"Standards of Conduct" is an episode of JAG that first aired on January 21, 2003. Directed by Rod Hardy. Written by Philip DeGuere Jr.
Commander Rabb accidentally rear-ends an old lady on the road, Elena Motley (Angela Paton), causing him to be late for the award ceremony in which he's given the Silver Star. That's right after Commander Turner (Scott Lawrence) is given the Bronze Star (for their heroics in 'Enemy Below').
At the ceremony, Admiral Chegwidden presents the medals after Lt. Roberts, at a lectern with a microphone, reads the medal citations for the personnel assembled in front of the JAG headquarters building.
In Virginia, Lt. Jeremy Duncan (Steve Monroe) gives a reporter (Chip O'Neil) a hands-on demonstration of a new high-tech battle helmet system that the Navy's developing for the Marines in collaboration with Psycoustics, a Department of Defense contractor.
Duncan loads in a simulation. The reporter is in some urban war zone. The helmet alerts him to two snipers. The reporter shoots one of the snipers, but the second sniper kills the reporter. Fortunately it was just a simulation. But the system is defective, and if it's deployed to combat, Marines will die, Duncan tells the reporter.
Duncan speaks contemptuously of the Secretary of the Navy and the Governor of Virginia, claiming that their failure to do due diligence with the Psycoustics contract will result in the needless deaths of several Marines.
The Secretary of the Navy wants the matter dealt with quietly rather than let it go to a court-martial on Article 88 charges note . Lt. Colonel Sarah MacKenzie meets with Duncan and is convinced by the demonstration that the system is flawed and will get Marines killed. Duncan is a whistleblower and Mac will defend him. The Psycoustics contract is cancelled.
Mac is surprised that Duncan accepts a letter of reprimand and a suggestion to resign his commission with no fight at all. Duncan has gotten a civilian lawyer, Harlan Bradford (Mark Humphrey), just to download a boilerplate letter of resignation and present it to Mac.
If he saved even just one Marine's life, Duncan is satisfied he's done the right thing and is ready to move on to the next chapter of his life. Mac buys Duncan's act. As soon as Mac is gone, Duncan smiles in an evil manner.
The contractor files a grievance with the Navy, accusing Duncan of sabotaging the helmet's software. Duncan lied to the Navy, to the press, and, worst of all, to Mac.
So Mac goes to Duncan's apartment but he has already left: he paid his landlady (Wendie Jo Sperber) to take over his car lease, and didn't care about getting his cleaning deposit for the apartment.
Mac tracks Duncan down to Mad Hampster, a video game development company where Duncan is now employed. There, he works on a video game that is obviously based on the helmet system. Mac plans to pay Mad Hampster a visit tomorrow, Chegwidden urges her to take Rabb along.
Duncan seems very happy as a civilian now. As a lieutenant he was making something like $50K annually. As a civilian he makes more than twice that. Duncan asks Mac and Rabb how much money they make as military lawyers note and calls it "chump change." Duncan is indifferent to the lawyers' talk of ethics.
Mac and Rabb visit the practically empty Psycoustics offices. The lead programmer, Ashok Pradesh (G. Anthony Joseph), shows the lawyers how Duncan's sabotage caused the helmet to misplace sound sources.
Pradesh is rather chill about the whole thing. Duncan cheated Psycoustics, but in the high tech world one must move on and not wallow in regret. Mac, on the other hand, wants to make sure that Duncan is punished, but sees no way to go about it.
Mac gives up, thinking that Duncan has successfully gotten away with defrauding the Navy and Psycoustics. The next day, Rabb tells Mac that Duncan was in such a hurry to get out that he neglected to attend the outbriefing and collect his final Navy checks. Because of his unused leave, the Navy owes Duncan $8,000.
This means that because of such a tiny amount of money, he's still in the Navy, and subject to court-martial, much to his dismay.
