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
[Is waiting for McCoy outside a hospital] Did you put iron in your cheerios this morning?

Jack McCoy:
Are you talking to me now?

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
Hey, do things our way and we'll talk to you all you want.

Alec Conroy:
You know, this may come as a big surprise to all of you, but I loved Karen.

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
Killing someone's a pretty sick way of saying "I love you".

Detective Rey Curtis:
[in victim's home] Beautiful wife, beautiful kids, beautiful sailboat.

Uniform Policeman:
[points to bra on chair] Maybe not thinking straight got him in this jam in the first place.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Looks like he got SOMETHING straight!

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[hearing the victim had high level of Viagra in his blood] The stuff's safe as oysters, right?

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
It's the speediest approval in FDA history. Those old farts couldn't wait to get their own hands on it.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
[asking why Briscoe and Curtis think that Sanderson's death was the result of foul play] What are we going on here?

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Man's intuition. Hey, after a certain age there's two things a guy has, he doesn't want to screw up.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Uh - his golf swing, and the remote control?

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
His heart, and his, you know, "plumbing".

Katrina Ludlow:
Detective, Curtis, right? [Curtis nods] Is "Detective" your first name?

Detective Rey Curtis:
Rey.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Hey, you can call me "Lennie" as long as we're getting to know each other.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
If you wound a rhinoceros, make sure you have a tree handy.

Katrina Ludlow:
I'm attracted to you, Rey.

Detective Rey Curtis:
You'll get over it.

Katrina Ludlow:
[referring to Curtis, and the evidence of the Viagra pills] He seemed more worried about what his wife would say about us, than safeguarding the evidence. Yeah, well [sighs] - at least he didn't need to take them!

Detective Rey Curtis:
[referring to his weekend with Ludlow] Nothing happened, Lieutenant.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
[throws up hands] All right.

Detective Rey Curtis:
[angrily] You don't believe me!

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Actually I do, Rey. But with women it's not only "Did you jam it to some stray?", it's that you open your heart to her, or even want to. It's the emotional betrayal we can't stand.

Jack McCoy:
[after Spector has been found guilty] We brought down the rhino, Adam. The system won.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
So how come he's the one doing the celebrating?

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
Bail continued pending his appeal, which could be two years from now.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
That's not why. Don't you people read the business section? As of last night his bond for the stadium is fully subscribed.

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
So killing Sanderson gave him enough time to get his finances in order.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Groundbreaking ceremony's next week. I got my invitation this morning.

Jack McCoy:
A hollow victory, Adam. He'll be watching the games live from his stadium on television, along with his fellow inmates.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
He's still got a better seat than Sanderson.

Katrina Ludlow:
You don't get it, Curtis. A hundred years from now no one will remember who slept with whom, and who was naughty and who was nice. They'll look at that incredible piece of steel and concrete and know that I was a part of it.

Detective Rey Curtis:
One of the first public buildings named after a convicted murderer.

Katrina Ludlow:
Hardly the first. The Pantheon; the Temple of the Vestals; they all have the names of Emperors over the door, and talk about murderers!

Detective Rey Curtis:
"Pro bono publico", right?

Katrina Ludlow:
Relax, Rey. The Empire isn't gonna fall tonight. Go on. Go home to your wife. [cut to closing credits]

Mr. Mosbeck:
Did you complain that your wife, your poor, dear wife was a burden to you?

Detective Rey Curtis:
No!

Mr. Mosbeck:
That you just prayed that she would go in peace?

Detective Rey Curtis:
No!

Mr. Mosbeck:
That her moment would come soon?

Detective Rey Curtis:
No!

Mr. Mosbeck:
[forcefully] Detective! Didn't you tell Miss Ludlow that you hoped your wife would go in peace? Yes or no, Detective?

Detective Rey Curtis:
My wife has multiple sclerosis! She's in a lot of pain and it's getting worse. What I told Miss Ludlow, what I meant was... that if the condition got worse, I just didn't want it to... no, she's suffered enough already.

Mr. Mosbeck:
Is that a yes, Detective?

Detective Rey Curtis:
I love my wife! More than my own life. And I betrayed her trust once. Just once. But with her love and with God's help...

Mr. Mosbeck:
Your Honor, would you direct the witness to answer the question?

Detective Rey Curtis:
I haven't been unfaithful to her since! I know better! My mistake was trusting Katrina Ludlow. So yes, I've made mistakes as a man. But as a cop? No, sir. I did not tamper with that evidence.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
A guy doesn't take Viagra just to have fun with himself. So they tell me.

Dr. Emil Skoda:
She's very appealing.

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
Well, when she's released from prison, you can ask her out.

Detective Joe Fontana:
[seeing a kicked-in door at a crime scene] Whoever it was came in hard and fast.

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
Why is everyone afraid of this woman?

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Regina's favorite joke. The difference between lace curtain Irish and shanty Irish...

Jack McCoy:
Lace curtain Irish move the dishes before they piss in the kitchen sink.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Yeah. She's shanty Irish and proud of it.

Jack McCoy:
And so am I.

Pauline Brecker:
Does this mean he wasn't cheating on me with that girl in the car?

Detective Olivia Benson:
That would be the good news.

Detective Ed Green:
My dad used to call me 'Fast Eddie'.

Detective Olivia Benson:
[Raising eyebrows] Oh yeah?

Det. John Munch:
Is this what I have to look forward to in my twilight years? Cyber-flirting with Betty and Veronica?

Regina Mulroney:
Every great family has a secret. It's how you spend the money that counts. My family's philanthropy is well-documented.

Jack McCoy:
So is the bribery.

Stephanie Mulroney:
I'm telling the truth!

Jack McCoy:
I guess there's a first time for everything.

Det. Rey Curtis:
Hey, didn't you learn anything from Mister Rogers? A policeman is your best friend.

D.A. Nora Lewin:
[referring to the defendant, who is using battered woman syndrome as a defense to murdering her husband] What choices does a woman in that situation really have?

A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn:
If someone hit me, I would leave, and if I couldn't, I'd hit them back.

D.A. Nora Lewin:
Well, not everyone takes Tae Bo.

[At the scene of a double homicide]

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
I knew being Chief of Detectives had its benefits. I didn't know they included a table at Raimondo's.

Detective Ed Green:
I hear the food here is really good.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Oh, it's to die for.

[In a run-down Harlem apartment building]

Little Girl:
Are you The Man?

Det. Sgt. Maxwell "Max" Greevey:
We sure are, honey.

Simonize Jackson:
You ain't got spot on me, except what he said, and that's just heresy.

Sgt. Max Greevey:
The word's 'hearsay', Simonize.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
You remember the seven rings of Saturn? Well, these are the two rings of Rikers [on arresting the suspected thief of a telescope]

Jack McCoy:
She shot Mayer with her father's gun? Freud must be having a good laugh.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[carrying a suspect's book, JFK Jr., to Rey] Don't worry, I just bought it for the picture.

Vicky Grant:
[about the man who killed her father] They were going to put him on Larry King, and get some big movie star to play him and make him out to be a hero. These wiseguys are psychos and losers, and everybody loves them. I don't get it.

