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Law & Order: License to Kill (2005)
What is criminal law for?
License to Kill is one of those episodes that scratches that itch only L&O can. The episode is about an interesting ethical question, relevant to criminal law, in which multiple laws and views clash.
A man witnesses a murder and kidnapping and attempts to apprehend the culprit by following him in his car. The good samaritan inadvertently -- though perhaps negligently -- causes the gunman to crash his car into a diner, injuring several people and killing the driver. McCoy decides to fervently prosecute the man who caused the crash, who he perceives to be a fame-seeking vigilante, when the kidnapping victim, a teenage boy, dies due to injuries sustained in the crash.
The episode is an interesting look at the idea of a 'citizen's arrest' and its limits: what is a citizen allowed to do when he or she witnesses a crime and thinks they can help? The crux of the episode really is about mens rea, the state of mind of the guy who tried to stop the gunman from fleeing and kidnapping a teenage boy. McCoy clearly thinks the man was more concerned with his own heroism than the safety of the public, but I don't think he made his case. While the man tried to call 911 and report the crime, according to McCoy, this was not enough. He should have aborted the chase and sought help instead.
Not only do I disagree with McCoy in his immediate jump to "vigilantism", since the man witnessed a crime being perpetrated and was therefore legally allowed to detain him, I also don't buy his belief that the man was simply out for heroism. He tried to inform the authorities which didn't work and there is no way to deduce from the facts of the case that the man ignored opportunities to inform the police. It might well be true, but there is no way to read the man's thoughts, so he may well have thought his course of action was the best and only way to rescue the kidnapped boy. The fact that it all ended in tragedy is unfortunate, but no different to when the police inadvertently harms a member of the public during the chase or apprehension of a criminal. The only crime our good samaritan was guilty of is leaving the scene of an accident.
So definitely an interesting episode, plenty of food for thought.
Law & Order: Mad Dog (1997)
Mad dogs get put down
One of those episodes that gets the ethical noggin' joggin'. This episode is centered around something I've been slightly miffed about in general about L&O; the over-zealousness of DA McCoy. I'm sure his passion and courtroom antics are appreciated by most viewers, as it makes for more excitement, but I prefer Stone, who was a bit more measured and subtle while still being capable of turning it up a notch when necessary.
In any case, McCoy gets involved in a rather vicious witch hunt against Burt Young, a convicted rapist, six times over, who is released on probation but seems to have raped and murdered another young girl right afterwards. The episode plays with whether McCoy's actions are justifiable or harmful, and leaves us with a certain degree of ambiguity, which is nice, but the real moral point of the episode should have been a different one, in my opinion.
McCoy's actions here are certainly dubious, but the real and obvious wrong displayed in this episode is letting a convicted serial rapist back into society. The concepts of rehabilitation and reform are marvelous, but in the case of someone who has been convicted of six rapes - or similarly devious crimes - you just can't take the risk because even the threat of having someone like that out on the streets can have grave consequences, as is shown in the episode. Like the episode title alludes to; mad dogs should get put down - which in this case can also be interpreted as life imprisonment.
Law & Order: Volunteers (1993)
The state's responsibility
What really grinds my gears about this episode is a particular line Michael Moriarty delivers: "the law does not say you can murder a man because the state won't do anything about him."
I mean sure, he's technically correct, but if we look at what that means it's an incredibly hypocritical statement to make. The whole point of the state, the social contract, is to provide security. To maintain law and order. Not only is it the name of the show, it's the main (if not the only) task of the government. If the state can't guarantee a reasonable standard of security, what else can citizens do but secure it for themselves?
So yes, beating someone half to death for stealing a grocery bag is excessive, but it can't be overlooked that the state itself is a very large part of the problem in this case and its negligence comes close to justification. It's ironic that the episode casually mentions that "the system" is to blame for what occurred here when all of our protagonists are part of that same system, yet nobody seems to point the finger at themselves.