"Law & Order": Great Episodes, pt. III Quiz

Answer: The judge will not admit evidence of prior bad acts, even though they fit a pattern of abuse.

A previous victim is located, and Stone tries to have her testimony admitted under an exception to the rule that prior bad acts are not admissible, because the attack on her is so similar to the attack on Paige Bartlett, but the judge rules that it is not similar enough.

This case is based on the Robert Chambers "Preppie murder" case. In 1986, Robert Chambers strangled Jennifer Levin and left her half-naked body in New York's Central Park. When he was eventually arrested, he claimed she died accidentally during rough sex. Later, he pled guilty to manslaughter, and served 15 years. He was released in February 2003. Dick Wolf, the creator of the "Law & Order" franchise, said this case influenced the creation of the spin-off, "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit."

There is a "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" episode that is also based, albeit, more loosely, on the Robert Chambers-Jennifer Levin case.

Answer: The criminal who shot the officer told them he saw a patrol car parked around the corner.

At first, Schiff and Stone think there must be corruption in the precinct, and this is why the other officers wanted to get rid of the officer who died. They do not realize he is gay until they assign Briscoe and Logan to investigate the case, and they go to the dead officer's apartment.

This episode was filmed in 1993, when discrimination against gay people was still acceptable in many parts of society. The skillfully written script puts the audience in the shoes of the gay officer who was left to die, and another gay officer in the same precinct, who must continue to wonder if he is marked as the next to die.

The script was nominated for an Emmy for author Robert Nathan, though he credits Michael Moriarty (Ben Stone) with the powerful closing argument. Moriarty suggested an argument grounded in Martin Niemöller's famous "First they came...." summation of life under the Nazis.

"Manhood" won the 1993 GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) Media Award for Outstanding Dramatic Television Episode.

Answer: 3

The couple had two other biological children, Daniel and Caroline, in addition to Emily, the one reported kidnapped, and then found buried in a cooler. The mother was later discovered to be pregnant again.

The script was inspired by the number of stories in the news recently about a condition called Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy, in which a parent deliberately makes a healthy child ill, sometimes eventually killing the child, just for the attention.

There was, however, a real case with eerie similarities, of a woman who is considered a serial killer, for killing a series of her own infants in what were originally ruled SIDS cases. Marie Noe killed her children between 1949 and 1968, but was not investigated and charged until the 1990s. In June 1999, she was convicted of murdering eight of her children. Two children died of natural causes that were not sudden deaths of healthy, normally developing infants. Noe pleaded guilty to eight counts of second-degree murder, and was sentenced to twenty years' probation after agreeing to participate in a psychiatric study. At the time of her conviction, Noe was 69, and her husband Arthur was 76. Noe's series of murders had ended many years earlier, when complications during the birth of her last child resulted in a hysterectomy for Noe.

In 1963 "Life" magazine had published an article on the Noes, using pseudonyms for the couple. This was after they had lost six children. The article was compassionate in its approach, about the tragic couple who had lost so many babies.

In the episode "Precious," McCoy demands that, as a condition of a reduced sentence, the mother in the case (who is actually the one who killed the children) agrees to be sterilized. In doing so, McCoy steps delicately around a Supreme Court ruling from the 1940s called Skinner v. Oklahoma, under which compulsory sterilization is unconstitutional if it treats different crimes differently. For this reason McCoy says the case is in a class by itself.

The Marie Noe conviction came later than the episode "Precious," but the writers of the episode may have known of the case anyway, and drawn from it, albeit only as a case of a woman who lost a number of children under suspicious circumstances. She had not been labeled a "serial killer" yet.

Answer: a junkie who uses the discarded needle

A junkie picks up the needle and sells it to his friend, who has been trying to keep clean.

This episode has a number of "Law & Order" familiar faces: the junkie's girlfriend is played by Penny Balfour, an actress who has appeared in all three major L&O franchises, as has the child's mother, J. Smith-Cameron. Dylan Baker, the child's father, appeared five times on "L&O," and once on "Criminal Intent."

This case is based on the case of Brian Stewart, a phlebotomist who injected his son with HIV, in order to avoid paying child support, he said. He was convicted in 1998 of the 1992 crime. He became parole-eligible in 2011.

Answer: She signed a contract at the hospital, promising to breastfeed exclusively.

