A Law & Order Episode in the Making
Ever wonder where Law & Order episodes come from? If you’ve ever watched the show, you know that they often scrape the headlines, sometimes mix-and-match style, throw in a homicide, and set Jack McCoy and the Good Cop/Bad Cop on the case. So when I was reading this article about the drug raid on the home of a Maryland mayor, I couldn’t help wondering how long it will be until we see the episode on this one. Except for the lack of a murder - easily written in by even a semi-accomplished screenwriter - this one seems to be cake-in-a-box for prime time television.
And now, here are the plot points of my imaginary episode. Determining which are real and which are fake is left as an exercise to the reader.
- A small-town mayor is suspected of having a lot of drugs.
- The jurisdiction of the police is fuzzy, overlapping with several neighboring towns.
- The police are issued a warrant.
- The police execute the warrant, knocking down the door, shooting two dogs, and discovering an unopened package containing 32 pounds of marijuana.
- While recovering the body of one of the dogs, which escaped out back, the police also discover a dead body in the back yard. It is identified as a big-city lawyer with 2.5 kids all in an expensive prep school.
- The police uncover an elaborate plot involving the mayor, the dead lawyer and a big-city drug dealer to use the mayor’s house as an exchange location. Police arrest the drug dealer.
- It turns out that the warrant was a standard search warrant, and not for a no-knock warrant, thus making the search illegal. The mayor’s attorney gets the drug charges (32 pounds!!) thrown out, and the murder rap is also teetering, and Jack McCoy the district attorney gets to say “fruits of the poison tree” like six times.
- The DA figures out how to put everyone away, using a clever legal tactic and impeccable oratorical skills. Everybody gets 25-to-life, and the DA rubs it in their faces with a semi-smug, semi-stoic head wobble. The end.