Release (Law & Order episode)

"Release" is the 379th episode of NBC's legal drama Law & Order, and the 8th episode of 17th season.

Plot

The friend of a producer of a line of videos (akin to "Girls Gone Wild") is found dead on the video company's bus outside a party. A security video shows the producer entering the bus with a woman an hour before the murder, and then the producer leaving to meet his friend outside the bus, who then goes in himself. The detectives track down the woman, who had been recorded by the producer at an earlier party. The woman, a college student, tried to get the tape back from the producer, but he said he would only return it in return for sex. She initially agreed, but then changed her mind. When the producer sent his friend in to have sex with her, as a "birthday present", the student killed him with a champaign bottle.

Jack McCoy charges the producer with rape and felony murder, the murder being an outcome of the continuing underlying felony of the rape. At trial, the defense produces a sexual consent contract signed by the student. Although this appears to hurt McCoy's case, Connie Rubirosa finds other such forms, including one signed by a minor who committed suicide because she could not get a tape she had appeared in from the producer. The testimony of this girl's mother proves valuable, and after the producer turns down a last minute plea offer for the rape, he is found guilty.