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Olivia Benson Clashes with Maura Tierney’s New Law & Order Lieutenant in Crossover Episode
In a Law & Order crossover episode, things got tense when Mariska Hargitay's beloved SVU captain came face-to-face with Maura Tierney's new lieutenant, Jessica Brady.
Jessica Brady, the 27th Precinct's new lieutenant on Law & Order, may be new to the squad, but she’s already clashed with a legend from the franchise.
Brady, played by Maura Tierney, faced off against Capt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit on a special Season 24 crossover episode of the original show. The episode, titled "The Perfect Man," focused on a murder case that was so controversial, it had Benson testifying for the defense.
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Although Brady is still settling into her new role as precinct boss after taking over for Lt. Kate Dixon (Camryn Manheim), the straightforward lieutenant proved she has what it takes to go toe-to-toe with some of the NYPD’s finest when she refused to back down despite Benson’s objections on how police handled the case.
The complicated case began after the body of app developer Tyler Miller was discovered in Central Park. Miller invented an app promising women the “perfect man,” but his real-life dating was far from perfect.
"I'm not Dixon," Lt. Jessica Brady makes clear
After detectives discovered the victim’s wallet in a dumpster, they learned that there were two different sources of DNA on the evidence. One sample matched Miller, but the second sample was unidentified. Detectives ran the DNA through the national CODIS database, but after getting no hits, Brady instructed them to run it through a “local” database.
“Dixon always told us to stay away from the local database,” Det. Vincent Riley (Reid Scott) objected. “Defense attorneys have a field day with it, judges hate it.”
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“I’m not Dixon,” Brady replied. “This is where we are and this is what we have, so, run it through the local.”
After running it through the system, the investigators discovered that the DNA matched to Laura Kingsbury, a woman who had been raped in a separate case and was mistreated by the police in that earlier incident. Miller had been stalking her, sending her lavish gifts, showing up unannounced and refusing to back off, even though Kingsbury had repeatedly rebuffed his advances.
After Kingsbury's arrest, Benson showed up in Brady’s office, convinced there must be some kind of “mistake.”
“I’m trying to make sense of this. I know this woman and she’s not a killer, she’s actually a victim,” Benson insisted. “Laura Kingsbury was brutally raped. I probably haven’t talked to her for a year, at least, but back then I helped her and her family navigate an extraordinarily difficult time because no one would listen to her.”
Although Brady and Executive Assistant District Attorney Nolan Price (Hugh Dancy), who had stopped by to discuss the case, were sympathetic to Kingsbury’s past, they noted that the evidence against her was solid. The murder weapon was found in her apartment and her DNA was found on the victim’s wallet.
“Her DNA? Why would her DNA even be in a federal database?” Benson asked.
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Why did Lt. Jessica Brady and Capt. Olivia Benson argue?
After Brady told Benson that Kingsbury's DNA had been found in the “local database,” Benson was furious, calling it a “rogue database.”
“The only reason she was in that database was because she was raped, because she gave us a sample for her rape kit,” Benson said, adding that some sexual assault victims might choose not to come forward if they knew their DNA was being used in that capacity.
But Brady stood by her decision.
“We have to use every tool available to catch killers and the database is helpful,” she replied. “It helps us close cases, murder cases, sexual assault cases.”
“I understand that, but I have fought this fight before and I think that we can all agree that that database is an ethical mess,” Benson shot back.
“That’s your opinion,” Brady told her.
Price interjected and insisted that the evidence against Kingbury had been obtained legally.
“Well, let’s see what a judge says about that,” Benson said, making it clear she wasn’t planning to back down.
Benson testifies for defense in Laura Kingsbury case
Rita Calhoun (Elizabeth Marvel), a defense attorney previously seen on Law & Order: SVU, picked up the fight in the courtroom, arguing to a judge that Kingsbury never would have agreed to give her DNA after being raped, if she knew it was later going to be stored in an unregulated database. Due to that factor, she argued that the DNA evidence should be tossed out.
But the judge ruled against the defense, agreeing with prosecutors that the database was a helpful tool to solve violent crimes.
The issue was far from over though. During the trial, Price and Assistant District Attorney Samantha Maroun (Odelya Halevi) were shocked when the defense called Benson to the stand.
After the surprise, Calhoun explained in the judge’s chambers that the defense planned to use Benson as an expert witness to testify about sexualized trauma.
“We plan to argue that the shooting was in self-defense. And that Tyler Miller had been stalking my client for months before the incident in question,” she explained. “My client will testify that she believed Mr. Miller was going to kill her that morning.”
On the stand, Benson testified that the trauma sexual assault victims feel can “last for years” and often lead to them seeing “the world as a more threatening place.”
“They have a heightened perception to danger, to threat, to things that another person might find innocuous,” she testified.
Benson also told the jury that Kingsbury had tried to get a restraining order against Miller, but police didn’t help because they didn’t believe there was enough evidence to suggest he was dangerous, and believed he was just “flirting” with her.
During his cross examination, Price pointed out that Benson hadn’t talked to Kingsbury the morning she shot an unarmed Miller, so there was no way she could have known what she was thinking at the time.
While later confronting Kingsbury on the stand, Price also pointed out that before obtaining a gun, she hadn’t tried to buy any non-lethal means of self-defense like pepper spray, and never tried to render any aid after shooting Miller or call 911.
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“You shot Mr. Miller in the eye and then you just ran,” he told her. “You left him to die and you went home and hid the murder weapon and prayed that no one would ever find you."
Nervous about the direction the case was headed, Benson went to District Attorney Nicholas Baxter (Tony Goldwyn) to see if he and Price would be open to cutting Kingsbury a deal.
Baxter was already feeling pushback on the case after Benson leaked the story to the press, leading to a front page story with the headline, “Can Crime Victims’ DNA Be Used Against Them?”
As a result, Baxter told Price to offer Kingsbury a deal to plead guilty to manslaughter in exchange for a 10-year sentence.
Benson tried to encourage Kingsbury to take the deal, arguing that it was a “good deal,” but Kingsbury refused and insisted she’d done nothing wrong.
“I did what I had to do because he was going to hurt me. He was. And if the police had done their job at any stop along the way, if the system had believed me when I was raped or when I was being stalked, we wouldn’t be here right now,” she said.
Kingsbury’s gamble didn't pay off and she was ultimately convicted of second-degree murder.
Benson was clearly frustrated with the outcome of the trial, but she was later able to reach some common ground with Price after he told her the DA’s office was going to hold a press conference the next day to announce that they no longer planned to use the local database to solve unrelated crimes.
He asked Benson if she’d appear at the press conference and, despite some unresolved tension, she agreed.
"I’ll be there,” she said.
To keep up on all the latest drama in Season 24, watch Law & Order Thursdays at 8/7c p.m. on NBC or stream new episodes the next day on Peacock.
