Law & Order (TV Series) Under the Influence (1998) User Reviews

Justice is not blind here

[bkoganbing · 8/10 · 12 February 2012]

On Law And Order District Attorney Adam Schiff's character is based on the long serving District Attorney of New York County Robert Morgenthau. In his life Morgenthau had the closest thing I've ever seen to a permanent job that an elected official could such was his popularity with the Manhattan electorate. Twice in his tenure which began in 1974, Morgenthau had two electoral challenges before he retired in 2010. This episode Under The Influence shows how politics does enter into the criminal justice system. Politics did enter into the first of Morgenthau's challenges, but the circumstances were totally different from those in this episode.

A hit and run driver runs down three people in Harlem and there is a hue and cry. A lengthy investigation leads Jerry Orbach and Benjamin Bratt to Daniel McDonald who is an arrogant piece of work. A rich executive he takes some careful steps to conceal his part in the crime, but he gets nailed anyway. He's the kind of defendant you truly love to hate. Some indication he may have deliberately run the victims down for kicks.

A solid case for Murder 2, but the DA's office goes for Murder 1 which means proving intent. And everybody's got an agenda. The judge is played by Cliff Gorman who would make the first of a few appearances as he later challenges Steven Hill in the primary. He's deliberately tilting against the defendant. Hill wants to show he's just as 'tough on crime' and against a loathsome defendant, who'll care. And Sam Waterston remembers the drunk driver who killed Jill Hennessy, he's ready to throw out the ethics on this one.

Carey Lowell proves to be the conscience of her office. She registers very strong in this episode and in many ways this is her finest hour as Waterston's second chair. You have to see how this one plays out and Cliff Gorman will be back.

Since when should a drunk driver be able to claim mitigating factors?

[Film_Dex · 7/10 · 23 May 2008]

I'm watching this episode even as I type...and I'm as outraged by it now as I was when I first saw it.

Of course, in one sense it would never happen. The flight attendant who kept giving the drunk the liquor even though he was clearly too drunk to even speak properly would have been sued to within an inch of her life by the guy, who would have course have not gone to jail at all, since it wasn't his fault he was drunk, it was the flight attendant's fault because she kept giving him the liquor! At least, that's the way it would have happened in real life.

In real life, too many drunk drivers get away with murder, over and over again, because they were drunk at the time they killed their victims. They should be sent to jail for a long time, not let out after a couple of years to kill again.

As for this show, the guy knows he "blacks out" if he's drunk too much, that he'd already had an accident two years previous where he'd put a girl in a coma...

It's just stupid that he'd get a lesser sentence because he was "drunk"!

Always Do the Right Thing

[futuremoviewriter · 9/10 · 11 April 2009]

When I first found out what Under the Influence was about, I had already seen the episode Aftershock. (This comment also contains spoilers from that episode.) I was hoping that I would enjoy this episode, I'm pleasantly surprised to say that Under the Influence, out of every episode that I have seen, is one of my favorite episodes. In the episode, a hit-and-run incident results in the deaths of three people. Those three people are a man, his young son, and another man. Detectives Lennie Briscoe and Rey Curtis and Lt. Anita van Buren are put on the case to find the driver. At one point, it is hinted that Curtis's wife was a victim in a hit-and-run, although it is not explored like another important plot point. When they finally do find the man, they discover that he hit the people to scare his girlfriend, also in the car. However, it is also revealed that he had about fifteen drinks in the airport bar before the killings occurred. This means that it is possible that his judgment was too impaired for him to have formed motive or intent. Executive ADA Jack McCoy, ADA Jamie Ross, and DA Adam Schiff bring the case to court. But McCoy teams up with Judge Gary Feldman to conceal the fact that the suspect was too drunk to think clearly. Feldman is doing it for political purposes, but McCoy is still enraged over the death of Ross's predecessor Claire Kinkaid, under similar circumstances. McCoy's moral sense of what's right and wrong returns when he realizes that the suspect is truly sorry and brings in the evidence to make sure the man gets a fair sentence, much to the disapproval of the angry Feldman. The episode is slow going at first, but the way it picks up is what made it great. With another beyond great performance from Sam Waterston, McCoy once again proves that he's not just doing his job, but also doing what he knows should be done. He may be the Executive ADA, but he's also a hero as well. Although he is still enraged over the injustice involving the drunk driver who killed Kinkaid, (only served 12 months) McCoy comes to understand that the man on trial is not responsible for that crime and that by trying to send him to an unlawful death would be an injustice in itself. He also genuinely forgives the driver, even though he doesn't give a formal apology. With the evidence of the driver's drinking (for lack of a better term) in the mix, McCoy offers the man a five to fifteen year sentence that is completely acceptable. The driver accepts and the sentence is past, therefore ending the trial. The episode triumphs in getting the audiences interested and keeping them interested throughout. Next time it shows up on TNT, take the time to give it a watch.

Driven to distraction

[TheLittleSongbird · 7/10 · 1 July 2021]

On first watch, "Under the Influence" didn't do much for me. While enjoying hearing the different points of view that McCoy and Ross have over the case, which did make me provoke thought, the case itself on paper and in execution didn't seem realistic. Was hoping though on rewatch that the episode would make the premise somehow work, but was worried as "Blood" (also from Season 8) had a less than realistic concept and the execution really didn't work.

After rewatching it, "Under the Influence" was a little better than remembered as the tensions between McCoy and Ross made even more impact and the tensions with everything with the judge really stood out (will shamefully admit that this aspect went over my head on first watch and really do not understand why). Not a great episode by any stretch and actually one of the weaker ones of the first half of Season 8, but considering the premise it could have been a lot worse than it was.

