After a drunken driver kills three people in the same accident, Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Curtis (Benjamin Bratt) deliver the perpetrator to the D.A.'s office. Still grieving over the death of his former partner, Claire Kincaid, in a similar DUI accident, McCoy (Sam Waterston) intends to charge the driver with first-degree murder, a determination which results in conflict between McCoy and his current partner Ross (Carey Lowell). The ensuing trial degenerates into a media circus, helped not at all by the ruthless behavior of a politically ambitious judge. Cliff Gorman makes his first Law & Order appearance as Judge Gary Feldman. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi