Law & Order

Season 7

Causa Mortis

I.D.

1. Curtis says that the music publisher's office had been closed the previous day for a Jewish holiday. Yom Kippur, the most solemn day on the Jewish calendar, was on September 23, 1996, two days before this episode aired.
2. Lieutenant Van Buren tells Briscoe and Curtis they have two weeks to identify the dead girl before she gets sent to Potter's field. A potter's field, paupers' grave or common grave is a term for a place for the burial of unknown or indigent people. Hart Island is the location of a 101-acre (0.41 km2) potter's field for New York City, the largest tax-funded cemetery in the world. Burials on Hart Island began shortly after the American Civil War.
3. New York apparently was lackadaisical about verifying the identity of the deceased, with no mention of any driver license fingerprint, dental record, business associates, or living people other than her purported sister who knew the victim. Even after the police get a fingerprint they don't mention verifying the identity with another source. Only after a month of the trial does the victim's former co-worker appear.

Good Girl

1. This episode inspired Law & Order: UK season 3, episode 6 "Masquerade". The facts are slightly different. Instead of being African-American, the victim is of Pakistani origin.

Survivor

1. In 1995, the year before this episode first aired, the World Jewish Congress began negotiations with Swiss banks over dormant World War II-era bank accounts.

Corruption

1. Remade as the Law & Order UK episode "Honour Bound" (Season 2, Episode 6).
2. Detective Curtis says he is Peruvian on his mother's side. In real-life Benjamin Bratt's mother is in fact of Peruvian descent.

Double Blind

1. The "Tacony" bridge in Phila where the female research subject jumped to her death is actually the TaconyPalmyra, an old one lane each way drawbridge across the Delaware River.It used to be very popular because for many years the toll was $.25,that's right, a quarter! (the access road was chronically backed up). Now, the toll is something like $4,but there are still backups whenever anything larger than a rowboat wants to pass and they have to raise the bridge.
2. In the chemistry lab, when Jamie is interviewing Jill, one of the magazines in the wall rack is the March 1995 issue of Playgirl with Scott Bakula on the cover. For those who read the articles in Playgirl, that issue also offers the opportunity to "Read The Unauthorized Biography That's Making Whitney Houston Sing The Blues".

Deadbeat

1. First appearance in the "Law & Order" franchise for Tamara Tunie, who would later have a run as medical examiner Dr. Melinda Warner on "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit."

Family Business

1. This episode features a Bond girl and a Bond villain: Carey Lowell (Jamie Ross) played Pam Bouvier in Licence to Kill (1989) while Joseph Wiseman (Seymour Bergreen) played Dr. Julius No in Dr. No (1962).
2. This was Joseph Wiseman's final television appearance before his death on October 19, 2009 at the age of 91.

Entrapment

1. In Law & Order: Conspiracy (1992), Phil Cerreta (Paul Sorvino) and Mike Logan (Chris Noth) investigate the assassination of the leader of the African-American Congress. In this episode, Lennie Brisco (Jerry Orbach) and Ray Curtis (Benjamin Bratt) investigate the attempted murder of the new AAC leader, and Lennie notes that Logan investigated the former leader's murder. Joe Morton portrayed Roland Books in the first episode, Ron Cephas Jones portrays him in the second, while other actors reprise their roles.

Legacy

Menace

Barter

Matrimony

Working Mom

1. The golf club where the victim worked is "Bernum Woods". This is a particularly clever allusion to the forest in "Macbeth" - Great Birnam Wood - where Macduff and his soldiers hide before attacking Macbeth's castle and killing him.

D-Girl

1. D-Girl is a derogatory Hollywood term referring to a female producer who believes she has more power than she actually does.
2. This episode features Lauren Graham and Scott Cohen who will later play Lorelai Gilmore and Max Medina on Gilmore Girls.

Turnaround

Showtime

Mad Dog

1. Briscoe makes a reference to Kojak (1973) while in the interrogation room. The judge hearing the case was played by the late Dan Frazer, who played Capt. Frank McNeil in 117 of the 118 Kojack episodes.

Double Down

We Like Mike

1. If you look closely, the coffee shop owner has a 'Burnside' style moustache and sideburns.

Passion

1. In one scene, a witness mentions going to see the musical "Rent". Jesse L. Martin, who joined the show in 1999 after Benjamin Bratt's departure, was in the original Broadway production of that show, and later took time off at the end of season fifteen to film Rent (2005).

Past Imperfect

Terminal

1. This episode paralleled real events that occurred in New York City in 1995 and 1996. First, Chapter 1 of the Laws of 1995 established a new death penalty in New York State. Second, District Attorney Robert Johnson of The Bronx had a "blanket" policy of declining to seek the death penalty in cases authorized (Murder 1, see NY Penal Law §60.06, and §125.27). Dissatisfied, Governor George Pataki ordered Johnson replaced with the Attorney General when Johnson declined to seek the death penalty in the shooting death of Police Officer Kevin Gillespie by one Angel Diaz (who ultimately committed suicide and whose accomplices were ultimately convicted of Federal RICO charges and not brought to answer in State Court.) Litigation ensued, and the New York Court of Appeals upheld Governor Pataki's actions in Johnson v. Pataki (91 N.Y.2d 214, 1997).
2. Despite appearing in the 1988 Law & Order pilot as District Attorney Alfred Wentworth, Roy Thinnes wasn't available when the series was picked up in 1990 and the role of D.A. Adam Schiff went to Steven Hill. In this episode Thinnes and Hill appear together (although on opposite sides of an issue) when Thinnes plays the role of Special Prosecutor Victor Panatti.