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Law & Order Season 17 Episode 9

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8.6

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Episode Summary

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AIRED: 11/17/06

Green and Cassady hunt a mass murderer Leon Vorgitch, who recently escaped from prison. The finally corner Vorgitch in a school with a room full of hostages, and before surrendering himself to police, Vorgitch shoots a number of innocent children. His unwillingness to accept a deal infuriates McCoy, as it gives him more time to escape prison again. When the father of one of his victims takes justice into his own hands and ends up being used as a campaign slogan for a local politician, McCoy and Rubirosa try to convince Robert Purcell not to let himself be a scapegoat for a political platform.moreless

Fan Episode Reviews (6)

I would have written a summary, but there is no way to do it in 255 characters or less. This statement alone takes up 133 characters.

5.8

By MetalSandman999, Aug 06, 2010

Warning: Spoiler Of Other Law & Order Episodes:

I liked this episode better the first time I saw it. When it was on Law & Order: Trial By Jury and called “Vigilante.”

I know this isn’t the first time Law & Order has rehashed plotlines, but this one takes the cake. In case you didn’t get my paraphrasing of an old David Spade Joke, I’ll explain:

In “Vigilante”, a man kills a pedophile that was recently paroled and had been trying to contact his young daughter. His lawyer is an activist against sexual predators, and convinces him not to take generous plea deals offered by the District Attorney’s office, assuring him the jury would nullify (sound familiar yet?). Well, since Law & Order would be pretty boring without a twist here and there, Kibre and Gaffney discover that the murder plot was the lawyer’s idea. In the end, they convince the man to accept a plea bargain in exchange for testimony against his lawyer.

Now I know that there are differences in certain details. It was a pedophile, not a sociopathic mass murderer. He was a parolee, not an escapee. There was no attempt to bring back the death penalty. The pedophile hadn’t actually attacked the daughter yet. The guy took the plea deal before he was convicted, not after. Last but not least, it was a spin-off and not actually Law & Order. On the whole however, am I the only one who finds a few too many similarities in this episode? I’ll leave that up to you, but if this becomes a regular occurrence, it will be another sign that the writers have finally run out of good ideas.moreless
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If anything, the police half of the story made for one of the most intense episodes of the series and it was not afraid to go into scary waters.

9.5

By KJMackley, Apr 05, 2007

This episode is unique in that there is no question as to who the killer is, there is no question as to the guilt of the different people, and there are few slow spots.

The teaser with the escape was quick and brutal, Leon is not possibly reformed or even remorseful of his previous actions. I did wonder why there weren't more police escorts around or even where exactly the opening took place. Even if he escaped there should be someone to chase him down. But the entire first half was at a breakneck pace, I'm surprised they didn't have a shoot on site policy. They went from one place to another, threatening various people with aiding a known criminal. In the school house, I was half expecting a few more minutes of intense negotiations, then they were not subtle in having Leon mercilessly kill the kids. You were half-expecting Green to shoot the guy point blank, I was almost prodding him on. The main problem is that the story became about the current dealth penalty, and Robert came with a far-fetched 'just cause' defense, which almost never works in real life, on the show, or here. It did throw a little twist in the story with the D.A. cadidate using it as political advantage instead of an actual defense. The tiredness of the 'unique defense attempts' is what is hurting the show, it is rarely the police investigation, but this episode did have me hooked from the beginning.moreless
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A great episode!

9.0

By LAW-ORDER, Nov 26, 2006

After a serial killer kills two prison guards and escapes, he leads Green and Cassady on a chase to find him before he kills again. Unfortunatly, they find him holding schoolchildren at gunpoint. He kills a diabetic girl, along with other children. Once he is arrested, Jack McCoy pursues the death penalty, but is denied. Now he has to go to trial! This killer taunts Jack by saying that in jail, he gets three meals a day and cable TV. This is a very powerful episode and showed how truly dedicated McCoy is to his job. This episode is ripped from the headlines, after the Amish school shooting a few months ago. Overall, this was a very good Law & Order episode, one of the better ones this season!moreless
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A new twist to the Amish school shooting

7.3

By angelspinknose, Nov 19, 2006

This was a hard to watch episode. I missed the first 15 minutes so I didn't see the cop he killed. The father shooting the killer was predictable. He was so naive as to believe the woman running for office really cared what happened to him. At least she got hers in the end.
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An appeal for the death penalty in New York, with a twist.

9.8

By lupinskitten, Nov 18, 2006

All things considered, this may be one of the finest "Law & Order" episodes ever written. It's intense, gripping, and full of horrific twists throughout. It's so good that it would have been better as a two-parter, allowing the writers to further flesh out the nuances of the plot.

When an inmate on death row escapes, killing two cops in the process, an all out manhunt is launched in New York. Green and Cassidy lead the charge as they track the trail of blood through the seedy underbelly of the big city. Eventually, the felon is discovered in a hospital next door to a children's school, where he takes refuge from the police and holds fifteen children hostage. A truck backfiring causes him to panic and spray the school room with bullets, killing four children and wounding countless others.

