Decaying Morality: Law & Order SVU

Law & Order SVU’s “Decaying Morality” (2/4/15) was about a 16-year-old girl named Jenna Davis falsely accusing a man named Jerome Jones of rape because she was afraid to tell who really raped her. Jones was just trying to get her out of the restroom at the pizza shop where he worked while Benson and Rollins were discussing the latter’s return across the street.

After an exam at the hospital, there was no doubt that Jenna had been raped and also had a combination of alcohol and drugs in her system. Jerome was interrogated and proved to be a plaintiff in a multi-million dollar lawsuit as one of 3 black men accused of rape and coerced into confessing. The detectives stewed that he got off on a technicality but they were sure he was guilty this time.

Jenna’s parents came to the station and Jenna’s uncle, Neil Alexander, showed up. He was a dentist and Jenna had been to see him before all this happened. So right then, you knew who really did it.

ADA Barba insisted they let Jerome go until there was some definitive proof of his guilt so they didn’t end up with another multi-million dollar lawsuit on their hands. They ended up with worse than that! A rush was put on the test for the semen found inside Jenna’s sweater. Jenna’s father, Luke Davis, at the uncle’s instigation, was so outraged that he kidnapped Jerome and tortured him with a nail gun to make him confess, while videotaping the whole thing, including the torture. How ridiculous was that? (Not as ridiculous as Det. Carisi telling Det. Rollins, well, he did confess, we suppose). Jerome had asthma and died. Luke tried to give him CPR unsuccessfully. Luke got sent to Riker’s with a million dollars bail, despite his attorney’s “punitive” protests.

Meantime, videotape from the pizza shop got cleared up and showed that Jerome did not assault Jenna in any way. He wasn’t in the rest room long enough to do anything to justify her claims, they both had all their clothes on when they walked out of it, blah blah. Jenna visited her dad in prison and said if it would help him, she would continue to insist it was Jerome but that conversation was taped and Benson and Rollins used it to get the truth out of her.

Uncle Neil, DDS was a slippery manipulative predator with a loyal dental hygienist named Jiya for a wife. He had even testified for the police a number of times. He gave the detectives a DNA sample that turned out to be a match to the sweater DNA, but his cover story was that he and Jiya had a quickie before Jenna got in the chair. After Benson leaked the story to the press, women began calling and coming to the police station (like the Bill Cosby story), recounting Neil’s many sins for the past 20 years. Finally, the detectives used Jenna as bait to get Uncle Neil to confess. They met at a diner but he was too slick to confess until she said she thought she was pregnant. That wasn’t possible, he said, because he had a vasectomy. She cried that she had been a virgin and he callously said she wasn’t that special. Then the detectives pounced on him, put the cuffs on and hauled him away.

Barba met with Jerome Jones’ relatives to explain why he wanted to offer Luke Davis a plea bargain. He believed a jury would acquit Luke of murder because he was acting under extreme emotional duress but at least with a plea bargain, Luke would do some jail time. The episode ended with Jerome’s mother trying to come to terms with where they were at.

Also in “Decaying Morality”
Mariska Hargitay – Det. Olivia Benson
Raúl Esparza – ADA Rafael Barba
Ice-T – Det. Odafin Tutuola
Kelli Giddish – Det. Amanda Rollins
Danny Pino – Det. Nick Amaro
Peter Scanavino – Sonny Carisi
Jason Cerbone – Terrence Quinn (Luke’s attorney)
Samuel Gomez – Leroy
Sarah Elizabeth Grace – Marcia
Nicholas Marocola – Police Officer