Detective Cyrus Lupo:
[Looking at financial records] 'Who needs math?' I told my teachers, 'I'm gonna be a cop.'

Detective Kevin Bernard:
Don't feel bad. I said the same thing about biology. Now I spend half my life looking at autopsies.

Eddie O'Connor:
I spent 20 years watching guys take bribes. And get promoted while doing it. That's not me.

Detective Cyrus Lupo:
Right. You is the guy that took bribes but never made it to supervisor.

Detective Cyrus Lupo:
Faxes from the city inspector approving the night shifts, the heavier loads.

Detective Kevin Bernard:
Check this out. The number that this was faxed from doesn't match the number on the cover sheet.

Detective Cyrus Lupo:
631 area code. A city inspector faxing from the Hamptons on a weekday afternoon.

Detective Cyrus Lupo:
Nice work if you can get it.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
The forensic accountant is very anxious to talk to you.

Detective Cyrus Lupo:
Great. After a morning of forensic engineering, nothing beats a little forensic accounting.

Detective Cyrus Lupo:
We're homicide with the 27.

Wayne Hardy:
Homicide? What do we need homicide detectives for?

Detective Kevin Bernard:
[Indicates Carlos Lazaro's dead body] You don't, but he does. And until we know happened, sir, this is a crime scene.

Karl Rostov:
Your case is based on what, what some whores say about me? You know I'm the one who lost a brother.

Det. Ed Green:
Go ahead, call them whores one more time.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
I said "watch and learn". You just promised to close this case.

Detective Nina Cassady:
I was only offering condolences.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Watch and learn.

Detective Ed Green:
[Van Buren leaves] What are you gonna do if the case falls apart? What are you gonna say to the widow then? Lesson one.

Detective Nina Cassady:
I know I... I lost my temper with little miss superstar.

Detective Ed Green:
Hmm. Now that seemed justified.

Detective Nina Cassady:
Yeah, but I get it if the boss has to know.

Detective Ed Green:
If you knew me a day longer and you were a dude, I'd pop you in the mouth for saying that. If I have a disagreement with you, I'm gonna say it to your face. You're not gonna hear about it through the lieutenant. That's lesson number two.

Jack McCoy:
[watching a music video of J-Train's] Maybe it's generational, Connie, but this is incomprehensible to me.

A.D.A. Connie Rubirosa:
It's incomprehensible to anyone without a lobotomy.

Detective Rey Curtis:
What exactly is your relationship to Kate?

Jeffery Arbaugh:
I'm her philosophical and spiritual exploration guide. And I feed the dogs.

Kate Bergreen-Spiegel:
We are not like you, Detective.

Masseur:
[to Ross] How about I give you a full-body massage, no charge? [Ross chuckles silently and leaves]

Jack McCoy:
Either you lied on the stand, Mr Bergeen, or you lied to the police. There's about five felonies we can charge you with. Do you really want to go to jail? [pause] . Tell us the truth!

Seymour Bergreen:
The truth is: I love my daughters. Both of them!

Jack McCoy:
We'll see how much they love you.

Jack McCoy:
A murder goes unpunished, it's bad for business.

Jack McCoy:
Juries aren't stupid.

Ernie Krahulik:
Really. We must be working different courtrooms.

Ben Faoud:
[in Arabic] Burn! Burn!

Imam Ibrahim:
[in Arabic] God bless the United States of America!

[a paroled ex-con has been murdered]

Det. Joe Fontana:
I love a public service homicide, don't you?

Captain Donald Cragen:
Lowenstein was a coked-out crazy creep. He used Carla as a punching bag for years. Bruises, broken bones. By the time we got there, her jaw was so swollen, she couldn't talk.

Detective Ed Green:
What about the little girl?

Captain Donald Cragen:
She was black, blue, and burned. When I'm having a bad night, this is the one that comes back and haunts me.

Detective Ed Green:
His P.O. said he had a son?

Captain Donald Cragen:
Ezra. Two years old. Malnourished, neglected. Spent most of his time tied to the radiator like a dog.

Det. Joe Fontana:
Parole officer also said that he's living on Long Island.

Captain Donald Cragen:
I'll get you a name and address. He was doing well last I heard.

Detective Ed Green:
Happy ending, considering.

Captain Donald Cragen:
Speaking of happy endings, how's Lowenstein?

Det. Joe Fontana:
Well, he's still on the critical list.

Captain Donald Cragen:
I hope he lingers a long time in excruciating pain.

Jack McCoy:
It's frustrating, as a prosecutor, when you're sure someone's a murderer but the only thing you can convict them of is tax evasion or assault. It's frustrating. But it's fundamental; you can't punish a crime that you can't prove. That's where the penal code meets the Declaration of Independence. What do you do as a cop, if you're sure there's a bad man on your beat but you don't have a made case against him? You don't frame him. You can't harass him. You make the case. You definitely don't shoot him. So, what should you do, as a citizen, if you're sure a monstrous predator has been released from prison because they couldn't hold him any more under the law? Write your own law? Run him down in the street? You make sure that the state enforces its rules. You get them for violating parole the day he moves in with Sheryl. You have the cops at the door. You make sure they watch him, and if they don't, if the system messes up, if he hurts someone, like Lowenstein could have hurt Sheryl's little girl, you sound the general alarm. You call the police and the papers, you go on TV, you make a scandal. Not a plan to commit murder. Joyce Draper is talented and brilliant. She might be the smartest person in this room. She's a sympathetic defendant, and Jacob Lowenstein was a repulsive victim. It doesn't matter. Joyce Draper murdered Jacob Lowenstein deliberately, with malice of forethought. And there's no reasonable doubt about that whatsoever. She didn't even really try to explain his blood on her car, because she's betting on you to let her get away with it. Citizens, no matter what their role, if it's a doctor, or a police officer, or a prosecutor, or a juror, may not take the law into their own hands. Joyce Draper belongs in jail, long enough to make it plain that we as a society will not tolerate citizens choosing who lives and who dies. And it's up to you to put her there.

D.A. Arthur Branch:
You know, this case reminds me of something a wise old country lawyer once said. He said "You know, the first question that you ask in any murder case, did the deceased deserve to die?".

Detective Ed Green:
Sheryl, do you know why he was in prison?

Sheryl:
I was, like, in grammar school when that happened. If it happened.

Det. Joe Fontana:
So, uh, you're not worried about any of this?

Sheryl:
About what?

Detective Ed Green:
Okay, listen. We're gonna give you a card. If you need anything.

Sheryl:
What would I need?

Detective Ed Green:
How did you two meet?

Sheryl:
Oh, uh, I read an article about him, and then I wrote him a letter, and he wrote back. So I looked him up on the Corrections Department website. They even had a map and instructions.

Det. Joe Fontana:
Must have made visiting day a snap.

Sheryl:
Yeah, well, we just wanna put this all behind us. You know, get married, get on with our lives. Jake's so good with my kids.

Detective Ed Green:
You have kids?

Sheryl:
Yeah, a boy and girl. They've been so happy since he moved in with us.

Det. Joe Fontana:
Wait a second. This guy is living with you?

Sheryl:
Since he left the halfway house.