There are plenty of good, great even, things here. The photography and such as usual are fully professional, the slickness still remaining. The music is used sparingly and is haunting and non-overwrought when it is used, and it's mainly used when a crucial revelation or plot development is revealed. The direction has some nice tension while keeping things steady, without going too far the other way. Most of the acting is great, especially Sam Waterston and Carey Lowell of the regulars and Cliff Gorman is a joy as the judge.

"Under the Influence" is at its best with the tension between him and McCoy and where it becomes really interesting. It also scores highly in the chemistry between McCoy and Ross and seeing their different opinions on the case, where once again it was easy to see both sides (agreed more with McCoy though). Reminded me of McCoy and Kincaid's differing points of view on the death penalty in the Season 6 episode "Savages". The writing is thought-provoking and lean, a lot of information to digest without feeling too much.

It is far from a perfect episode though. Ross did seem on the pushy and judgmental side this time, there was no need to bring Kincaid into the argument as most people would agree that death by dangerous driving deserves a harsh punishment. Daniel McDonald could have played his character with both more subtlety and personality.

Still do find some of the case improbable, with the case of more than one person involved but practically ignored and the indictment and verdict not being realistic and too lenient for my tastes. Seeming to give the impression that the crime is not that serious an offense. Especially considering the amount of fuss made over the indictment and how to judge the case and how it became very easy to hate the perpetrator later and root for a substantial sentence.

Concluding, better than remembered but could have been better. 7/10.

Alcohol and Gasoline.

[rmax304823 · 7/10 · 6 April 2011]

An elderly man, and a father and four-year-old child, are the victims of a hit and run accident. The car was speeding through East Harlem and there is no evidence that the driver tried to swerve or that he applied the breaks. Briscoe and Curtis soon turn up the guilty driver, the bland, whitebread Daniel McDonald, who claims he was so drunk he remembers nothing of the incident, though his passenger, a succulent blond does. So do the flight attendants who served him more than a dozen drinks before his plane landed.

McCoy is intent on seeing that he is charged with murder and gets the death penalty. Ross objects that the charge is a bit much since there was no intent to kill, but McCoy seems to be brooding about the death by drunken driver of his lost squeeze, Claire Kinkaid. Another problem arises when the judge turns out to be Adam Schiff's rival in the upcoming election, one Gary Feldman (the great Cliff Gorman), who is entirely on McCoy's side because he wants to preside over a landmark case in which a drunken driver gets the death penalty. "If you run into any trouble," he says to McCoy, winking, "just let me know." Feldman continually emasculates the defense attorney during the trial.

But the more McCoy looks into the case (or into himself) the more doubtful he becomes about the murder charge. The guy remembers having twelve drinks on the plane but the flight attendants say more than that, perhaps fifteen in a row, enough to get anyone plastered beyond recollection. Not even Dylan Thomas got past eighteen.

So the defendant gets to plea out. Vehicular manslaughter with the maximum penalty. Judge Feldman is incensed and there is an electrical storm between them. But McCoy is satisfied that he did the right thing.

The most important thing about the story is the conflict between Feldman and McCoy, and the fact that Feldman wants to use the case in an attempt at self aggrandizement for political purposes, even at the expense of the defendant. It prompts the question of how many elected judges and DAs do NOT have some personal political agenda which they would be overjoyed to see enacted. Or, to put it differently, how naive are the electorate?

McCoy talks big about Justice, and then punks out

[Johnny_West · 1/10 · 2 February 2017]

One girl is in a coma, and three other people are dead thanks to a very nasty guy who is also an alcoholic and habitual drunk driver with a suspended license.

When Assistant D.A. McCoy gets the case, he talks a lot about getting real justice for the victims, and he rants and raves about the victims of DUI. McCoy and District Attorney Adam Schiff, and the judge on the case are all on a mission to make sure the drunk driver/killer gets the maximum conviction and prison time.

During the whole episode, McCoy's junior assistant, played by Carey Lowell, is harping, whining, and bitching about every standard legal tactic that is intended to get a conviction. She wants a more lenient result, based on what her interpretation of the law is. Eventually, she keeps telling McCoy he is unethical so much that McCoy backs down, and punks out, like he usually does.

I never liked the character of D.A. McCoy, the blow-hard who is always talking big like he thought he was Moses with the Ten Commandments. Most of the time, McCoy ends up backing down from whatever he says. I guess it is accurate that a lawyer is portrayed as a gutless, self-serving bureaucrat.

In this case, at the end of the trial McCoy torpedoes his own case by introducing evidence that the drunk driver was too drunk to know what he was doing. So much for the three dead victims that McCoy was so concerned about. He let his assistant scare him into destroying his own case. So much for Justice for the dead victims, and the girl in the coma.

The message in this episode is that Justice for the victims depends on the personal relationships between the prosecutors, the judge, and office politics. Nobody in this episode really cared about the dead victims, or the girl in a coma; and that is the tragedy.

Brady vs Maryland McCoy was doing an egregious prosecutorial misconduct

[alessandrocs · 9 October 2022]

Loved the episode dressel is slime no doubt but McCoy and Feldman are worse cospiring to sent him to death row Feldman for political gain McCoy for for Claire Kincaid not giving escoulpatory evidence to the defense wich they were entitled to have doing a clear Brady violation,during cross examination probably Jamie words manage to make him reflect on his actions and decided to accept a plea deal the only dishonest one was Feldman that didn't like the plea deal,glad that McCoy decided to do the right thing in the end and probably Jamie that was the voice of reason made him change his mind justice and politics are always bad.