Jack McCoy
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| Law & Order character | |
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| Jack McCoy | |
|---|---|
| Time on show | 1994—present |
| Preceded by | Ben Stone (EADA) Arthur Branch (DA) |
| Succeeded by | Michael Cutter (EADA) Incumbent (DA) |
| First appearance | "Second Opinion" |
| Portrayed by | 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 running character on the show, after Anita Van Buren.
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[edit] Character overview
Jack McCoy is appointed Executive Assistant District Attorney bringing 24 years of experience with him by Adam Schiff.[1] He quickly establishes himself as a more unconventional, ruthless litigator than his predecessor, Ben Stone; 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 or out of vindictiveness because he sees them as morally, if not legally responsible, 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. Waterston's appearance on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit 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, 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 (played by John Pankow) and it comes back to haunt him as the lawyer is subpoenaed to testify and the defendant's lawyer brings out McCoy's so-called liberal bias when he is on the stand.
In a 2008 case, it was revealed by McCoy to Cutter that Dr. Elizabeth Olivet 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 as the two formed a close bond when she helped Logan cope with the loss of his partner, Sgt. Max Greevey (L&O: "Confession").
[edit] 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 workaholic attitude 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 8 years old (L&O: "Aftershock"). He also revealed that his father was a racist who once hit his son for dating a Polish girl named "Sheila Kowalski", (L&O: "In Vino Veritas"). McCoy rejected his Catholic faith as a child after his best friend's death (L&O: "Under God").
McCoy occasionally takes cases personally, especially when they involve racism or child abuse. In the beginning, he is also a notorious womanizer, having had sexual relationships with all of his first four female assistants: Diana Hawthorne, Sally Bell, Claire Kincaid and an undisclosed "ex-wife."
However, this has often blown up in his face: Diana Hawthorne is found to have suppressed evidence so they could win a case (L&O: "Trophy"); Claire Kincaid, is killed in a car accident (L&O: "Aftershock"). 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 (played by 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. 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 (L&O: "Fallout"), which involved a Russian citizen looking for his kidnapped daughter in New York and the means he took to find her, 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 Yamaha motorcycle (L&O: "Rebels").
As far as other miscellaneous attributes, McCoy uses his grandmother's name as his password for almost everything, he likes Eleanor Roosevelt and listens alot to Beatles and fusion jazz (L&O: "Access Nation").
[edit] Conflicts within the Law & Order universe
McCoy's unconventional and sometimes ruthless professional conduct has put his job in jeopardy more than once throughout the series. Three of the more serious occurrences are:
- In (L&O: "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 (L&O: "Invaders"), after the brutal murder of his assistant Alexandra Borgia, 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, Connie Rubirosa gives the trial's closing summation instead of him. Although the jury votes to convict following her dramatic speech, McCoy tenders his resignation for being pulled off the case. Branch appears to dissuade him from resigning, however, and McCoy replaces Branch as the D.A. immediately thereafter.
- In the SVU episode "Blinded", McCoy calls Casey Novak 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 Season 18 episode "Strike", when fellow co workers harassed Connie Rubirosa for working for "the Dark Side" when she is forced to become a defense attorney, Jack threatens to make sure that anyone who keeps it up will be stuck in traffic court for the next five years.
- 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.
[edit] References
- ^ L&O: "Second Opinion"
[edit] District Attorney's Office timeline
| Time period | Assistant District Attorney (ADA) | Executive Assistant District Attorney (EADA) | District Attorney (DA) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1994 – 1996 | Claire Kincaid | Jack McCoy | Adam Schiff |
| 1996 – 1998 | Jamie Ross | Jack McCoy | Adam Schiff |
| 1998 – 2000 | Abbie Carmichael | Jack McCoy | Adam Schiff |
| 2000 – 2001 | Abbie Carmichael | Jack McCoy | Nora Lewin |
| 2001 – 2002 | Serena Southerlyn | Jack McCoy | Nora Lewin |
| 2002 – 2005 | Serena Southerlyn | Jack McCoy | Arthur Branch |
| 2005 – 2006 | Alexandra Borgia | Jack McCoy | Arthur Branch |
| 2006 – 2007 | Connie Rubirosa | Jack McCoy | Arthur Branch |
| 2008 — | Connie Rubirosa | Michael Cutter | Jack McCoy |
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