History Recap / LawAndOrderS14E1Bodies

* KickThe Dog:

** Also defied by Bruner's first attorney, Jessica Sheets. She's defended some downright horrible clients, but always does her job as best she can. Bruner ''terrifies'' her to the point that she immediately begins taking action to get herself removed from the case, correctly pointing out to the prosecutors that she can't defend someone she's that scared of. It's also all but stated that Bruner threatened her life, but the ''reason'' it's all but stated is that Sheets refuses to state it herself because she doesn't want to break privilege.

* EveryoneHasStandards: Jessica Sheets gets assigned some downright horrific cases through legal aid, up to and including an eleven-year-old child who decapitated his mother for no apparent reason, and gives every single case the best defense she possibly can because that's her job. Even she flat-out refuses to defend Mark Bruner; she desperately tries to get the prosecution to plead his case out, and when they refuse she cuts to the point and more or less begs them not to oppose her motion to be recused.

* SerialKiller: Mark Bruner has raped and strangled at least 17 teenage girls.

* AmoralAttorney: Played with. Schwimmer isn't evil, but his sense of duty to his client goes way beyond the point of reason. To wit, Bruner gleefully sold him out to the prosecution and Schwimmer ''still'' feels protecting his secret is worth going to prison over. He tries in vain to convince the jury he is the good guy, but is convicted on all counts.

** Subverted with Jessica Sheets, the attorney on the case before Schwimmer. She basically defends the scum of the earth for a living, but even she's terrified of Mark Bruner, to the point that she motions to recuse herself when it becomes clear that the prosecutors won't plead him out.

* HalfwayPlotSwitch: Starts as a search for a missing teenage girl, then becomes an issue of how far the Attorney-Client privilege goes.

* WouldHurtAChild: Mark Bruner's victims were all teenage girls.

While investigating the disappearance of a teenage girl, Briscoe and Green discover her case mirrors similar ones involving other young teens and women. The connecting thread is that they were all out at night far from them their residences, needing taxis to get home. The trail leads them to Mark Bruner, a loner who lives in a squalid apartment. After a tense moment with a knife where he may or may not have been trying to provoke the detectives, he is arrested. His DNA matches on two victims and he is identified by a witness in a lineup, leading to his arrest on two counts of rape and first-degree murder.

** What exactly Bruner told his first lawyer that made her freak out. It’s strongly implied to be either the location of the other bodies or a threat on her life, but never confirmed. Given how he tells Serena he wishes she got into his cab, it could have been along those lines as well.

** The episode is a dramatization of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buried_Bodies_Case the case of Robert Garrow Sr.]]. In that case, he two defense attorneys were cleared of legal and ethical charges. The fact pattern is taught at every level of law school ethics education and was part of the plan for the model attorney ethics code. Given that the real life events took place in the 70s, there is no way Jack or Serena wouldn’t have known the ethics of the situation.

** Subverted with Jessica Sheets, the attorney on the case before Schwimmer. She basically defends the scum of the earth for a living, but even she's terrified of Mark Bruner, to the point that she refuses to defend him.
* NotAfraidToDie: Part of the reason Bruner refuses to disclose the location of his victims' bodies. He doesn't view dying in prison as any better than the death penalty, knows full well that there's not much else they can offer him as incentive, and is thus indifferent to [=McCoy=]'s plea offers.

** Schwimmer gets this from all sides for keeping the location of the bodies secret. On the stand, [=McCoy=] reminds him Bruner has been convicted and has two death sentences. At worst, this means Bruner just gets more of them. At best, it is inadmissible against him but he is already in prison until he dies anyway.

His initial public defender, a woman, is extremely uncomfortable defending him, even by her usual standard of clients, who include an eleven-year-old who decapitated his mother and a mass shooter. Sympathetic to her plight considering what her client is accused of, though noting there is something she seems to be hiding, [=McCoy=] doesn’t fight her petition to be removed as Bruner’s counsel. Tim Schwimmer, an enthusiastic young defender is assigned to replace her. He unsuccessfully asks Serena out, then gets a small win in court getting the identification thrown out on an obscure technicality. The DNA is still enough to convict Bruner and [=McCoy=] offers a deal of life if Bruner confesses, agreeing to take the Death Penalty off the table. Bruner, not caring whether he lives or dies, decides to toy with the [=DAs=] office. He reveals he has way more than two bodies to his name and even has them in storage. When [=McCoy=] asks for verification, Bruner, ignoring Schwimmer’s pleas to stay silent, reveals he not only told his attorney, but his lawyer went and verified the story himself. Schwimmer admits this is true, but is adamant in not revealing the location, claiming he cannot violate Attorney-Client privilege.

** What exactly Bruner told his first lawyer that made her freak out. It’s strongly implied to be the location of the other bodies, but never confirmed. Given how he tells Serena he wishes she got into his cab, it could have been along those lines as well.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: Played with. Bruner's first lawyer is far from evil, but admits she gets assigned the worst clients by Legal Aid because she is willing to give them the best defense possible. That said, while willing to defend a child who killed his mother and a mass shooter, Bruner is too evil for her to defend. The implied psychological torture doesn't help either.

** Subverted with Jessica Sheets, the attorney on the case before Schwimmer. She basically defends the scum of the earth for a living, but even she refuses to defend Mark Bruner after he threatens her life.

* NotAfraidToDie: Part of the reason Bruner refuses to disclose the location of his victims' bodies. He doesn't view dying in prison as any better than the death penalty, and is thus indifferent to [=McCoy=]'s plea deals.

