Law & Order (TV Series)

Working Mom (1997)

Sam Waterston: Executive ADA Jack McCoy

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Quotes 

• Jack McCoy : [during his closing summation]  Miss Stieglitz is right. This isn't a referendum on prostitution. It isn't a referendum on rape. You're here to render a verdict on her client's credibility. She says she was raped. What's her evidence? "Keene was a bully. My husband believes me. So should you." In the meantime, she suffered no injuries, she destroyed evidence, she lied to the police. It was only when she was backed into a corner that she cried rape, that she wrapped herself in the right of self-defense, but she wasn't defending her virtue. She didn't shoot Gilbert Keene to keep from performing an act that she had willingly performed on dozens of other men. She killed him to protect a secret. You've all seen what lengths she went to, to avoid Mac Bernum, to hide her identity. Who can blame her? She didn't want to lose her husband, her family, her comfortable home. Those things, she would kill for, but those things do not justify the taking of a life! The threat of deadly physical force does or rape does or kidnapping, or robbery. But none of those things happened in that car. What happened in that car was a cold and calculated thing. A woman killed her blackmailer, not her rapist. That's who Gilbert Keene was. That's how he got sex. He didn't rape those other women. He blackmailed them. I don't want you to convict her because she's a prostitute. I'm asking you to convict her because her story is a lie.

• Jamie Ross : Lanie Stieglitz filed her appeal.

  Adam Schiff : She's hoping they'll erect a statue for her on 12th Avenue.

  Jack McCoy : Even prostitutes deserve a patron saint.

  Jamie Ross : It makes me wonder if they convicted her because we made our case or because she's a prostitute.

  Jack McCoy : They convicted her. I don't care why.

• Jack McCoy : You lied to us.

  Mac Bernum : I didn't know what Topaz was. I never see the bills.

  Jack McCoy : I'm feeling charitable. I'm gonna give you a mulligan. But if your next shot isn't on the fairway, you're going to jail.

  Mac Bernum : I had nothing to do with Gilly's death. I swear it. And I can't believe that Cathy did either. I mean, Hillary. I knew her as Cathy.