Law & Order (TV Series)

Vendetta (2004)

Elisabeth Röhm: ADA Serena Southerlyn

Quotes 

• Serena Southerlyn : Judge Hinkle didn't think twice about remanding Grimes.

  Jack McCoy : After holding a woman hostage, I should hope not.

• Jack McCoy : I don't think Mr. Grimes is eligible for the Exoneration Project's services this time, Mr. Fallon.

  Rodney Fallon : Well, I don't see why he wouldn't be. Walter is innocent.

  Jack McCoy : Then can he explain his fingerprints on the murder weapon and the eyewitnesses at the bar?

  Serena Southerlyn : Or his behavior when he saw two NYPD detectives? Taking a hostage isn't exactly consistent with innocence.

  Rodney Fallon : Well, that depends on how you define innocence.

• Jack McCoy : I define an innocent person as someone who didn't commit the crime.

  Rodney Fallon : Or someone whom the law recognizes should not be held responsible for his actions. A defendant can't be convicted if he didn't act with mens rea - criminal intent.

  Serena Southerlyn : He brained a man with a liquor bottle.

  Rodney Fallon : Walter Grimes was convicted of a crime he didn't commit. If he hadn't gone to prison for twenty years, as an innocent man, he never would have attacked Brendan Donner.

  Serena Southerlyn : What are you saying? Prison made him do it?

  Rodney Fallon : It certainly changed him. Profoundly. He absolutely wasn't the same man when he came out.

  Jack McCoy : I'm sorry the system failed you, Mr. Grimes, but a wrongful conviction does not earn anyone a free pass on murder.

• Judge Antonia Mellon : You're moving to preclude this defense, Mr. McCoy?

  Jack McCoy : Your Honor, it's ridiculous. Under Mr. Fallon's theory, every ex-con would have a dense for murder.

  Rodney Fallon : But we're not talking about men who were criminals before going to prison. We're talking about a man who was completely innocent before being sent to Green Haven, and was profoundly and irrevocably changed, and not for the better by the experience.

  Serena Southerlyn : And prison erased his sense of right and wrong?

  Rodney Fallon : In a manner of speaking, yes. It maimed him. It dehumanized him. It replaced traditional notions of right and wrong with a "kill or be killed" reflex that led, tragically, to Brendan Donner's death.

  Jack McCoy : That doesn't meet the New York standard, Your Hononr. Either Mr. Grimes didn't know what was doing was wrong or he didn't understand the nature of his behavior. Simply reacting to a perceived threat because he thought he was in a hostile environment doesn't cut it.

  Serena Southerlyn : He wasn't in prison. He was in a bar, Your Honor. He completely overreacted.

  Rodney Fallon : Exactly. Walter Grimes completely overreacted because of how his prison experience shaped him.

  Judge Antonia Mellon : You have an expert who'll back your theory, Mr. Fallon?

  Rodney Fallon : I've got five of them, Your Honor.

  Judge Antonia Mellon : Fax their C.V.s over to me. If they're credible, I'm inclined to let this go to a jury.

• Serena Southerlyn : You don't think that there might be something to Grimes' defense?

  Arthur Branch : People adapt to their environment in or out of prison. He knew where he was and how he was supposed to act.

  Jack McCoy : How do we know he wasn't a bad apple before rotting in prison for twenty years? Fallon's already conceded this defense only applies if Grimes was a law-abiding citizen before being shipped off to Green Haven.

  Serena Southerlyn : Leanne Testa's murder was his first arrest.

  Jack McCoy : How old was he at that time?

  Serena Southerlyn : Nineteen.

  Jack McCoy : If he had committed any prior crimes, they might have been as a juvenile.

  Serena Southerlyn : And those records would be sealed.

  Arthur Branch : I'm sure that under the circumstances, you could convince a judge to unseal those records. If there are any.

• Judge Michael Schneider : What prosecutor wouldn't love a peek at a defendant's juvie record? But if I unsealed it in every case, the seal would have no meaning.

  Serena Southerlyn : This isn't a typical case. Mr. Grimes' defense puts his juvenile record directly at issue. He claims he had no criminal tendencies before he went to prison.

  Judge Michael Schneider : So you want to look at his juvenile record, assuming that he has one, to determine if that's true.

  [Serena nods] 

  Judge Michael Schneider : I'll tell you what. I'll review the file in camera. If I find anything relevant, I'll make it avaible to you. Agreed?

  Serena Southerlyn : Thank you, Your Honor.

• Serena Southerlyn : Jackpot. Grimes fits the textbook definition of a bad seed. Arrests for school ground assault, menacing, auto stripping, possession of stolen property.