* TakeAThirdOption: Averted. Schwimmer won't consider anonymously leaking the location to the press or police to get out of his situation.

** As much as she dislikes Bruner and Schwimmer, she thinks [=McCoy=] prosecuting the latter is going to far. She even considers the conviction a loss, since Schwimmer remains mute.

** Schwimmer gets this from all sides for keeping the location of the bodies secret. On the stand, [=McCoy=] reminds him Bruner has been convicted and has two death sentences. At worst, this means Bruner just gets more of them. At best, it is inadmissible against him but he is already in prison until he dies anyway.

** That said, in the Garrow case the lawyers were tried with violating health codes by not reporting the location of the decompoing bodies. Here, Schwimmer is charged with being an accessory since he had to lock and re-lock the location, a novel legal maneuver that is challenged unsuccessfully by his attorney.

While investigating the disappearance of a teenage girl, Briscoe and Green discover her case mirrors similar ones involving other young teens and women. The connecting thread is that they were all out at night far from them their homes, needing taxis to get home. The trail leads them to Mark Bruner, a loner who lives in a squalid apartment. After a tense moment with a knife where he may or may not have been trying to provoke the detectives, he is arrested. His DNA matches on two victims and he is identified by a witness in a lineup, leading to his arrest on two counts of rape and first-degree murder.

His initial public defender, a woman, is extremely uncomfortable defending him, even by her usual standard of clients, who include an eleven-year-old who decapitated his mother and a mass shooter. Sympathetic to her plight considering what her client is accused of, though noting there is something she seems to be hiding, [=McCoy=] doesn’t fight her petition to be removed as Bruner’s counsel. Tim Schwimmer, an enthusiastic young defender is assigned to replace her. He unsuccessfully asks Serena out, then gets a small win in court getting the identification thrown out on an obscure technicality. The DNA is still enough to convict Bruner and [=McCoy=] offers a deal of life if Bruner confesses, agreeing to take the Death Penalty off the table.
Bruner, not caring whether he lives or dies, decides to toy with the [=DAs=] office. He reveals he has way more than two bodies to his name and even has them in storage. When [=McCoy=] asks for verification, Bruner, ignoring Schwimmer’s pleas to stay silent, reveals he not only told his attorney, but his lawyer went and verified the story himself. Schwimmer admits this is true, but is adamant in not revealing the location, claiming he cannot violate Attorney-Client privilege.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: Played with. Bruner's first lawyer is far from evil, but admits she gets assigned the worst clients by Legal Aid because she is willing to give them the best defense she can give them. That said, while willing to defend a child who killed his mother and a mass shooter, Bruner is too evil for her to defend. The implied psychological torture doesn't help either.

* Dramatization: Not quite ripped from the headlines, given the timing involved, but the story is a clear [[dramatization]] of the famous hidden bodies case in New York in the 70s.

** Schwimmer's conviction means he is automatically disbarred, so he is no longer held by privilege. This isn't brought up, but in both the real world and the L&O world, it would be uncharted waters. The episode ends with [=McCoy=] and Serena disagreeing on whether Schwimmer with break.

* ArtisticLicenseLaw: The way Attorney-Client privilege is handled is one of the biggest examples in the series. The episode is a [[dramatization]] of real life events. In real life the two defense attorneys were acquitted at trial, and the acquittal was upheld. They were investigated by the bar association of New York and their conduct was upheld. The fact pattern is taught at every level of law school ethics education and was part of the plan for the model attorney ethics code. Given that the real life events took place in the 70s, there is no way Jack or Serina wouldn’t have known the ethics of the situation.

* ArtisticLicenseLaw: The way Attorney-Client privilege is handled is one of the biggest examples in the series. Of course [[TropesAreTools this isn’t a bad thing]] per se, but it here is how it is played with here:
** To start, Bruner’s first lawyer hints that Bruner told her about the bodies. Both she and Schwimmer are ''not'' bound by the privilege by this; they were assigned to defend him on the two counts the police knew about. If a defendant tells their attorney about new crimes, even ones related to their current charge, they are obligated to report it.
** Any lawyer who passes the bar should know that they are obligated to warn their client they can only keep information pertinent to the case secret. If Bruner started to brag about the other murders, they should have told him to keep quiet. This conflict is never addressed.
** Once Schwimmer was convicted, he would be automatically disbarred. Legally, there would be no way for him to claim privilege anymore and [=McCoy=] would not have to wait to see if prison would open his mouth. Lawyers who are sent to prison cannot be forced to break privilege for every case they worked on, but lawyers who are convicted as part of a conspiracy, as Schwimmer was, can be forced to talk.

* SpottingTheThread: Briscoe and Green realize that their initial victim and the others with the same M.O. all had night time activities that required them ti use taxis. This leads them to Bruner whom they arrest.

* BunnyEarsLawyer: Schwimmer certainly has an interesting code of ethics, clumsily hits on Serena and got his degree at night school. On the other hand he was good enough to get promoted to a murder case at Legal Aid and he wins a suppression hearing and gets the lineup tossed out, but admits he didn't even think it would work. When Branch finds out what he did with the secret location, he refers to the young man as an idiot.

Teleplay By
William N. Fordes

Story By
William N. Fordes & Michael S. Chernuchin

Directed By
Constantine Makris

* WhatTheHellHero?:

** Any Lawyer who passes the bar should know that they are obligated to warn their client they can only keep information pertinent to the case secret. If Bruner started to brag about the other murders, they should have told him to keep quiet. This conflict is never addressed.