Law & Order/Season 3
Skin Deep [3.01]
[edit]- Captain Cragen: So where does that get us? A lover's quarrel?
- Logan: After sex? Most people, you fight, and then have sex.
- Cerreta: [To Cragen] He's not married.
- [On interviewing models who might have killed a photographer]
- Cerreta: Look on the bright side. If we do this all week, you'll never have to buy Playboy again.
- Logan: What're you saying, I treat all women like objects?
- Cerreta: More specific. Like furniture.
- Cotton Queen: Sure, he asked me to do it. $2,500 a week on my back instead of $500 on my feet.
- Logan: Well, it must have been tempting.
- Cotton Queen: Maybe to you. But, honey, I don't think you'd survive. In my experience, cops just can't perform that often.
- Cerreta: So you never turned a trick, huh?
- Cotton Queen: Most beauty contests, some cracker judge would put his hands on my ass and offer me more money than I had ever seen to be his "date". I didn't do it then, I don't do it now.
- Logan: Hey, Phil. You know that warrant you told that health club guy you'd get? Exactly what probable cause did you have in mind?
- Cerreta: A senile judge.
- Captain Cragen: She's a hooker, Paul. She slept with her pimp, she got very angry, and she stabbed him. Call Eyewitness News, we've never seen anything like this in New York City before.
- Shambala: [to Stone] Murder 2? You couldn't convict her of bad manners.
- Stone: If we had perfect cases, we wouldn't need juries.
- Stone: Okay, so it's not a walk in the park.
- Schiff: Yes, it is. You're going to get mugged.
Conspiracy [3.02]
[edit]- Marcus: The jury in Los Angeles delivered us a clear message. Black people are on their own! No justice except for what we do for ourselves. No prosperity, except what we create with our own hands! Well, I'm here to tell you that I welcome that message. Because we, as a people, are not without resources! The Jews did for their own. The Koreans do for their own. Now is the time to do for our own! Anger is a force for change, but not if it blinds us! The road ahead is filled with distractions! Hate for the white man is a distraction, and we are better than that! And I, I am here to tell you ... Believe me, brothers and sisters, we will have the last word!
- Schiff: Blame it on the CIA. They haven't been fingered in years.
Forgiveness [3.03]
[edit]- [Regarding a steel pipe used as to kill a victim]
- Cerreta: I don't think we're gonna trace it. We're still working on gun control. Pipe control's a way off.
- Cerreta: You save your high school prizes?
- Logan: Yeah. First prize. Multiple dress code violations.
The Corporate Veil [3.04]
[edit]- Cerreta: This pacemaker has a lifespan of five years. That first cardiologist said it was in Mrs. Barnett for three years.
- Logan: That's right. And Halin said when he implanted it in Roberto, it was three years before the expiration date.
- Cerreta: How's your arithmetic?
- Logan: I know that three plus three equals Murder Two.
- Berkley: This isn’t even your party, Ben. This is a corporate matter. We should be in civil court.
- Stone: When seven people end up dead, Richard, I send out engraved invitations.
Wedded Bliss [3.05]
[edit]- Schiff: Slavery. I woke up this morning, I thought it was the 20th century...
- Schiff: Politics has 2 choices: do nothing or do something. Nothing has fewer risks.
- Stone: Bar Association dinner next week, Adam's getting an award. I bought a new tuxedo. I have to wonder who made it.
Helpless [3.06]
[edit]- Robinette: Liz. Is she all right?
- Logan: She's a psychologist. If anybody's trained to handle it, she is.
- Robinette: Nobody trains you to be a victim.
- Melnick: Okay, Ben, what do you want?
- Stone: In a perfect world, I'd like to see your client locked in a room for a week with these women. But I'll settle for seeing him spend the rest of his life in jail.
Self Defense [3.07]
[edit]- Fortas: In Greece, they got weapons laws up the ying-yang.
- Logan: Nice to know we live in a civilized country.
- Stone: If we let him walk, we’re endorsing an armed populace that metes out justice as they see fit.
- Schiff: If we try him and lose, it’s the same message. With our credibility as an appetizer.