Det. Joe Fontana:
Well, what the hell is the matter with you? If you want to screw up your own life, be our guest, it's a free country. But to bring this guy into your house with your kids?

D.A. Arthur Branch:
You're still here.

Jack McCoy:
I'm writing my closing statement.

D.A. Arthur Branch:
You're gonna take it all the way to the jury.

Jack McCoy:
No reason not to. That tape was pretty damning.

D.A. Arthur Branch:
That's your call, but a part of me wouldn't mind seeing this whole thing go away.

Jack McCoy:
Me, too.

D.A. Arthur Branch:
You know, this office has cut a deal with the likes of Jacob Lowenstein. We could do the same thing with Joyce Draper.

Jack McCoy:
I'd be happy to if she'd allocute to what she did.

D.A. Arthur Branch:
She won't?

Jack McCoy:
I spoke to her lawyer, dangled the possibility. She won't accept any sort of guilty plea.

D.A. Arthur Branch:
I guess she's determined to see this thing through, too.

Jack McCoy:
Apparently so. He's putting her on the stand.

D.A. Arthur Branch:
[sardonic chuckle] Tread lightly.

Olivia Benson:
So what do we got?

Detective Ed Green:
I'm not sure. Now, you didn't get any strange phone calls last night? Any messages, anything logged in as a miscall?

Olivia Benson:
No. And you're certain that your vic was trying to call me?

Detective Joe Fontana:
His life flashed before his eyes. You were the star player.

Olivia Benson:
And you say his name is Patrick Sullivan?

Detective Ed Green:
Ring any bells?

Olivia Benson:
None.

Detective Joe Fontana:
Maybe his face will.

Olivia Benson:
[Green pulls back the sheet over the victim] Never seen him before in my life.

Detective Joe Fontana:
Which begs the question...

Olivia Benson:
Why did he die trying to call me?

Olivia Benson:
Real piece of work. That's Lorraine Dillon. The blonde is April Troost, her daughter. 25, IQ off the charts, but good luck trying to find a heartbeat.

Detective Joe Fontana:
You had 'em on racketeering?

Olivia Benson:
And they walked. Not this time.

Detective Joe Fontana:
You realize this is a long shot?

Olivia Benson:
Sullivan died trying to call me. You were right. This was personal.

Olivia Benson:
[searching April and Lorraine's hotel room, Benson leaves to search another room] Hey, Green.

Detective Ed Green:
Yeah?

Olivia Benson:
What caliber was the gun used to shoot Sullivan?

Detective Ed Green:
It was a .38.

Olivia Benson:
[returning with a gun on the end of her pen] Kind of like this one?

Theresa Copeland:
Aaron needed me. He said there was something missing until I came along.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Yeah: a different bed to jump into!

Detective Rey Curtis:
[referring to Aaron Downing] Killing his kid? I don't believe it.

Jack McCoy:
You don't have to believe it; just prove it!

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[reading Aaron Downing his rights] You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one...

Detective Rey Curtis:
[searching trunk of Downing's car] Skip the next part, Lennie. Mr Downing's got a wad of cash, passport, airline ticket - Fiji islands, open return.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Come on, Robinson Crusoe!

D.A. Adam Schiff:
This man hurt his boy because he was depressed?

Jack McCoy:
He's the man in the gray flannel suit, Adam...

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
...with a syringe in his pocket.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
When I'm in the dumps I have a scotch and put on Louis Armstrong.

Jack McCoy:
We'll plead down to negligent homicide

Attorney Axtell:
Mr. Buckner?

Mr. Buckner:
You'd make a good businessman, Mr McCoy.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[seeing Downing's dead body hanging from the ceiling of a New Jersey motel room] Well it ain't Fiji.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Hey, I've been there, pal. You make a few promises under the sheets, the lady gets expectations.

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
Downing sniffed out the arrest and took off. He's been spotted in New Jersey.

Jack McCoy:
The airport?

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
At the Eden Motel in Secaucus. Curtis wants us to meet him there.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Route 3, west of the Turnpike. [Jack and Abbie look surprised that he knows where the motel is] You can see it from the highway.

Jack McCoy:
Allgen dodged the bullet.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Let it go. Companies make business decisions everyday that kill people. Spend a few bucks more on a brake assembly, save a hundred lives.

Jack McCoy:
A car is not a deadly weapon.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Do we prosecute the gun manufacturers for shooting deaths?

Jack McCoy:
Well, maybe we should. Hiding behind a corporate logo doesn't absolve these people of responsibility.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Where does it end? The paper mill that makes the boxes that hold the bullets... Lock up the criminals. Let the legislators and the civil juries worry about the other nonsense.

Fisherman #2:
That ain't no sturgeon [Fisherman #1 has hooked a body]

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
Cause of death, acute pulmonary edema. A direct result of the flu.

Detective Ed Green:
So why'd you call us here?

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
His parents said he got a flu shot about a month ago, so I pulled his pediatrician's chart. According to the records, he was vaccinated, but when I ran blood titers, he had no antibodies.

Detective Joe Fontana:
And he should have had?

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
If he'd been immunized, absolutely.

Detective Ed Green:
I still don't get why we're here.

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
Well, there have been a lot of flu-related deaths in the past few weeks. I went through the autopsy records and found half a dozen other victims who had also supposedly been vaccinated but had no antibodies.

Detective Joe Fontana:
Supposedly?

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
These people were not injected with the flu vaccine. They couldn't have been.

Detective Ed Green:
It wasn't just a bad batch of the vaccine?

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
Even with an expired or a contaminated vaccine, there'd still be antibodies.

Detective Ed Green:
So if it wasn't the vaccine, what were they injected with?

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
Good question. Now, there's no sign of anything toxic, so it has to be something neutral. Sterile saline solution, maybe.

Detective Joe Fontana:
So these people all thought they were getting vaccinated. They weren't, and get the flu anyway and it killed 'em?

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
Exactly.

Detective Joe Fontana:
[to Green] We could be looking at a whole bunch of homicides here.

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
That's why I called you.

Detective Joe Fontana:
I hate going to Jersey. I always get lost.

Detective Ed Green:
Elliot Peters, you're under arrest.

Elliot Peters:
What for?

Detective Ed Green:
For killing a whole bunch of people! I'd read you a list, but it's too long, you bastard. Turn around.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
Did Peter Williams kill them?

[last lines]

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
Police found the other two girls. Killed the same way as Anneke Ullman.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
Know who they were?

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
Two runaways from Indiana.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
We'll use it Peter Williams' sentencing.

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
What about Laura Kendrick?

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
Parole board will hear about it twenty-five years from now.

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
How do you wash it off, Jack?

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
I wish I knew.

Dr. Emil Skoda:
[after talking to Laura] Classic case. Predator zeroes in on a vulnerable woman, twists her around 'till she doesn't know which end's up.

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
She knew him for six weeks. How vulnerable was she?

Dr. Emil Skoda:
Nothing to do with that. Given the right combination of his skill and her self-esteem problems, he could do it in six days.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
Did she explain the scratches on her thigh?

Dr. Emil Skoda:
Every time I asked her about details, she got too emotional to answer.

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
So we don't know any more than we did.

Dr. Emil Skoda:
Whatever her level of involvement, she was abused and manipulated into participating.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
She didn't try to stop him.

Dr. Emil Skoda:
She was afraid.

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
She didn't run. She didn't call the police.

Dr. Emil Skoda:
She couldn't. Psychologically, she was in thrall to him and suspended her judgment.

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
Abused or not, she was there. It's her own sister, for God's sakes. We can't let her off the hook.

Dr. Emil Skoda:
Like Abbie says, her own sister. She'd have to be a monster. I saw no sign of it. Want me to talk to her again after she calms down?

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
Peter Williams is back on the street in twelve hours.

Dr. Emil Skoda:
Sounds to me like you have no choice.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
I guess there's no point in asking...

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
Indication of brutal sexual penetration both vaginally and anally. Bad news, no semen.

Detective Ed Green:
Condom?

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
Douche.

Detective Ed Green:
No DNA.

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
I didn't say that. This girl fought back. Got his flesh under her fingernails. I sent it for DNA typing.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
So he douched them but he forgot to clean under their nails?

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
No, he didn't forget. He just didn't get it all.

Detective Ed Green:
Can you believe what a high-definition TV goes for? $10,000.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Instead of "high def", they ought to call it "outrageously high def".

Detective Ed Green:
Lennie. Found this under the front seat of her car.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Oh, a parking stub from A&N.

Detective Ed Green:
The lot where Ronnie Buck was killed.

Lorraine Cobin:
You didn't find that in my car. You put it there.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[sarcastically to Ed] I knew these fake parking stubs would come in handy someday.

Jack McCoy:
Your Honor can't seriously entertain the notion that a defendant can benefit in one murder by killing the witness by committing another.

Judge Donald Karan:
I didn't draft the Constitution, Mr. McCoy.

Jack McCoy:
No, but you can interpret it. These two cases are inextricably linked. What's the good of proving that the defendant had an opportunity to kill Buck if I can't show the jury why?

Judge Donald Karan:
You raise a good point.

Mr. Axtell:
Your Honor, any mention of the Colbin murder would prejudice the jury irreparably.

Judge Donald Karan:
Which is why I won't allow these two homicides to be tried together.

Jack McCoy:
Your Honor...

Judge Donald Karan:
However, what I will do is allow the People to present evidence of Alan Colbin's murder, only insofar as it pertains to motive in the murder of Ronald Buck.

[seeing McCoy and Axtell both don't like his decision]

Judge Donald Karan:
Ooh, I always know I'm right when neither party's happy.

Det. Ed Green:
Frank Leahy, you're going to have to come with us.

Frank Leahy:
Why?

Det. Ed Green:
We're placing you under arrest.

Frank Leahy:
What for?

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
It ain't for stealing home.

[after Ed had an informal discussion with a suspect that led to a partial confession]

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Five hours? I hope the hell he called you in the morning.

Det. Ed Green:
Hey, the best way to get a drunk to open his mouth is to let him drink, isn't that right, Lennie?

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
[looking up from his desk] Hear, hear!

Ira Simpkis:
Weren't you in my first year criminal law class? Back row, on the left. "A" minus, if I remember correctly.

A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn:
"A".

Ira Simpkis:
And you know, I was always surprised, I have to admit, that you never took my trial advocacy seminar, because we handled real cases and you might have benefited a little from the work.

A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn:
No offense, but I didn't care for your clients.

Jack McCoy:
[the defendant has asked for the death penalty] I don't know who was more shocked, Simpkis or me.

D.A. Arthur Branch:
Yup, what fun is it hitting someone who won't hit back?

Jack McCoy:
I never really thought of this as an exercise in fun, Arthur.

A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn:
[approaching] Brace yourself for professor Simpkins' motions.

Jack McCoy:
A motion to quash the agreed-upon sentence.

A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn:
On the grounds that Warner isn't competent to negotiate on his own behalf.

Jack McCoy:
He wants to die, so he's got to be crazy.

A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn:
I've arranged for Skoda to examine him.

D.A. Arthur Branch:
[to Jack] And you say this isn't fun.

D.A. Arthur Branch:
It would've been easier if Warner had taken a chainsaw to a family of four.

Jack McCoy:
Why?

D.A. Arthur Branch:
Because you're a human. And humans can't help but judge other humans.

Jack McCoy:
That would be just as wrong as treating Warner differently because he can string together sentences better than the rest of us. The quality of the victim should not matter any more than the quality of his killer.

D.A. Arthur Branch:
I said it'd be easier, not more just.

Jack McCoy:
It's good, Arthur. He can write.

D.A. Arthur Branch:
You want the easy answer? Just words on a page.

Jack McCoy:
And the more difficult one?

D.A. Arthur Branch:
[holding up a copy of the penal code] So are these.

Jack McCoy:
The death penalty is the most severe punishment the law allows. I got to admit, it's disconcerting that Warner thinks it's less severe than going to prison.

Jack McCoy:
What the hell do you think you're doing, detective?

Detective Joe Fontana:
Excuse me?

Jack McCoy:
You promised Nick Zona a liquor license? And you didn't tell me about it?

Detective Joe Fontana:
First of all, watch your tone. It's a little over the top for my liking. And as far as Nick Zona's concerned, I promised him nothing.

Jack McCoy:
That's not what he thinks.

Detective Joe Fontana:
I don't control what he thinks.

Jack McCoy:
What did you tell him?

Detective Joe Fontana:
I told him that if he told the truth, that I would help him out down the line. I also specifically said "I can't make promises."

Jack McCoy:
You know I'm required to notify the defense with respect to any promises or inducements.

Detective Joe Fontana:
Hey, if I say it's not a promise, how the hell is it a promise?

Jack McCoy:
Was Detective Green present?

Detective Joe Fontana:
He was on the phone.

Jack McCoy:
Congratulations, detective. You just destroyed the credibility of our key witness.

Detective Joe Fontana:
Hey, don't lay this crap off on me! I did my job, and I did it well. If you blow this case over some self-imagined half-assed favor, that's your problem, pal, not mine.

A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn:
[referring to Alicia Milford] You can't seriously be considering "outing" her into a guilty plea!

Jack McCoy:
Well, don't we manipulate the system every day? Threaten to take children from parents? Embarrass spouses with their partners' infidelities?

D.A. Nora Lewin:
This is different, Jack.

Jack McCoy:
Why?

D.A. Nora Lewin:
Well, it plays into the notion that there really ***is*** something wrong with being gay. We run the risk of seeming like bigots.

Jack McCoy:
I don't see how we can abandon a viable negotiating tactic because it's politically incorrect.

Jack McCoy:
[referring to Barry Taggert] So this was a full-service family business? He provided the shoes; his daughter provided her friends?

Jack McCoy:
[confronting Barry and Shelly Taggert on the courthouse steps, after Shelly has been acquitted and implicated Barry in the crime] I'm afraid your celebration ends now, Mr Taggert.

Barry Taggert:
You're arresting me for murder?

Jack McCoy:
I would, if I thought you were guilty.

Detective Rey Curtis:
Barry Taggert, you are under arrest for enterprise corruption. [cuffs Taggert] You have the right to remain silent...

Barry Taggert:
[referring to Shelly] You dropped all that after I brought her back.

Jack McCoy:
That was before you took part in this charade.

Shelly Taggert:
Daddy, I'll get your lawyer.

A.D.A. Claire Kincaid:
That's nice of you, Miss Taggert. Your father's business is gone. He's going to prison.

Barry Taggert:
It's all right, honey.

Jack McCoy:
Sure. If she's half as good to you as you've been to her, maybe she'll visit!

Lennie Briscoe:
You read about the college where they have a rule that a guy has to get permission for every stage of a make-out session? "Can I touch you here? Thank you. Now, can I put my hand there?"

Detective Rey Curtis:
Isn't that the way you do it, Lennie? Beg?

Lennie Briscoe:
Mr. Young Married. You don't even have any idea what you're missing.

Anita Van Buren:
Yeah, late night reruns of I Dream of Jeannie.

Lennie Briscoe:
Isn't that sexual harassment?

Anita Van Buren:
File a charge.

Adam Schiff:
Young people get impatient with old people. Especially cantankerous ones.

Ben Stone:
Oh yeah? Speaking from personal experience?

Adam Schiff:
I'm a sweetheart. And I'm middle aged.

Adam Schiff:
You and the girl's lawyer want to pressure her into pleading to a lesser charge that she might *not* be guilty of so she won't be convicted of a more serious charge that she *might* be guilty of? Does that make sense?

Ben Stone:
With our system and imperfect knowledge? Yes.

Danielle Melnick:
[to a witness] You were scheduled to be deported, were you not? But in exchange for your testimony...

Ben Stone:
Objection! That's a lie!

Judge Margaret Barry:
Approach.

[They do]

Judge Margaret Barry:
All questions of fact will be for the jury to decide, Mister Stone.

Ben Stone:
If I'm slandered, Your Honor, I have to defend myself.

Judge Margaret Barry:
Ms. Melnick, any remarks which further provoke Mr. Stone will also provoke me - and you will regret it.

Ben Stone:
Starvation is a natural cause in Somalia. In New York, it's murder two.

Detective Nina Cassady:
[observing a burnt church where a body was found] Whoever did this is going to burn, too.

Detective Ed Green:
[on an SUV with no plates used at church burnings] Did you check the doorjamb?

Uniform:
Yeah. DMV says it's registered to Emily Barton, 44, lives in Poughkeepsie.

Detective Nina Cassady:
[pointing to a bumper sticker labelled "Death Ferrets"] And she listens to death metal?

[Jack is watching a game at a bar. Danielle comes up behind him and leans on the bar next to him, her chin on her fist]

Danielle Melnick:
So who's winning? The Christians, or the lions?

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
Who are you, and what have you done with Danielle Melnick?

Danielle Melnick:
Tomorrow's Daily News just hit the stands.

[drops a newspaper on the bar with a picture of the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel and a rather unflattering picture of Jack headlined "D.A. vs. God"]

Danielle Melnick:
Goodnight, Jack, and God bless.

Jacob Reese:
I was just trying to protect my daughter.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
By breaking the Fifth Commandment, Mr. Reese. You not only killed, you killed the wrong man.

Det. Rey Curtis:
Hey, Lennie, look at this. "Mycenaean Amphorae, 1400-1375 BC."

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
Yeah, I'm expecting my copy from the Book-of-the-Month Club.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
[in murder victim's apartment] There's two empty wine glasses in the sink.

Det. Rey Curtis:
There's two empty condom wrappers over there. The near perfect Sunday afternoon.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
Yeah: I'd almost trade places with him.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
[talking to victim's ex-girlfriend] Why don't you come to the station with us. Let us take your fingerprints?

Arlene Williams:
No no no no no no no. You're not going to run a Fuhrman on me.

Det. Lennie Briscoe:
[after interviewing a suspect's alibi witness] With friends like her to cover for me, I'd still be playing around on my first wife.

Jack McCoy:
Archer's making history. He's the first lawyer to claim a white defendant is being persecuted by the black power structure.

Jack McCoy:
I've read enough child abuse reports to know spiral fractures are caused by someone twisting your arm until it breaks.

Richard Kaplan:
This is a waste of my valuable time. I'm gonna have my lawyers make a complaint to the chief of police.

Detective Joe Fontana:
Hey, how come you rich guys always have to have your lawyers do your talking for you?

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
You're willing to bet your client's life on that? You must have quite a pair of crystal balls!

D.A. Arthur Branch:
A murder conviction without a body, it's a prosecutor's quadruple jump.

Jack McCoy:
I'm not gloating.

D.A. Arthur Branch:
Go ahead, you're entitled. I guess justice isn't for sale after all.

Jack McCoy:
Not today anyway. [cut to closing credits]

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
If it's Narcotics Anonymous, how do you know her last name?

Jack McCoy:
[cross-examining Madison] So, Mr Madison, did you call the police when your friend Roger Barry died?

Eli Madison:
No.

Jack McCoy:
What were the circumstances of his death?

Eli Madison:
He had a heart attack.

Jack McCoy:
A heart attack? Are you a doctor?

Eli Madison:
[rolls eyes] No.

Jack McCoy:
Did you call an ambulance?

Eli Madison:
No.

Jack McCoy:
Why not?

Eli Madison:
I thought I might be blamed for what happened to him.

Jack McCoy:
Just as you thought you might be blamed for your friend Dwayne Evans's accident?

Eli Madison:
Yes.

Jack McCoy:
Just as you thought you might be blamed for the disappearance of your wife Caroline?

Eli Madison:
Yes.

Jack McCoy:
Blamed for a disappearance, an accident, and a heart attack?

Eli Madison:
[interrupting, frantic] The police, they were out to get me!

Jack McCoy:
With three dead bodies, can you blame them?

Ben Stone:
True love! They'd trade each other for a nickel.

Det. Sgt. Maxwell "Max" Greevey:
[Referring to the murder weapon]... and guess who it was registered to?

Ben Stone:
Himes, Gilbert?

Detective Mike Logan:
Nope. And not to Ralston, Janet, either.

Ben Stone:
[Surprised] Ralston, Alan? [Leans his head in his hands] Great. He was killed with his own gun.

Det. Sgt. Maxwell "Max" Greevey:
[Referring to a shooting victim who Max suspects isn't as innocent as she seems] That's amazing. I know cops who been in shooting cases that can't remember their badge numbers afterwards. Her husband gets shot, she gets shot, victim of a horrible crime, she remembers every second.

Ben Stone:
Either she's evil, or she's two years old. She wants what she wants when she wants it.

Janet Ralston:
You don't scare me, Mr. Stone.

Ben Stone:
Oh yes I do, Mrs. Ralston. I scare you a great deal. And I should.

Det. Sgt. Maxwell "Max" Greevey:
I hate horseback riding. Scares the hell out of me.

Detective Mike Logan:
Scary for the horse, too.

Gordon Schell:
It's a crime of passion, Stone. Pure and simple.

Ben Stone:
A crime of passion is never pure, and it's certainly not simple.

A.D.A. Paul Robinette:
Himes really does love her.

Ben Stone:
Maybe he loves manslaughter two more.

A.D.A. Paul Robinette:
If we don't find out how it went down, we may have to offer it to him.