The mother has signed a contract at the hospital, promising to breastfeed exclusively. New York City had recently begun a campaign to encourage new mothers to breastfeed, and New York City hospitals had stopped sending mothers home with formula samples, as had been the practice for more than three generations. Women were not actually being required in any sense to breastfeed, but the tenor of this episode reflected the change in thinking in the city, where even just a few years previously, breastfeeding mothers had been the minority.

The mother in this episode was said to have formula in the house, but would not use it, because she signed the contract.

The actor who plays the father is Michael C. Williams, making his first screen appearance since his debut in "The Blair Witch Project" the previous year.

Answer: Drop him off in Harlem from their patrol car.

The officers have detained the teen for marijuana use, at which point, he tells them they should go to Harlem and arrest some real criminals. This angers the officers, who put the teen in their patrol car, and drop him off in Harlem the night there happens to be a riot over the police treatment of a homeless man. Several youths in Harlem see the teen get out of the police car, and assume that he is an informant, or otherwise works for the police, and they attack and beat him to death.

Not questioning the presence of a child in the back of a van that is stopped for speeding is an element of the episode "Bitter Fruit." Child molesters being beaten in prison is an element of many episodes, including some episodes of "Law & Order: SVU," but it is not an element of "Black, White and Blue."

Answer: Det. Green broke off a toothpick in the door lock.

Tim Guinee, the actor who played the suspect, is an actor who has appeared on all three major "Law & Order" franchises, and also appeared in "Law & Order: LA."

Additionally, Penny Balfour, the jury foreman in this episode, has also appeared in all three major franchises.

The second half of this case is ripped, this time, from Canadian headlines: Gillian Guess is a Vancouver woman who was convicted of obstruction of justice for entering into a sexual relationship with the defendant in the murder trial for which she was serving as a juror. This is the basis for the defendant's pursuing the jury forewoman, and trying to charm her into turning the jury toward a not guilty verdict.

Answer: He had heard a murder confession, and was trying to get the confessor to come forward.

Another man was in prison for the crime, so the priest was desperately trying to get the killer to come forward, not only because it was the correct thing for the man to do before receiving absolution, but because the priest wanted the other man to be released from prison.

McCoy tried to get a judge to rule that the priest should reveal the name of the confessor, but not the contents of the confession, because it would solve the murder of the priest, not the crime that was covered by the confession. The diocese opposes McCoy, but the priest considers revealing the name anyway. At the end of the episode, he removes his collar.

"Collar" refers both to the clerical collar the priest wears as a symbol of his office, and to the fact that the police use the word "collar" to refer to making an arrest.

Answer: midazolam, the generic name of the benzodiazepine drug also called Versed

The title literally refers to midazolam, and the Medical Examiner explains to the detectives that it is sometimes referred to by medical personnel as "dazzle." The title also symbolically and non-explicitly refers to the way the young wife has dazzled her new husband, blinding him to his responsibilities to his family, in order to lure him away from his marriage, and the way his first wife is "dazzled" by her alcoholism and drug use, and unable to see what is happening to her children.

This episode seems to have been inspired by the fact that despite remarriages and obvious animus, most children of divorce harbor fantasies that their parents will reunite.

Answer: Serena Southerlyn should conduct his cross examination.

Southerlyn ably conducts the cross-examination, and rattles the suspect for the first time, although the final blow is to have one of his old girlfriends confront him in a private conference, and inform him that she will be called as a witness. This is McCoy's idea.

This case is based on the John Walker Lindh case, a young American citizen who was discovered fighting as an enemy combatant during the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, and taken prisoner. He was convicted on a number of charges; the leading charge was Conspiracy to Murder U.S. Nationals. He was sentenced to 20 years, to be served in the US federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, the same prison where Timothy McVeigh spent time on death row, and was eventually executed.

In the episode "Jihad," the suspect agrees to a plea bargain after learning his former girlfriend will testify (although whether McCoy really plans to put her on the stand, or this is just a threat to force a plea bargain is never clear). He will serve time in a New York prison, as he has not been accused of a federal crime, whatever his intentions.

If McCoy had tried to pack the jury with women, he probably would have been called out on it. Criminal trial lawyers have a certain number of peremptory challenges, or times when they may dismiss a potential juror without giving a reason; however, if there is any cause to suspect the lawyer is dismissing jurors for race, religion, gender or a disability unrelated to ability to serve (and in some jurisdictions, sexual orientation), the peremptory challenges may be called into question.