SVU fans, you’ve probably heard of Lowering the Bar, the most hilarious legal site on the web. Blogger and BigLaw partner Kevin Underhill presents the most ridiculous legal cases of the day, along with brilliantly snarky commentary. Today, he focused on SVU’s most recent episode and the phenomenon of guys in capes trying to fight crime. I highly recommend you check it out. Just be sure to shut your office door first, so your colleagues don’t see you snorting coffee through your nose as you laugh.
SVU Episode #13-19: Street Justice
Recap: Holy lycra tights, Batman! There’s a masked man taking on a serial rapist in New York. And NYPD is not delighted to receive the assistance of the caped vigilante.
Tonight’s episode opened with the fifth victim of the SOHO Rapist being bundled into an ambulance. The requisite twist? The crime was interrupted by a man in a superhero costume. Both men fled.
A British journalist taunts NYPD for its inability to catch the perp, and a community group expresses its collective outrage. The naysayers get even louder when a 6th victim is targeted. The masked man again comes to the rescue before dashing off into the night.
Olivia tracks down the suspect, and beats him up after he tries to hit her. Bam! Pow! Nice moves, Olivia. And she didn’t even have to get bitten by a spider.
A few odd things about the rapist: he hasn’t left a shred of DNA at any of the 6 scenes. The taunting journalist claims he has a taunting letter written by the rapist, which includes details that only the rapist would know. Oh, and the rapist keeps getting into fights with a guy dressed like Batman. My Spidey sense says something is off here.
Meanwhile, Nick ignores the case and trails his wife to charming sidewalk cafes where she sips white zinfandel and giggles with her apparent lover. Instead of bringing evidence to the crime lab, Nick drives to Philly to punch the guy in the face. Wham! Ka-pow! (I could picture several real cops doing exactly the same thing under similar circumstances.)
Rape #6 turns out to be a copycat rapist, who’s only guilty of the single crime. Nevertheless, the copycat is beaten within an inch of his life and hung from a basketball court fence. The culprits? A bunch of caped crusaders who call themselves the New York Justice League. They’ve decided the justice system is too slow, and they want revenge on a much quicker schedule. (Quicker even than SVU’s two-minute evidence processing system? Imagine how peeved they’d be by the wait in real life!)
Moving on to rape #7. The victim is Fantastica, a woman from … the Justice League itself! Holy coincidence, Batman! Wearing a mask and thigh-high patent-leather boots, Fantastica was staking out a rooftop with a stuttering comic store clerk in a rayon cape, when the SOHO rapist attacked her. The stuttering-clerk-turned-vigilante claims he fended off the rapist.
After a commercial break, Nick’s wife storms into the police station and berates our handsome young detective 
(because, hey, he’s not really doing any police work anyhow, right?) for punching her platonic friend. Also, that house she’s been going to? It’s not her lover’s – it’s her shrink’s. (Nice call, Tokobali!)
Nick’s remorse established, SVU barrels through some suspects for the SOHO rapist: the prime one being the randy restauranteur whose alibis include half the sous chefs in Manhattan. Personally, I suspected the taunting reporter. How’d he know those were details “only the rapist” would know? But no, it was the stuttering comic-book clerk – the very founder of the Justice League. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?
Like so many superheroes before him, he did it all to impress a girl. A beautiful woman had stopped by his comic-book store and scoffed at the notion that NY was dangerous. To prove to her that it was, the clerk began the string of SOHO rapes. Convinced by the attacks, she shopped at BuyCostumes.com, joined the stutterer’s nascent Justice League, took up the Fantastica persona, and went out with him to beat up other civilians. Riiiight.
Verdict: B-
What they got right:
Believe it or not, there have been a bunch of real-life full-grown men dressing up as superheroes and walking city streets hoping to fight crime. Things didn’t turn out so well for them, either. A caped crusader calling himself Phoenix Jones of the Rain City Superheroes was arrested in Seattle after allegedly pepper-spraying a crowd of innocent club-goers in the mistaken belief that he was breaking up a fight. Folks, leave the police work to the police, and the molded plastic breast-plates to Val Kilmer.
I thought it was interesting that the SOHO rapist “started things he couldn’t finish.” As a sex-crimes prosecutor, I was astonished by how many rapists became impotent during the sexual assault itself.
I also liked that Nick’s wife said, “I’m your wife! You can’t treat me like one of your suspects.” My husband and I are both lawyers, and, during fights, often accuse each other of cross-examining.
What they got wrong:
Ice-T said they’d get the rapist’s note from the British reporter’s “cold dead hands.” True, it would probably take a while. But no one has to die. The Department of Justice is very careful about issuing subpoenas to journalists. Per the U.S. Attorney’s Manual, before any prosecutor issues such a subpoena, she must get a series of approvals within DOJ. Might take a while for the politicals mull it over. If the top brass agrees, the prosecutor can then issue a subpoena compelling the evidence.