  Jack McCoy : But no convictions.

  Serena Southerlyn : The system kept cutting him loose. The closest he ever came was a liquor store robbery when he was fifteen.

  Jack McCoy : He threatened the owner with a gun. Why did the ADA kick it?

  Serena Southerlyn : I don't know. But it makes one thing pretty clear. Even if Grimes didn't kill Leanne Testa...

  Jack McCoy : He was hardly an innocent man.

• Bob : Sure I remember. Guy sticks a gun in my face, I'm gonna forget that?

  Serena Southerlyn : According to his juvenile records, the police arrested a young man named Walter Grimes.

  Bob : You're talking about that white kid, right?

  Serena Southerlyn : He would have been about fifteen at the time.

  Bob : He didn't do it. As far as I know, they never caught the kid that did.

  Serena Southerlyn : But the police arrested him.

  Bob : I told the officer... Daniels; his name was Daniels. I told Daniels the little pachuco who held me up was Hispanic. Daniels didn't believe me. But I saw what I saw.

  Serena Southerlyn : Are you sure?

  Bob : Sure I'm sure.

  Serena Southerlyn : How come Officer Daniels didn't believe you? How come he arrested Walter Grimes?

  Bob : You're gonna have to ask him.

• Kenneth Daniels : You're talking about a case that was, like, twenty-five years ago.

  Serena Southerlyn : I know cops who remember every suspect they ever interrogated.

  Kenneth Daniels : Walter Grimes?

  Serena Southerlyn : Yeah, that's right.

  Kenneth Daniels : Real punk. Absolute white trash. Is this about that guy he killed in a bar?

  Serena Southerlyn : That's right.

  Kenneth Daniels : [chuckle]  See, that's what you get when you let a guy like Grimes loose on society.

  Serena Southerlyn : He was exonerated.

  Kenneth Daniels : Whatever.

  Serena Southerlyn : I'm looking into all of his priors. If Grimes did this liquor store robbery, it would actually help the case that we're prosecuting. But the store owner says that he didn't.

  Kenneth Daniels : What can I tell you? The old guy was wrong.

  Serena Southerlyn : But Grimes is white. The store owner said that the robber was Latino.

  Kenneth Daniels : Look, the old man was so scared he pissed himself. All he saw was the gun, if that. Grimes is the guy who held him up. I have no doubt.

  Serena Southerlyn : Except your gut isn't admissible, Detective.

  Kenneth Daniels : Which is why the DA kicked the robbery charge. Grimes did it. And it wasn't his first stickup, either. That kid was born to go to jail. Have a good day.

• Jack McCoy : So we know Grimes wasn't the choir boy his lawyer's been saying he was, but we can't prove it?

  Serena Southerlyn : That's what it looks like.

  Jack McCoy : What about the knife? The one found at Grimes' apartment.

  Serena Southerlyn : DNA confirmed that the blood on it wasn't Leanne Testa's.

  Jack McCoy : But it was someone's. Let's see if we can find out whose.

  Serena Southerlyn : I'll have Briscoe and Green contact the primary on the Testa case.

• Serena Southerlyn : At least he didn't frame an innocent man.

  Jack McCoy : No, he framed a guilty one.

  Serena Southerlyn : The way he sees it, he kept Grimes from falling through the cracks in the system.

  Arthur Branch : Well, somebody should tell him not to do the system any more favors. Regardless of his motivation, this is the worst kind of police misconduct. Now, any appeleate court would find that this shocks the conscience, and so should we.

  Jack McCoy : Agreed. But he's all we've got.

  Arthur Branch : Where's this lieutenant of his now?

  Serena Southerlyn : In the cemetery. He died of a heart attack six years ago.

  Arthur Branch : So no one but Daniels can say that Grimes killed Julie Sayer.

  Jack McCoy : No, but if we could prove he did, Fallon's defense strategy on the Donner murder goes out the window.

  Serena Southerlyn : Grimes was a murderer before he was ever shipped off to Green Haven.

  Arthur Branch : All right. Go try him on the Sayer murder first.

  Serena Southerlyn : Only Grimes' confession is no more admissible today than it was twenty years ago.

  Jack McCoy : But today, DNA analysis will confirm that the blood on the knife is Julie Sayer's.

• Rodney Fallon : The knife was planted in my client's apartment.

  Jack McCoy : By a police officer. The chain of custody remained intact.

  Rodney Fallon : This is outrageous. I can't believe you can stand there and say that to me with a straight face. You're forgetting how that officer found the knife in the storm drain in the first place.

