Jack McCoy

Jack McCoy

LawandOrderCharacter
name = Jack McCoy


time on show = 1994—present
proceeded = Ben Stone (EADA)
Arthur Branch (DA)
succeeded = Michael Cutter (EADA)
Incumbent (DA)
start = "Second Opinion"
finish =
portrayed = Sam Waterston

John James "Jack" McCoy is a fictional character in the television drama "Law & Order", created by Michael Chernuchin and played by Sam Waterston since 1994. He is the second-longest tenured character on the show, after Anita Van Buren.

Character overview

Jack McCoy is appointed Executive Assistant District Attorney by Adam Schiff in the episode "Second Opinion", bringing 24 years of experience with him. ["L&O": "Second Opinion"] He quickly establishes himself as a more unconventional, ruthless litigator than his predecessor, Ben Stone (Michael Moriarty); he often bends (sometimes breaks) trial rules to get convictions, finds impossibly tenuous rationales for charging defendants with crimes when the original charges don't stick, charges innocent people to frighten them into testifying against others, and makes passionate closing arguments. McCoy is more than once found in contempt of court for such behavior, and his tactics occasionally incur bad press for the DA's office. His underlying motivation, however, is not corruption, but a sincere desire to see justice done. To that end, McCoy has gone after defendants accused of perverting the justice system to arrange wrongful convictions with just as much determination as his more mundane cases. Such aggressive actions in the courts have earned him the nickname "Hang 'em High" McCoy. McCoy has subsequently developed a reputation with both colleagues and rival attorneys, once being referred to as "the top of the legal food chain" by a rival attorney during a case.

Following the 17th season (2006-2007), Jack McCoy became District Attorney, taking over from Arthur Branch (Fred Thompson). Waterston's appearance on "" on November 13, 2007, marks his first appearance in the "Law & Order" universe as District Attorney. The replacement for his former position is Michael Cutter (Linus Roache), a prosecutor with a penchant for recklessness. This occasionally presents political difficulties for the new District Attorney.

In the episode "Illegal," he fires an ADA (John Pankow) and it comes back to haunt him; the ADA is subpoenaed to testify and the defendant's lawyer accuses McCoy of firing him for political reasons.

In a 2008 case, McCoy tells Cutter that Dr. Elizabeth Olivet (Carolyn McCormick) had "sex with a patient" who was "a detective who'd lost a partner" (L&O: "Betrayal"). In that case, Olivet felt that the prosecution used an expert witness that had done studies where the results were not widely accepted in her field. When she informed McCoy that she would be testifying for the defendant, he felt he had no other choice but to provide Cutter with information that could be used in their favor when cross examining Olivet. The patient Olivet had sex with may have been Det. Mike Logan (Chris Noth) as the two formed a close bond when she helped Logan cope with the loss of his partner, Sgt. Max Greevey (George Dzundza) ("L&O": "Confession").Fact|date=September 2008

Personality

While he is a brilliant legal mind, McCoy possesses more than a few personal demons. He was abused by his father, an Irish Chicago cop who also beat his mother and who eventually died of cancer ("L&O": "Aftershock"). McCoy has also stated that his determination and unyielding work ethic came from his father's harsh punishments for losing; his father even beat him when he lost a game of darts to an older man when he was eight years old ("L&O": "Aftershock"). He also revealed that his father was a racist who once hit his son for dating a Polish girl. ("L&O": "In Vino Veritas").

McCoy occasionally takes cases personally, especially when they involve racism or child abuse.

However, this has often blown up in his face: his former ADA Diana Hawthorne is found to have suppressed evidence so they could win a case ("L&O": "Trophy"); Claire Kincaid (Jill Hennessy) is killed in a car accident ("L&O": "Aftershock") just as their affair is beginning to unravel. Defense attorneys have used this against him ("L&O": "Missing"). Since Kincaid's death, McCoy has kept his relationships with assistants professional, although he nurtures friendships with all of them.

Unlike Stone, he embraces the option of the death penalty, claiming it is a suitable punishment for particularly heinous crimes and a useful threat in plea bargaining. This often leads to heated arguments with his more liberal colleagues. He has shown mercy on occasion, however, such as the 1997 episode "Burned," in which he prosecutes a boy with bipolar disorder for murdering his sister. The boy's grandfather (Robert Vaughn), a wealthy CEO (and good friend of Schiff's) who also suffers from the disorder, attempts to get his grandson to plead guilty and go to jail rather than plead insanity and be committed to a mental institution, fearing that a public revelation of his son's illness would provide enough evidence to reveal his own illness and affect his reputation. McCoy leads the effort to prevent an unjust punishment for the boy.