Ben Stone:
Well then let's find out how it went down.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
If Lennie's siding with the ex-wife, there's GOT to be more to this.

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
Doctor, all those women who you rushed in and out of your examination room; do you remember their faces or did you not bother to look up?

Dr. Bill Rudnick:
That patient's care was my primary concern.

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
'That patient' had a name, it was Maureen Gerard. No more questions.

Jack McCoy:
Jamie, do dead people feel pain?

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
Is that a trick question, Jack? The word 'dead' says it all.

Jack McCoy:
[to Dr. Cosgrove] Why would you order a morphine drip for a patient who was brain dead?

D.A. Adam Schiff:
U.S. Attorney called, asked if there's a civil rights prosecution here.

Jack McCoy:
Far as we can tell, this wasn't a bias crime. The victim was one of their own.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
What's the matter, they run out of people to hate?

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[about Affirmative Action] You wouldn't have gotten any complaints from me; it came in after I left the department and it'll still be there when I'm gone.

Detective Rey Curtis:
Well you wouldn't have liked my answers. When I was filling out my application, when it asked about race, I checked 'none of the above'.

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
Well I'd like to think I got where I am on my own merit.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
So would I, but I got 2,000 pages of legal documents that say contrary.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
This kid killed the man that was helping him, until you can tell me why, you can have all the forensic evidence in the world, you won't get a conviction.

[viewing bodies of people killed in a fire]

Det. Mike Logan:
I've never seen this many. You?

Sgt. Phil Cerreta:
Not in civilian life.

Sgt. Phil Cerreta:
Some alibi: "I'm not an arsonist, I'm an extortionist."

Captain Donald Cragen:
What's less than nothing? Minus zero? Negative bupkis?

[Dr. Olivet has been raped while on an undercover mission]

Dr. Elizabeth Olivet:
You have no idea what it's like to be victimized by a powerful man.

Dr. Elizabeth Olivet:
I know the difference between being examined and being molested.

SEC Investigator:
[completely deadpan expression] The SEC doesn't make threats. There are those that co-operate and those that don't, and we have long memories.

Andy Polone:
[to Carmichael, after she has threatened him with capital murder] Lady, you can put your deal between your knees and squeeze.

Detective Ed Green:
[about Alston] As far as we can see, she's a retired porn star living off her investments.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
God bless America.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Surf nazis on ecstasy. Bet they're gonna put that in the local drive-in.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
See if I'm caught up... we've got the business student, bigots, bar owner...

Jack McCoy:
...the banker and the bimbo.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
It's a John le Carr? novel.

Detective Ed Green:
Took one in the back of the head. Close range, small caliber. No exit wound, no brass. Very tidy. Very professional.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Yeah, what do you bet there's no prints, either?

Detective Ed Green:
Well, we'd better find Mrs. Rosatti, tell her her husband's dead.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
If she doesn't already know.

Detective Ed Green:
Man, you are such a cynic when it comes to love.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Not love. Marriage.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Now there's a refreshing change.

Detective Ed Green:
What, a wife leaving her husband for a younger guy?

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
No, a wife who doesn't want her ex-husband dead.

Detective Nina Cassady:
Is it a bomb?

Fire Marshall:
Nope. Just a good old-fashioned electrical burner. Hit a gas leak and boom. The owner's a lucky bastard.

Detective Ed Green:
What caused it?

Fire Marshall:
Gas pipe in the basement's punctured; electrical wire was cut.

Detective Ed Green:
Please tell me a rat did that.

Fire Marshall:
Only if the little guy had a very sharp steak knife in his claw. This wasn't an accident. Somebody definitely wanted this puppy to come tumbling down.

Jack McCoy:
You know what I don't get is Galt Michaels, they're a top notch firm; why bring in a ringer from out of state?

Jack McCoy:
Does this ringer have a name?

A.D.A. Connie Rubirosa:
Alissa Goodwin, from Miami.

Jack McCoy:
Alissa. And she's the queen of darkness. She went from New York court to street divorces to standard bearer for women's issues nationwide.

A.D.A. Connie Rubirosa:
[noticing someone a few feet away] Is that a friend of yours?

Jack McCoy:
[turning and seeing an attractive woman, who nods at him] Definitely not. And did I mention she was gorgeous?

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
[referring to the Karmels] He's 48; she's 27?

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
My hero!

Lila Crenshaw:
[referring to an earlier incident with Evan Karmel] It was an accident. He was crying so much from teething, I just wanted to quiet him.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
And if the brandy didn't work, what next? Cigars?

Lila Crenshaw:
My mother used to give my baby brother a little brandy. I didn't see the harm: we do things differently in England.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[sarcastically] Right. like poisoning babies; that's very English. Here, we smother them with pillows!

A.D.A. Claire Kincaid:
[after Lila Crenshaw's first trial has resulted in a hung jury, following the defence's accusation that Mrs Karmel put her career ahead of her son] On retrial, we'll pick a more enlightened jury.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Yeah - find me twelve citizens who think a woman's place is closing billion-dollar deals in Chicago.

Detective Rey Curtis:
[referring to Evan Karmel] How could you not check on him?

Lila Crenshaw:
I came here to be an art student, not a bloody wet nurse! [pleading] Look, I did the best I could. I swear I did!

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[back at the station] There's one British nanny who won't be singing "Chim Chim Cher-ee"

A.D.A. Claire Kincaid:
[considering a new angle for the murder] I never did like chasing my tail.

Jack McCoy:
But it's a lot of fun when you catch it.

Jack McCoy:
You killed your brother because your father forgot?

Ben Karmel:
He forgot everything. You know, I'm supposed to be his son too.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Uh oh, this isn't going to be good news, is it?

Jack McCoy:
Is it ever?

Ruth Miller:
Can we discuss a plea deal?

A.D.A. Claire Kincaid:
What happened to your client being innocent?

Ruth Miller:
Went out with the bathwater. [turns around] I guess that's not funny.

Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers:
Cutting open babies puts me in a bad mood.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
How would we be able to tell?

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
You know, Rey, if you ever left the police department, you could have a hell of a career as an egg timer.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Danielle Melnick. She ought to have you on retainer. Dig up this other crime, it strengthens her case.

Jack McCoy:
I get it. I was supposed to ignore the fact that Leslie Harlan shot up a liquor store.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
It answers the unanswered question of why the girl didn't try to escape.

A.D.A. Claire Kincaid:
If it really was because Trapp forced her to act like a criminal, why didn't Leslie tell us about it?

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Because she knew that you'd try to use it against her. Now, look what you tried to do with it.

Jack McCoy:
Look at what her lawyer did do with it.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
She's not as smart as her lawyer. You are.

ADA Jack McCoy:
Defense attorneys distort the facts. They twist evidence. They will not only go to the mat for their clients, they will take that mat and toss it out the window as far as they can. They are not bound by the truth. They are bound to obfuscate it if it serves to get their clients acquitted. And they should be commended for it, and it is what makes the system work.

Adam Schiff:
What is this, Bernie's Bargain Basement? Today's special, cop to four murders, get only five years.

Jack McCoy:
When I gave Furini immunity, I had no idea.

