The show follows a crime, ususally adapted from current headlines, from two separate vantage points. The first half of the show concentrates on the investigation of the crime by the police, the second half follows the prosecution of the crime in court.
Cast: S. Epatha Merkerson, Sam Waterston, Jerry Orbach, Steven Hill, Jesse L. Martin
Hitmen reach the last witness in the Russian mob case, which leads to the discovery of a money laundering scheme. And a related bomb scare at the police precinct forces McCoy to defy Schiff and go all out to prosecute the offenders.
A brutal murder of a Russian man has ties to the Russian mob. However, the only witness who isn't compromised is a traumatized 10-year-old boy who is reluctant to testify.
An Hispanic mathematics professor is the prime suspect in the murder of a graduate student. He claims he is being racially profiled, but detectives have two potential motives. However, they cannot place him at the scene of the crime.
The son of an imprisoned crime boss and a couple of strip club owners become the central figures in a murder investigation.
A businessman planning to build a new football stadium in New York City is on trial for murder. But the prosecution's star witness, a professional fundraiser who was having an affair with the victim, may have her own sinister motives.
The prime suspect in the murder of a college professor is a domineering father who kidnapped his children and disappeared 15 years earlier.
An investigative reporter is shot, and evidence indicates a link to a 20-year-old murder case. Prosecutors learn that one of the reporter's stories on the case may have helped convict an innocent man of the crime.
A female police officer is accused of killing a fellow police officer, her ex-boyfriend. She firmly maintains her innocence. However, she also says that he abused her, but nobody on the force heeded her warnings or helped her.
Carmichael aggressively pursues criminally negligent homicide charges against a group of greedy doctors and a medical supplies saleswoman after a patient dies in surgery under unusual circumstances.
A rebellious child dies during an unsanctioned exorcism ceremony. The defendant claims that St. Michael instructed her to perform it.
The death of a government official in New York leads Jack McCoy to cross swords with the Independent Counsel in Washington, as he tries to keep the identity of a key witness secret.
Two violent and overzealous bounty hunters working for a bail bondsman interfere with a murder investigation, and are ultimately responsible for two more deaths during their pursuit.
The unlikely suspect in the murder of a community activist and director of a community center in Harlem is a teen from the neighborhood who got into an Ivy League school with his help.
The discovery of a dead body inside a Volkswagen van dumped in a river lead Briscoe and Curtis to investigate the disappearance of a campus radical from the late 1960s.
When a teenage girl is found dead in the park, the detectives uncover a group of teen racists and the adult who encouraged them. The prosecution's case sparks a debate about hate speech and the First Amendment.
The Manhattan DA's office finds itself in the middle of a battle over the death penalty when it asks the Canadian government to extradite a Canadian-born woman facing multiple murder charges.
An inmate accused of arranging a hit on a corrections officer says that the guard raped her. She also claims that assistant DA Abbie Carmichael has a personal vendetta against her.
A murder case leads detectives to a mother/son team of con artists and accusations of incest.
A murder at a fertility clinic leads to a complicated, bitterly-contested case involving frozen embryos, a wealthy man, his widow, and his ex-wife.
After a woman is brutally attacked, the police believe they have stumbled on a serial killer. Prosecutors struggle with how to put him away for life with little evidence.
Prosecutors have trouble making a case against a father accused of injecting his son with deadly bacteria, so Jack is forced to play hardball with the bio-supplier that may have supplied him with it.
A teenager who was shot in a drug deal gone bad claims to have been coerced into working as an informant for a corrupt narcotics officer.
White police officers are accused of beating and dragging an African American man to his death. McCoy tries to prosecute while facing pressure from Federal prosecutors, who want to make a deal with one of the guilty parties.
New assistant D.A. Abbie Carmichael aggressively pursues an infant's death, and helps uncover a conspiracy involving a Russian adoption agency, gravely ill children, and an unethical doctor.