McCoy has been divorced twice (one ex-wife having been a former assistant) and has an adult daughter, Rebecca. A gossip columnist writes that McCoy has not seen or spoken to his daughter since 1997 and McCoy receives an envelope containing pictures of his daughter ("L&O": "Fame"). He does not open the envelope; rather, he places it in his bottom left desk drawer, next to a bottle of Jim Beam. In "Fallout", the last scene is of McCoy meeting his daughter at a restaurant. It is revealed during a conversation with the New York Governor in a later season that he mentions Rebecca has taken a job in San Diego.

While McCoy was not exactly a part of the 1960s counterculture, he did protest against the policies of the Nixon administration, particularly the Vietnam war. In 1972, he published an article in the New York University Law Review in defense of Catholic priests opposed to the conflict. He retains some of the wild streak from his youth: he is a huge fan of punk rock bands like The Clash and he drives a BMW motorcycle ("L&O": "Rebels").

Religion

McCoy was raised Catholic but his level of faith shifts continuously throughout the series. In the episode "Thrill", where two teenage boys are accused of killing a man just for fun, McCoy finds his case particularly complicated when one of the suspects confesses the crime to his uncle, who happens to be a priest. When the confession tape is labeled priveliged, McCoy reluctantly ignores the bishop's request to preserve the sacrament of reconciliation and instead tries to use the tape as evidence. When Det. Curtis tries to dissuade him from doing so, remind him that he is a Catholic, McCoy responds, "Not when I'm at work."

By the episode "Under God," McCoy is particularly sour of the Church. When a man is accused of killing a drug dealer who killed the man's son, a priest confessed to the crime. Though McCoy personally believes that the priest is covering for the man, he prosecutes the priest instead. At the end of the episode, McCoy reveals why he has questioned his faith. When he was eight years old, an older friend of his, whom he "followed around like a puppy," died. When a priest tried to hear one last confession from the kid on his deathbed, he refused, believing that it would be meaningless. He then turned to the young McCoy and said, "God forgive me if I'm wrong." These were his last words. McCoy said that at times he felt as though he were still following him around.

In the episode "Angel," it is revealed that McCoy was educated by the Jesuits.

Conflicts

McCoy's unconventional and sometimes ruthless professional conduct has put his job in jeopardy more than once throughout the series. Some of the more serious occurrences:

* In "Monster", McCoy is brought before the Disciplinary Committee of the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division on misconduct charges stemming from a case (portrayed in "Under The Influence" earlier that season) in which he hid a material witness from the opposing counsel to support more serious charges against a defendant. As he ultimately released the evidence before the case was decided, he is not seriously punished for what he did. In the same episode, McCoy was given a hard time when it came clear that he in the case of sexual assault of a young girl had wrongly prosecuted an innocent, retarded man who under the investigation had been coerced by Rey Curtis and Lennie Briscoe to give false confession. When the real perpetrator were caught, he asked the girls doctor to give the defendants' lawyer false information.

* In ("L&O": "Invaders"), after the brutal murder of his assistant Alexandra Borgia (Annie Parisse), McCoy pushes the envelope even further when he arranges to present a sham prosecution to intimidate a corrupt DEA agent to turn State's evidence against her murderers. When that trick fails, McCoy, hoping the agent will lead police to the killers, orders him released. While the murderers are arrested and the corrupt agent is killed, the severely unorthodox strategies used in the case lead to McCoy being removed from the case by order of the Governor of New York. He is replaced for the duration of the case with an attorney from the New York State Attorney General's Office.

*In ("L&O": "The Family Hour"), in which a Senator is tried for murder, a medical examiner cites the wrong book during cross examination and later confesses to McCoy about it. McCoy wishes to disclose the error to the judge, but Branch decides the error is trivial and non-exculpatory and orders McCoy to keep quiet. When McCoy refuses to cooperate, ADA Connie Rubirosa (Alana de la Garza) gives the trial's closing summation instead of him. Although the jury votes for conviction following her dramatic speech, McCoy submits his letter of resignation for being pulled of the case. Branch appears to dissuade him from resigning (and says he would not be "in this chair forever") and McCoy replaces Branch as the D.A. immediately thereafter.

* In the Season 18 finale "Excalibur", McCoy risks his job when he tells the Governor that he is in on a sting operation involving an escort service (based on the Eliot Spitzer case). The Governor essentially blackmails McCoy into not allowing him to get involved.

*In the "" episode "Blinded", McCoy calls Casey Novak (Diane Neal) to his office and reprimands her for abusing her position as an ADA. He threatens to not only fire her, but to have the New York State Bar Association revoke her license to practice law.

* In the Season 18 episode "Strike", when fellow co workers harassed Rubirosa for working for "the dark side" when she is forced to become a defense attorney, McCoy threatens to make sure that anyone who bothers her will be put in traffic court for the next five years.

References

District Attorney's Office timeline


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