Adam Schiff:
No idea, because the blood was rushing downstream from your head and settling somewhere south of the border.

A.D.A. Claire Kincaid:
He blindsided a half-witted judge on behalf of the head of a mob family. You're acting like it was some kind of noble cause.

Jack McCoy:
It's part of the game.

A.D.A. Claire Kincaid:
Excuse me? Last I looked, it was about justice.

Jack McCoy:
That's merely a by-product. Boy Scouts seek it, effective prosecutors do their best to avoid thinking about it.

A.D.A. Claire Kincaid:
And what do they think about?

Jack McCoy:
Winning, period.

A.D.A. Claire Kincaid:
[middle of show] I'm sorry, but I don't put in fifteen hours a day just so I can flex my muscles.

ADA Jack McCoy:
Well, you'd better start, Claire, or you'll wind up talking to yourself in elevators.

ADA Jack McCoy:
[to Claire at end of show, after convicting his former friend] You'd better take the next elevator. I wouldn't be very good company.

Det. Joe Fontana:
He seems like a pretty stand-up guy.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Yeah, well, so did Scott Peterson.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
How does a con man bamboozle so many smart women?

Detective Ed Green:
Practice, practice, practice.

Phil:
Mr Dow isn't here. A couple of other detectives picked him up an hour ago.

Detective Rey Curtis:
That would be "detectives" Granada and Difka?

Phil:
You work with them?

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
We're members of a mutual admiration society.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[cuffing suspect at a phone booth] You're our lucky caller of the day.

Jack McCoy:
They're outlaws! I'm going to check on their weapon permits. I don't care if they forgot the period after their middle initial; I'm having their permits yanked.

Bail Agent Ron Difka:
Always eatin' our dust, eh, Briscoe? [Briscoe punches him]

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
Correctional Assistance Services filed a federal habeas corpus petition in district court. They want to take Sheridan back to Georgia.

Jack McCoy:
First their bounty hunters treat our city like a shooting gallery; now they want to take home the kewpie doll.

Jack McCoy:
No crime, no coverup. Three people dead, and no one's accountable.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Justice on a budget. What did you end up charging them with?

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
Tampering with evidence. An "E" felony.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Oh.

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
We arraigned them. They posted bail: 2000 dollars. And they walk away from three murders.

Jack McCoy:
We can always hope they jump bail.

Lucy Sullivan:
I want a lawyer.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Honey, you need one.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Sisters killing sisters; I haven't seen that for a week or two.

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
I think we'll convince Judge Marks...

Jack McCoy:
Nathan Marks?

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
Luck of the draw.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Make sure your airbags are working.

Judge Nathan Marks:
[commenting on Ross's clothing] Lovely blouse. Rare to see single-ply silk with that texture. Must feel very nice. Italian weave.

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
Chinese.

Judge Nathan Marks:
Ah, they're improving.

Judge Nathan Marks:
Miss Ross, when you leave a man's apartment at 8 o'clock in the morning, did you just drop in for a coffee and a sweet roll?

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
Am I a defense witness, judge?

Judge Nathan Marks:
You're an officer of the court, aiding in our search for the truth. You sample a man's hospitality once. Are you likely to return to sample it again soon?

Jack McCoy:
Your Honor, this is not appropriate.

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
If I left at 8 am, I wasn't too impressed. I don't think I'd be rushing back.

Judge Nathan Marks:
Can't argue with that.

Jack McCoy:
I thought he was going to ask your favorite sexual positions next.

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
I grew up with four brothers. Marks is an amateur.

Jack McCoy:
You don't mind that kind of thing?

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
Would you rather he'd ruled against us?

Jack McCoy:
Guess I'll have to unlearn some of my sensitivity training. If we have another hearing, you'll model silk for him again?

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
Trust me, he would have been just as big a fan of rayon.

Judge Nathan Marks:
[after Ross arrives late in court] Ah Miss Ross, how nice of you to join us. I gather you stayed later than 8 am this morning. Was the gentleman more... impressive today?

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
Your honor, I've been very busy.

Judge Nathan Marks:
What I'm suggesting.

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
On a matter of business for this court.

Judge Nathan Marks:
Oh, and I thought our business was here. Whatever kind of romp you've been up to...

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
...is relevant to this case, if you'd stop focusing on my sex life.

Judge Nathan Marks:
You're in contempt. I want a check for 200 dollars.

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
[shouting] If you try to fine me!

Jack McCoy:
[aside to Ross] Not now. [pause] Approach, your honor?

Judge Nathan Marks:
If she brings her checkbook.

Jack McCoy:
[aside to Ross] Pretend he's your brother.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
[visiting McCoy in jail] I understand you were in contempt.

Jack McCoy:
Just a little. Are you going to get the transcript to the chief administrative judge?

D.A. Adam Schiff:
I'm going to see Judge Marks first about bail.

Jack McCoy:
I'm OK. But if you go, wear silk.

Lucy Sullivan:
My sister's life, Mr McCoy? My sister lived in Terre Haute, Indiana. She stapled papers in an insurance office. My sister didn't have a life.

Jack McCoy:
With all due respect, Your Honor, when you change the rules of the game in the middle of a trial, there ought to be at least the appearance of impartiality

Judge Nathan Marks:
Officer, place Mr McCoy under arrest for contempt of court!

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Have you read the sexual harassment guidelines?

Judge Nathan Marks:
I wrote them, remember?

Jack Maslin:
I do a lot of models. [pause] . Their taxes! I got one from the Mason Agency, and she told her friends. Not a lot of CPAs know when mascara is allowable as a business expense.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
You know who's who now?

A.D.A. Jamie Ross:
Yes.

D.A. Adam Schiff:
This is Joanne Sullivan you've got there in Rikers?

Jack McCoy:
Who else could it be?

D.A. Adam Schiff:
Please don't ask.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
Do you know what a Pyrrhic victory is, Mr Jackson?

Lonnie Jackson:
I'm not really sure.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
That's when you win but you really lose. Like this hearing: if I win, I get to say that you're competent, in which case, I get to go into another courtroom and try to prove that you did something I know you did, but at the same time I can't prove.

Lonnie Jackson:
So why don't we just call it a day?

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
It's what they call going through the motions, it's what I get paid for. So will you bear with me?

Lonnie Jackson:
Sure.

A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn:
[looking from Vanessa, as she walks away, to Jack] Am I missing something here?

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
Inevitable discovery.

A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn:
That's not what I meant.

Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy:
No, but it's how we get the gun back in.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[holding Maria's baby while she's out of the room] Just like riding a bike.

Detective Ed Green:
Yeah well I think you're riding too hard, he's starting to drool.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

Detective Ed Green:
If you're thinking 'why does this baby have blue eyes?' then yeah.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
You had something sent to the DNA lab?

Detective Ed Green:
Yeah, Maria's baby got up close and personal with Lennie's jacket. [Lennie opens his coat and shows he's just wearing a shirt]

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Did her name happen to be Maria?

Bartender:
Aren't they all?

A.D.A. Josh Lethem:
So... there it is. some of us were wondering how long it'd take the real Jack McCoy to rear his shaggy, hippy liberal head. You know, when Arthur left the Attorney General told me he wanted me sitting in that chair.

