A frustrated, over-stressed mother is charged with murder after starting a fire that killed her disabled son, but the case weighs heavy on Jack McCoy's conscience. Nora Lewin is introduced as DA Adam Schiff's replacement.
After a homeless man is accused of killing a woman at a subway station, McCoy learns that a health care provider may not have provided him with appropriate medical attention in order to save money.
A corrections officer may have deliberately set up a confrontation in prison that resulted in the death of an inmate who raped his colleague and girlfriend.
When a suspected murderer tries to seek shelter in Israel, the DA's office faces the difficult task of extraditing and trying him in New York while also satisfying the Jewish community.
A community activist who was formerly a Black Panther is accused of killing a police officer. He claims self-defense because of the history of police violence against African-Americans.
A 1981 murder case is reopened. An ambassador's son is charged, but key evidence has disappeared. Further investigation reveals that the evidence may not have disappeared by accident.
A father confesses to killing his son's hockey coach over playing time. His defense is that he should not be considered responsible for his actions because he suffers from a mental defect known as "sports rage."
A charming conman acts as his own defense attorney during his murder trial. During the trial, he deliberately tries to taint the jury by flirting with the forewoman.
An AIDS researcher is killed by a monkey released in a lab by animal rights activists. The subsequent trial turns into a test case on the ethics of using animals as test subjects.
A dead woman is found in Central Park after a Puerto Rican Day parade. Was the death the result of the actions of a violent Hispanic mob that was harassing women at the parade?
Did a baby's biological father kill one of the baby's adoptive parents in order to get him back, or because of his outrage that the child was adopted by a homosexual couple?
A convicted drug dealer is accused of killing a pregnant loan officer, but it turns out to be part of a larger plot involving a professional basketball player who may be the baby's father.
The Manhattan DA's office tries a drug dealer for a murder that took place in the Bronx two years previously. Another man had been convicted of the crime by the Bronx DA's office and has been serving time.
Detectives discover that an Assistant Attorney General was having an affair with a murdered investigator in his office, and that he had made threatening statements about her to his psychiatrist.
Briscoe and Green are suspicious of two FBI agents who provide an alibi for an Irish mobster suspected of murder. The case is further complicated by the murder of a witness and the emergence of the mobster's lookalike brother.
An accountant goes on trial after being charged with ordering a hit on the hard-as-nails judge who imposed an unusually harsh prison sentence on the accountant just to send a message.
Jack tries to prove that a state senator and a mobster conspired to kill a journalist investigating voting irregularities. But connecting the dots is difficult without cooperation from the journalist's confidential source.