The journalist would probably move to quash the subpoena, citing First Amendment freedom of the press, and the court would hold a hearing. If the journalist had direct evidence of a crime, the government would probably win, and the reporter would be in contempt of court and possibly jailed if she still refused to turn the evidence over. Journalist Judith Miller spent 12 weeks in nasty old D.C. Jail while she refused to turn over her sources in the Scooter Libby case. Eventually, she gave in, testified under government subpoena, and then probably went home and took the longest shower of her life. So – cold dead hands? No. A few months later? Yes. Certainly long enough to enrage the masked men of the Justice League.
Will they stop continually sending Amanda out as bait for rapists? I know she looks great in a short skirt and stilletos. But this is just silly, and not something real police officers do. Real crime is way too random and sporadic for this technique.
Ice-T grumbled that it was a “nice change” that the stop-and-frisks would be of white males this time. Oh, come on. That may be a valid point in real life. But the vast majority of victims and suspects on SVU are white. And good looking. And endowed with a trust fund.
Also, Ice-T, please snap on a pair of gloves and stop fondling the rapist’s knife with your bare hands. Jeez Louise, we’re never going to get any usable prints that way. That said, I laugh at every one of your awesome one-liners. Although the best one tonight was Munch’s, after Nick’s wife stormed into the precinct: “That’s why I stopped marrying Italian women.”
SVU Episode #13-18: Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day is notoriously tough for police in Sex Crimes and Domestic Violence units. Those crimes spike, as folks are two-timing each other, spending too much time with their baby’s mother instead of their wife, or just plain forgetting a card. It’s amazing how often a lovers quarrel turns into a trip to lockup. But this episode took the prize for Worst Valentine’s Day Ever.
Recap: We open with a hedge-fund manager Skyping with his lingerie-clad wife. She’s in her posh kitchen in the Upper East Side; he’s in Hong Kong. But with the power of video chat, she does a sexy little striptease for him across the miles. Suddenly, a masked man bursts into the kitchen, holds a gun to the wife’s head, and rapes her on the kitchen counter – all before the eyes of her horrified and helpless husband.
The wife is kidnapped and held for $250,000 ransom. Hubby is ordered not to call the police. But you can’t fool SVU, and they’re soon on the case. They stake out the drop point, and soon … the wife comes to pick up the cash!
Okay, that’s a tip-off that we’re not dealing with seasoned kidnappers. Sending the victim to go pick up the ransom isn’t a brilliant move.
In fact … there are no kidnappers. The wife (played by the wonderful Chloë Sevigny), was sleeping with multiple delivery men, drug dealers, and even her husband’s business partner. Although she was “living the Upper East Side dream,” all those shopping sprees and trips to the Hamptons weren’t enough. So she livened things up with“screwcations” in “F-pads” while her husband was off making the money to buy the expensive lingerie she wore to these assignations. (Did SVU just make those words up? I’m impressed, although slightly appalled … which I guess is what SVU is all about.)
And it turns out that she set up the whole rape/kidnapping, by convincing a delivery boy to pretend to rape her. (Why? It was never clear. Maybe she wanted the ransom money? But she seemed to have plenty of pocket cash. Just for thrills then? Hard to believe a rich housewife would risk so much.)
The DA charges Chloë with obstruction of justice and making a false police report. Although a hidden video shows Chloë having a delightfully orgasmic romp with the man she claimed kidnapped her, she gets off with a mistrial by seducing a juror who hangs the jury 11-1. Meanwhile, her adoring husband defends her every step of the way.
Perhaps inspired by how stupid that husband was, Nick follows his own wife (who we’ve suspected of cheating on him for a while now). He sees her knocking on the door of another man’s house. Ouch.
Verdict: B
What They Got Right:
There have been some notorious false claims of rape. A female prison psychologist in Sacramento, Laurie Ann Martinez, recently faked an assault to try to convince her husband that they needed to move to a better neighborhood. She split her own lip with a pin, scraped her knuckles with sandpaper and had her friend punch her in the face. Investigators say she even ripped open her blouse and wet her pants to look like she’d been knocked unconscious. If you want a new zip code, I recommend enlisting a realtor and having a heart-to-heart with your spouse instead.
Similarly, a weather reporter falsely claimed that she’d been raped while jogging through Central Park. She did it for the attention.
While false reports make headlines, the vast majority of reports of sexual assault are authentic. While hard to estimate for obvious reasons, many sources say that only one to two percent of rape reports are faked – about the same rate of false reporting as in every other crime.
Another authentic detail was the fact that the wife at first blamed “three black men” for her kidnapping. We’ve seen this pattern so many times: a white women falsely reporting a crime, blaming a fictional black man for perpetrating it. The most notorious and despicable of this was Susan Smith, who drowned her own children, then falsely claimed that a black man carjacked them.