D.A. Jack McCoy:
And the mayor wanted somebody else... But I was the guy next in line for the job. This way, everybody's hands are clean... And I dont have to grind anybody's axe.

A.D.A. Josh Lethem:
Except your own.

D.A. Jack McCoy:
Josh, I think you've said enough.

A.D.A. Josh Lethem:
It's too much power for you, Jack. You can't be trusted.

D.A. Jack McCoy:
If you really believe that you shouldn't be working for me. You can resign or I can fire you. Either way, clean out your desk tonight. You're done here.

D.A. Jack McCoy:
Now I know why Adam Schiff was so grumpy.

D.A. Jack McCoy:
What an idiot! Where did I get the idea I could do this job without the politics and stay above the fray?

Detective Nina Cassady:
You blew a .13. You've been placed under arrest for DWI.

Mitch Carroll:
Screw you, sugar tits! I have powerful friends who will crucify you and your people for even putting your hands on me! Can you hear that, behind the mirror?

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
[watching a suspect rant] Does he know he has a right to remain silent?

Detective Ed Green:
I Mirandized him myself.

Executive A.D.A. Ben Stone:
I didn't hear you knock.

Shambala Green:
That's because I didn't. If I'd have knocked, you would have heard me.

Detective Ed Green:
Borgia missed her hearings this morning. They sent an officer, and he found the door cracked.

Detective Joe Fontana:
Last time anybody saw her was last night about ten o'clock.

Detective Ed Green:
Obviously, her bag's still here. Her cell phone was over here.

Lt. Anita Van Buren:
Hell of a struggle from the looks of it.

Detective Joe Fontana:
Yeah, we think they forced their way in.

Ms. Milford:
I doubt you've handled an arraignment in twenty years, Mr. McCoy.

Jack McCoy:
I used to have an assistant who did that.

Ms. Milford:
We both know that's what these trumped-up charges are about.

Jack McCoy:
Yes and no, Ms. Milford. Your client's friends killed Alexandra Borgia, but I can connect him to the Dyckman Street case as sure as I'm standing here.

Ms. Milford:
So let's cut the BS. Who do you want more?

Jack McCoy:
Do I really need to answer that?

Peter Nicodos:
But I'm innocent. I didn't kill anybody.

ADA Jack McCoy:
You've already learned the Rikers Island theme song. Good for you.

Adam Schiff:
You got around double jeopardy. You climbed Everest in your shorts. On a very cold day.

Prof. Norman Rothenberg:
What part of double jeopardy don't you understand?

Jack McCoy:
I'm well acquainted with it Mr. Rothenberg, and it doesn't scare me.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[watching an old deposition of the victim's] Remind me to borrow this next time I can't sleep.

D.A. Nora Lewin:
Why do you always believe the worst in people, Jack?

Jack McCoy:
Who, me?

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
Spend a few more years in this place, you'll be right there with us.

D.A. Nora Lewin:
I'd like to think I can do this job without becoming a cynic.

Jack McCoy:
I'm not a cynic. I get up every morning hoping to find an honest man.

Detective Mike Logan:
I have a little niece who's retarded, you ask her in the wrong tone to clear the table and she's Frisbeeing the plates.

James Lee Pawl:
[being arrested] Probable cause, you don't have any probable cause.

Detective Mike Logan:
You're under arrest because you're probably guilty.

Detective Mike Logan:
[taking pill bottles out of Pawl's coat] What is this?

James Lee Pawl:
For headaches.

Detective Mike Logan:
Lot of headaches for a pinhead.

Executive A.D.A. Michael Cutter:
Little Orphan Annie doesn't have anything on you, Ms. Kim.

Detective Kevin Bernard:
I see where this is heading, Lupes. Next thing she'll be friending you on Facebook.

Detective Cyrus Lupo:
[chuckles/scoffs]

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
[investigating the scene of a crime] Gate's always open.

Detective Ed Green:
And let me guess, nobody saw or heard anything.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
You're good.

Detective Ed Green:
[reading the victim's ID] This guy's a lawyer.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Hm, I'll be in mourning for the next five minutes.

Gerald Fox:
Sometimes the facts get in the way of the story.

Detective Rey Curtis:
Tell that to Johnny Franchetta.

Jack McCoy:
Andrew Hampton accepted our offer. Attempted man one, 6 to 12 years in jail.

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
HOPEFULLY his sister will be joining him.

Jack McCoy:
[surprised by Carmichael's lack of confidence in a conviction] You don't think he can convince a jury Nicole put him up to it?

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
I think she'll toss her hair back a few times and convince them she didn't.

Jack McCoy:
Very cynical, Abbie. [starts to leave]

A.D.A. Abbie Carmichael:
Or if that doesn't work, she could always give an interview to the Ledger. [Carmichael tosses a front-page newspaper article on the table. Cut to intertitle: "Andrew Hampton is currently serving his sentence in the Clinton Correctional Facility. After trial on the charge of shooting Gerald Fox, Nicole Hampton was acquitted". Cut to closing credits] .

Wyatt Scofield:
Admissions makes teaching kindergarten look like a day at the beach. The parents can be... Rather zealous, can we say, in pursuit of their goals.

Jack McCoy:
All those impressionable young minds that you molded over the years. Minds that went on to Princeton, Harvard, Yale, and law school, medical school, or Wall Street. And they got to pay twenty thousand dollars a year to send their kids to kindergarten. Don't you think it's ironic that they owe it all to a man who couldn't even afford to purchase his own apartment? Maybe there were just too busy winking and nodding and shaking the hands of friends of friends to worry about the man behind the men. Or, on the other hand, perhaps they just looked at you as someone who worked for them, the way you looked at Deborah Landon.

Wyatt Scofield:
That school would be nothing without me.

Jack McCoy:
And they owe you.

Wyatt Scofield:
[shouting] Yes! [quietly, after long pause] Yes.

Jack McCoy:
Scofield has been standing over the oven for twenty-five years. He thought it was about time he got a taste of the pie.

A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn:
Now Scofield's out and Anchin's in: that's going to be a hard pill for the parents of the Knowles School to swallow.

D.A. Arthur Branch:
Oh, they'll get over it, once they forget about where his money came from.

Jack McCoy:
It's the American way: yesterday's robber baron is tomorrow's philanthropist.

A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn:
What you're really trying to say is cash trumps merit every time...

D.A. Arthur Branch:
...and twice on Sundays!

Detective Ed Green:
Mrs Wagner, we need to know where you were on Sunday night.

Clarissa Wagner:
Uh, my husband and I were looking for a house in Greenwich. Well, no point in staying in the city humiliated.

Detective Ed Green:
Humiliated?

Clarissa Wagner:
Now everybody knows that Chloe didn't get into Knowles, so we have to go someplace else and start over. It's a shame, because we'd just finished putting Botticelli's Primavera on our bedroom ceiling.

Clarissa Wagner:
For months we worked like maniacs to get Chloe into Knowles. Extra tutors, the interviews, the tests...

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Sounds like a lot of stress.

Clarissa Wagner:
Valium helps.

Detective Lennie Briscoe:
Not on you; on your daughter.