  Serena Southerlyn : Your client told him where it was.

  Rodney Fallon : He beat it out of him! An improperly obtained confession. The knife is poisonous fruit.

  Serena Southerlyn : You're assuming that the police wouldn't have found it without Grimes' confession.

  Rodney Fallon : They canvassed all over the city. They would have never found it, and you know it.

  Jack McCoy : Let's see what a judge thinks. In the meantime, consider this your notice of our lab work.

  Serena Southerlyn : We exhumed her body and extracted DNA from her bones. The blood on the knife was Julie Sayer's.

  Jack McCoy : DNA is a double-edged sword, counselor.

  Rodney Fallon : DNA is persuasive. Only if it's admissible.

  [handing Jack a blueback] 

  Rodney Fallon : My motion to suppress the knife.

• Rodney Fallon : First the People concede that Detective Daniels, who was then Officer Daniels, questioned my client without counsel present in clear violation of his Sixth Amendment rights. And then they concede he assaulted my client to obtain a confession in violation of his Fifth Amendment rights, used that illegal confession to seize the knife in violation of my client's Fourth Amendment rights. And as if that wasn't enough, they freely admit he then planted the knife to frame my client for a crime he didn't commit, in violation of, at the very least, his Fourteenth Amendment rights. Are there any amendments the People *haven't* violated? And now, in what has to be the single greatest demonstration of legal chutzpah in the history of jurisprudence, he contends the knife shouldn't be suppresed.

  Judge Antonia Mellon : Mr. McCoy, is this true?

  Jack McCoy : Every word, Your Honor.

  Judge Antonia Mellon : Then how can you argue in support of the knife's admission?

  Jack McCoy : Because of the inevitable discovery doctrine. The knife is admissible if the police would have eventually discovered it without the impropriety.

  Rodney Fallon : Well, how is that possible? They only found the knife because Officer Daniels planted it in my client's home.

  Serena Southerlyn : You said it yourself. The police canvassed the area where the knife was originally hidden.

  Jack McCoy : I have an affidavit from Detective Johnson, the primary on the case, who searched the storm drain where Grimes had hidden the knife.

  Judge Antonia Mellon : But it wasn't there to be found.

  Jack McCoy : Because Officer Daniels had already removed it. Under inevitable discovery, the issue is what would have happened but for Officer Daniels' wrongful conduct?

  Judge Antonia Mellon : The knife would have been in that storm drain for Detective Johnson to find.

  Jack McCoy : Exactly.

  Rodney Fallon : Oh, this is outrageous. You're basically saying that Daniels' illegal conduct makes the knife admissible.

  Jack McCoy : It isn't that I don't see the irony, but the evidence is admissible.

  Judge Antonia Mellon : He's got you, Mr. Fallon. Look, Mr. Grimes' confession remains inadmissible, but the knife comes in.

• Arthur Branch : Don't pop those champagne corks yet. No amount of fancy footwork is gonna change the fact that your sponsoring witness is Kenny Daniels.

  Jack McCoy : I hate using him, but what choice do we have?

  Serena Southerlyn : A cop who admits he framed a guilty man for another crime which he didn't commit.

  Jack McCoy : In service of the greater good.

  Arthur Branch : Well, that's what you'll tell the jury. What Fallon will tell them is that Daniels is a vigilante with an ax to grind.

  Jack McCoy : Which is exactly what we need to prepare him for.

• Kenneth Daniels : If I hadn't done what I did, Grimes was gonna walk. Why are you making me out to be the bad guy?

  Jack McCoy : Because you crossed the line, detective. And because that's what Rodney Fallon will do when you take the stand.

  Kenneth Daniels : He's not the first shyster I've taken on. I can handle him.

  Serena Southerlyn : Let's hope he's the only one whose client's been framed by you.

  Kenneth Daniels : Okay. I deserve that.

• Jack McCoy : Is he right?

  Serena Southerlyn : About the DNA?

  Jack McCoy : About the search. Fallon just said the police looked high and low for the knife.

  Serena Southerlyn : That's right.

  Jack McCoy : Let's get the case's primary on the phone.

• Kenneth Daniels : Grimes killed Julie Sayer. He admitted it. And because I screwed up, he was gonna walk. That's a mistake I couldn't live with, and I'm not gonna apologize for fixing it!

  Serena Southerlyn : If you don't, he may walk on Julie's murder a second time.

  Jack McCoy : If the jury sees you as some kind of a vigilante with no qualms about framing someone or planting evidence, they won't listen to a word you say!