Prince of Darkness [3.08]
[edit]- Cerreta: [after being shot while undercover] Thirty years ... A charmed life ... I never even ... fired...
- Schiff: The gun dealer was in the yard at Rikers; had his throat cut. The victim's mother was thrown out a third-story window.
- Robinette: What about the little girl?
- Schiff: She was picked up after school by her uncle.
- Stone: She doesn't have an uncle.
Point of View [3.09]
[edit]- Captain Cragen: I mean, I'm thinking back to when Phil came on. It’s not always love at first sight with you.
- Logan: Look, I can handle it. I just wanna know how long?
- Captain Cragen: I wanna know how long is my mother-in-law gonna live with us. I don't know, but I'm learning to enjoy her pot roast.
- [Briscoe has just accepted a free meal from a snitch]
- Briscoe: Look, he thinks I'm corrupt, so he trusts me, all right?
- Briscoe: [trying to get a description of the killer] What did she look like?
- Valerie: Look, guys, I really wasn't paying that much attention.
- Briscoe: Yeah, just like I don't remember whether the guy I caught in the shower with my first wife was a natural redhead.
- [Briscoe and Logan enter Scanlon's office; Scanlon is on the phone]
- Scanlon: I just haven't seen any real money yet. [to the detectives] Hey, hey, guys, come on, now. I'm busy here!
- Briscoe: [takes the phone] He'll call you back in 25 years. [hangs up]
- Scanlon: What is this?!
- Logan: You wanna put your hands behind you, sir?
- Scanlon: What are you doin'?!
- [Logan slaps the cuffs on him]
- Briscoe: James Scanlon, you're under arrest for the murder of Thomas Duff.
- Scanlon: [to his secretary] Call the lawyers!
- Logan: Good move. You're gonna need one.
- Briscoe: Yeah, and don't tell his wife to keep dinner warm for him. All right?
- Logan: And she shouldn't wait up to tuck him in, either.
Consultation [3.10]
[edit]- Briscoe: Right around the corner from here is the first place I ever saw Mose Allison.
- Logan: Who?
- Briscoe: I keep forgetting when you were born.
- [Stone's Nigerian suspect has left the US before sentencing, and he confronts the Nigerian Consul to which the consul retorts.]
- Sir Balewa: Our culture is not as "enlightened" as yours. Nwaka thought nothing about purchasing people's lives. He should be made to pay for his own.
Extended Family [3.11]
[edit]- Logan: You can call it rescue; a grand jury calls it kidnapping.
- Sally: Is that a threat, detective?
- Logan: No, it's penal law.
- Silver: You'll destroy my daughter's life and for what? Public scandal, page 6?
- Stone: I hope there's an afterlife. Some crimes, the penal law isn't good enough.
Right to Counsel [3.12]
[edit]- Robinette: The defendant savagely murdered an elderly woman, Your Honor.
- Judge Franks: Wait, wait, wait. It says here Mrs. Spiegelman was 61.
- Robinette: That's correct, Your Honor.
- Judge Franks: At my 61st birthday, you were cramming for a torts exam. I'd advise you to choose your adjectives a little more courteously, counselor.
- Robinette: The People request bail of $500,000.
- Knight: My client can hardly afford cab fare to Brooklyn, your honor. Why not make it a million?
- Judge Franks: Why not? [laughs] And they say the elderly lose their sense of humor. [laughs again] Bail is set at 250, cash or bond.
- Robinette: Justice is swift, not fair.
Night and Fog [3.13]
[edit]- Steinmetz: An SS officer, Heinrich, came to our door and gave us cake instead of bread. He said that if I could convince my neighbors to go along, nobody would be killed. People lived a few days, a few hours longer. That's what it was about. People who were not there could not possibly understand.
- Stone: Your wife understood, sir. That's why you killed her.
- Judge Stein: Ben, you are walking through history. God help us if you fall down.
Promises to Keep [3.14]
[edit]- Briscoe: You're gonna take somebody's purse...
- Logan: I know. You bash her head in, you stick a knife in her ribs, you pull on the strap until it snaps.