The worst of it is that he had no motive to hurt them, and did it just for the heck of it. And a fact that he takes pleasure in rubbing into McCoy's face is that because of the current political climate in New York City, death sentences are nonexistent, leaving him to languish in prison and plan further escapes and resulting murders. Believing this monster will only kill again, McCoy fights to have a special order put in place to reinstate the death penalty for just this inmate, but governmental courts overturn this. The result? The father of one of the dead children takes matters into his own hands.

The question of vigilantes has come up in the past, but never with quite so much impact. The fact remains that when the courts do not uphold justice, there are individuals who will take matters into their own hands. Is it right that a man should be held on trial for murder when he was just doing what the court should have done in the first place? That debate rages through the last half hour of the program, tweaking the audience's emotions. We empathize and even a little part of us agrees that it was almost the right thing to do, shooting a mass-murderer with fifteen deaths under his belt. But our logical, justice-driven side also realizes that when the law fails, you cannot agree to become judge, jury, and executioner on your own. If it was gotten away with, chaos would ensue.

In the end, the episode is an emotionally-charged appeal for the reinstatement of the death penalty, but with a twist: there's a politician in the mix. Given how impacting the episode already was by this point, I'm not sure that was needed (hence my reasoning that it should have been a two-parter). Simplicity is often more memorable than complexity, and we already had enough to chew on without throwing a self-serving lawyer into the mix. Still, throughout, I was riveted.moreless
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Cast & Crew: STARS

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Alana De La Garza	A.D.A. Connie Rubirosa
Fred Dalton Thompson	D.A. Arthur Branch
Jesse L. Martin	Det. Ed Green
Milena Govich	Det. Nina Cassady
S. Epatha Merkerson	Lt. Anita Van Buren
Sam Waterston	Exec. A.D.A. Jack McCoy

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Cast & Crew: RECURRING AND GUESTS

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Keith Eric Chappelle	Gavin Edlund	Guest Star
Myk Watford	Detective Hannigan	Guest Star
Eden Espinosa	Mia Alvarez	Guest Star
Cynthia Darlow	Delores Vorgitch	Recurring Role
Patricia R. Floyd	Judge Rochelle Desmond	Recurring Role

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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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TRIVIA (0)
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QUOTES (8)
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- Robert Purcell: I did exactly what you were trying to do. Everyone agreed he should die.
  Jack McCoy: I was seeking to have Vorgitch legally executed.
  Robert Purcell: And I executed him. How can you come after me for that?
  Jack McCoy: Because New York doesn't have a "Do it yourself" death penalty, Mr. Purcell.
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- Judge Albert Bryce: How do you plead, Mr...
  Leon Vorgitch: Kiss my ass, that's how I plead.
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- Jack McCoy: I was seeking to have Vorgitch legally executed.
  Robert Purcell: And I executed him.
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- Arthur Branch: It didn't take Dena Carter long to make political hay.
  Connie Rubirosa: While she's out campaigning for the death penalty, what are we supposed to do without it?
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- Nina Cassady: You're on parole, right? Sheet says you're a meth head.
  Pedro: Recovered meth head!
  (Nina Cassady finds meth in his pocket)
  Nina Cassady: Oh, I guess recovery's not going so hot.
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- Jack McCoy (to Robert Purcell): You weren't a client, you were a campaign slogan.
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- (Leon Vorgitch shoots four girls and then drops the gun before the police enter the room. Det. Green enters and points his gun at Vorgitch's heart.)
  Leon Vorgitch: You can't shoot me. I'm unarmed.
  Ed Green: Why'd you have to shoot them?
  Leon Vorgitch: Why not?
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- Dena Carter: My client believes that shooting Vorgitch was the right thing to do, and if you agree, why are you charging him? And if not, that's a valid defense.
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NOTES (1)
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- Special billing was given to Catherine Dent (and) in this episode.
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ALLUSIONS (1)
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- This episode appears to be ripped from the headlines of the Charles Carl Roberts IV / Amish schoolgirl tragedy. In October of 2006, Roberts walked into a one-room Amish schoolhouse, taking ten female students hostage and releasing everyone else. Shortly after, Roberts shot the girls and then himself. Five girls and Roberts died. Other parts of this episode appear to be ripped from the headlines of the 2000 Wendy's massacre in New York, in which John Taylor, a former employee, and his accomplice Craig Godineaux took seven people hostage, leaving two alive (this case was mentioned on-air by McCoy). Taylor was sentenced to death, but as of November 2006, is still waiting on death row. Update: On November 29, 2007 John Taylor was sentenced to life without parole for the five murders, as the prosecutor's office had been unsuccessful in having his case declared an exception to a 2004 Appeals Court's decision that found New York's death penalty law unconstitutional because of a flaw in its mandated instructions to the jury.
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