A modern and politically charged version of blackman blaming was the case of Ashley Todd. She was a John McCain 
campaign volunteer who claimed that a black man saw her McCain bumper sticker, beat her up, and then branded her face with a “B” for Barack. But the “B” on her face was backwards, as if scratched on in a mirror. Todd soon fessed up to having staged the whole thing herself.
What they got wrong:
I was shocked to hear Olivia say why she didn’t believe Chloe’s story: “Most rape victims shut down,” Olivia said. “But not her.” That’s wrong. Crime victims react in every possible way: from sobbing, tearing at their hair, or rolling on the floor, to dead calm, matter-of-fact, emotionless recitations. Some get sad, some angry, some laugh out of nervousness. One reaction is not any more valid or truthful than the other. Of all the characters in this show, Olivia would know that.
Nick told Chloe, “The rape kit shows that you were sexually assaulted.” A rape kit can’t do that. It can reveal whether the victim was injured or not. Swabs can be tested for the presence of semen, saliva, and blood. If found, a DNA profile can be built. Hair can be plucked, fingernails scraped. But – as seen in this case – a rape kit can’t say whether or not someone was sexually assaulted. Very often, the forensic evidence of a rape is exactly the same as the evidence of consensual sex. A rape kit can support a claim of sexual assault, but does not, alone, prove it.
But perhaps the most unrealistic thing about the entire episode was how sweet and supportive this millionaire hedge fund manager was.
Well, SVU fans, what do you think? How likely is a real Upper East Side housewife to stage a rape while Skyping with her husband? Is Nick going to pretend he didn’t see his wife going to her F-pad , or will confront her about it? And, if the latter, will he be wise enough to check his gun at the police station first? Leave your comments!
SVU Episode #13-17: Justice Denied
Recap: First, let me say how much happier my Wednesday nights are now that SVU is back on the air. It was a long, grey March. Welcome home, SVU fans. Second, I thought this was a great way to start the new string of episodes: a strong, smart story about the important real-life subject of wrongful convictions.
We open with Olivia whispering sweet nothings into Harry Connick Jr.’s voice mail. She’s just left his warm bed to go to a crime scene. And, yowzers, is it a vicious one. A young woman has been tied up, tortured, and raped by a man wearing a sailor’s uniform. He poured ammonia in her eyes to try to blind her.
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Olivia is stunned. She recognizes the assailant’s MO. She knows this guy – it’s Omar Pena. She put him in jail for life, 8 years ago.
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SVU Episode #13-16: Child’s Welfare
Recap: Tonight’s episode featured two troubling but realistic storylines, both based on real life cases.
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In the first, we see a young woman giving birth to a child in a terrifying dungeon-like place. The baby boy is left in a box outside a church. DNA testing reveals that the mother is a 16 year old girl who was abducted three years ago. At the time of her abduction, she was bike-riding with her father, who was (unfairly) named as the prime suspect. The detectives soon discover another baby boy, abandoned 3 years ago, who shares the same paternal DNA as the first child.
SVU Episode #13-15: Hunting Ground
Recap: This episode provided an intense mashup of some fictional and real serial killers, including Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs, General Zaroff from “The Most Dangerous Game,” the Craiglist Killer, and the Long Island Serial Killer.
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We open with Olivia and Harry Connick coming out of a movie theater. They banter about how many memos they’ll have to write in order to have this relationship, but seem to be having a great time on their date. Enjoy the moment, folks, because things are about to get decidedly more disturbing.
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SVU Episode #13-14: Home Invasion
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Recap: The episode opens with a family scene so happy, cheerful, and functional, that any seasoned SVU connoisseur knows something dark and rancid is hidden in the depths of that plush beige carpeting. Mom, Dad, and 14-year-old daughter Emmy are watching a basketball game in a bright family room while awaiting a delivery of Chinese food. When the doorbell rings, Mom doesn’t find the Kung Pao she expected, but a masked man who holds a gun to her nose and pulls the trigger. Yikes. After the commercial break, we learn that Dad has also been shot dead, and Emmy is in critical condition, with a bullet lodged in her frontal lobe.
SVU Episode #13-13: Father’s Shadow
Recap: A pretty young woman auditions for a spot in a singing reality TV show. The producer not only subjects her to the traditional casting couch, but spikes her drink with quaaludes before he rapes her and leaves her unconscious on a park bench, where a passing pervert sexually assaults her shearling coat. When SVU starts to investigate, the detectives walk in on the producer in the process of sexually assaulting yet another woozy woman. But the first woman doesn’t remember the assault, and the second woman doesn’t want to press charges – it might hurt her chances in the music industry. Nevertheless, our good SVU detectives gather enough evidence to arrest the sleazy producer and keep him at Rikers.
The producer’s redheaded son then freaks out and holds his own girlfriend and her daughter hostage. Red will only speak to Olivia. In the process, Red panics and shoots his girlfriend in the leg. But Olivia eventually talks him down, and he lets the hostages go. Olivia walks out of the building under the admiring gaze of DA Harry Connick Jr.
Verdict: B+