- Briscoe: Yeah. So, what kind of mugger strangles?
- Logan: Unless ... they knew each other. You smell romance?
- Briscoe: Love at last sight.
- Briscoe: First-year guys. Like puppies. You gotta show them the stick before you throw it.
Mother Love [3.15]
[edit]- Briscoe: [about Dawn] A girl so stoned she thinks the day is 240 hours long.
- Fred: Where'd they raise you, Mr. Robinette? Scarsdale?
- Robinette: Harlem.
- Fred: Never would have guessed. You want my wife in jail? What can jail do to her? She has nothing left. She won't even go to church.
- Robinette: You may not believe this, but I'm truly sorry for what happened to your family. But you want us to bend the law. And we both know what it's like when there's one law for black and another for white. It was no good fifty years ago, it's no good now.
- Fred: You think the system's gonna change? You think we're gonna be equal? Call me when your kids grow up. Tell me how they're doing. The system's been against us for a long time. Maybe right now, it's gotta bend the other way.
Jurisdiction [3.16]
[edit]- Shambala: Davy Zifrin will be lost in prison.
- Judge Feist: Leave him a trail of breadcrumbs.
- Pawl: Probable cause. You got no probable cause.
- Logan: You're under arrest because you're probably guilty.
Conduct Unbecoming [3.17]
[edit]- Briscoe: The whole floor was charged to the Officers' Mess Fund.
- Logan: Nice to know my tax dollars aren't being wasted on school books.
- Stone: What about the prostitute eyewitnesses saw you with, Miss Tammy White? They reported that you got very angry towards her.
- Captain: That bitch deserved it!
- Stone: Which bitch is it, sir? Lieutenant Hagen or Tammy White?
Animal Instinct [3.18]
[edit]- Boyd: What's the difference between a Stalin purge and a Walsh midterm? Stalin tried to re-educate you before he killed you.
- Stone: She uses an out-of-date prison library, and her work is better than I've ever seen from a Wall Street law firm.
- Schiff: "The truth is ugly, so we put our prophets in prison".
- Stone: Oscar Wilde?
- Schiff: Charles Manson.
Virus [3.19]
[edit]- Computer Technician: D.O.D. Department of Doom. It's a local hacker gang. Best known for hacking into the Department of Sanitation's computer. Shut down garbage collection for 2 days.
- Briscoe: Probably took that long for anybody to notice.
- Schiff: Rock and roll gives me a headache. That doesn't mean I'm part of a conspiracy to kill John Lennon.
Securitate [3.20]
[edit]- Judge Fishbein: I appreciate his efforts in pursuit of the American Dream, but murder simply is the wrong approach.
- Stone: They say a boy doesn't become a man until his father passes away. Leon took care of that in one fell swoop.
Manhood [3.21]
[edit]- Logan: You're under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. And if you move funny, I'll blow your head off.
- Stone: So, let's suppose that it's true what Defense Attorney Schell implies that each of you, all of you, sympathize with the defendants, trapped as they are in their fears. That, in fact, more people hate homosexuals than are willing to admit. Then I venture to say that somewhere in your family history, someone somewhere hates you or your relatives for no other reason than that they are black or white, Slovak instead of Czech, Protestant instead of Catholic, left-wing not right. And are you going to let officers of the law determine which of you they will help based on who and what you are? If so, then don't dial 9-1-1, even if you think you're one of them because you may end up being Officer Newhouse. These defendants let a man die and, for all of us, you must hold them responsible.
Benevolence [3.22]
[edit]- Briscoe: How many apartments are in this building?
- Logan: 30.
- Briscoe: Do they all have to eat eggs?
- Bryce: I taught her to speak. I taught her to present herself. She couldn't even order a meal in a restaurant.
- Stone: Mr. Bryce, please, you talk about her as if she was a trained seal.
- Gold: Ben, I'd love to stay and discuss altruism with you, but I'm late for a charity dinner at the Plaza. There's still some tickets available. 500 bucks a plate.
- Robinette: And every penny of it tax deductible.