Fast-forward to the court-martial verdict: Duncan is found guilty of damaging government property and sentenced to confinement for one year. Turner defended, and of course Mac prosecuted.
Rabb sees a gift Mac has bought for little A. J. Roberts and remembers his deal with Mac "to go halves on a kid" a few years back. Somewhat like Ally McBeal, Rabb begins imagining every woman around him as pregnant. In a nightmare, Rabb sees Lt. Singer (Nanci Chambers) pregnant, Petty Officer Coates (Zoe McLellan) also pregnant, Lt. Sims (Karri Turner) pregnant, Renee Peterson (Cindy Ambuehl, uncredited) pregnant and of course Mac also pregnant.
Elena Motley hires lawyer Raymond Harrick (Gavin MacLeod) to sue Rabb for the car accident. Rabb asks Turner to represent him, but Turner can't.
After some hesitation on Rabb's part, Roberts takes Rabb's case and discovers that Harrick is running a scheme staging accidents with people whose insurance recently lapsed, and that the old lady has sued a few others and had physical therapy for the same kind of injury.
This leads Elena Motley to admit that she wasn't really injured in the 'accident' and that she was in on Harrick's scheme. She realizes she's going to need a lawyer other than Harrick, who will.
Tropes
- 555: Mad Hampster's phone number (410) 555-9706. The address is 1400 LeBlanc Drive, Kensington MD 20891.
- Acronym and Abbreviation Overload: Mac and later Chegwidden are completely befuddled by the acronyms HRA and DSP, which stand for high resolution audio and digital signal processing, respectively. Of course as servicemembers they got plenty of their own acronyms they use on a daily basis.
- Ambulance Chaser: A sleazy lawyer pulls the usual personal injury scam on Rabb, and other Navy personnel.
- Obfuscating Disability: His old lady client limps around with a cane and wears a neck brace. She is actually a retired failed actress, playing at being injured quite well.
- Staged Pedestrian Accident: Not technically pedestrian, instead the hustler got into a fender bender, then faked her injuries.
- Continuity Nod to the episode in which Rabb and Mac make a deal to have a baby in five years.
- Foreshadowing, very subtle: Early on, the high-tech battle helmet is compared to a video game. But Duncan says this is very serious, men will die as a result of the system's flaws. At that point in the episode, Duncan had probably already lined up the job at the video game company.
- Grand Theft Prototype: The acoustic pattern recognition software code intended for use in a tactical helmet was stolen by Lt. Duncan so it could be used in a shooter game instead.
- Inter-Service Rivalry, mentioned: Pradesh mentions that the Army is also developing a high-tech battle helmet (presumably with a different contractor) . Of course Duncan wasn't interested in helping the Army beat the Marines at getting a helmet system finished and deployed first.
- Loophole Abuse: Mac and Rabb use the fact that Duncan is technically on terminal leave while some back pay issues are sorted out, to get him court-martialed.
- Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: Roberts uncovers a larger conspiracy to defraud naval personnel, while looking into Rabb's accident lawsuit. Turns out that Harrick colluded with someone in the insurance firm to deliberately withhold auto insurance policy expiration notices from deployed personnel, so they won't know to renew their policies, thereby creating a pool of uninsured vehicle owners. Those uninsured drivers would then be targeted with staged fender benders, and be pressured to settle out of court, due to a lack of insurance coverage.
- Title Drop, almost but not quite: In his first confrontation with Duncan, Rabb says that as a naval officer, he's held to a high "standard of conduct." The title of the episode is exactly that, except as plural.
- Too Unhappy to Be Hungry: After updating Chegwidden on the case (that Duncan lied and stole and he's gotten away with it), Rabb urges Mac to eat something. But she doesn't want to eat, she wants to take a long, hot shower, as if to wash off the stink of Duncan.
- TV Telephone Etiquette: Herrick hangs up on Rabb right after saying "Bring the checkbook." Of course it is quite realistic that a lawyer like Herrick would hang up without saying "bye" or "see you" or anything like that.
