Detectives Briscoe and Logan investigate the murder of Dawn Bryan. The young African-American woman once had a bright future ahead of her. She was a good student and was even voted most likely to succeed. It seems to have all come tumbling down when she got hooked on crack. She was shot with a .45 caliber gun and their first suspect is her supplier and sometime live-in boyfriend who goes by the street name of Skate. The dead woman's family are devastated by the loss of their daughter but they feel they lost her long ago when she became hooked on drugs. When the evidence points to a family member as the likely culprit, ADA Stone and DA Adam Schiff both feel a good deal of sympathy. Paul Robinette however doesn't think anyone should have leniency and pushes for a grand jury indictment.

Detectives and prosecutors believe that a smug comedy club owner shot his wife and put her in a coma, but they can't come up with enough hard evidence to get him convicted.

The death penalty has just been passed in New York and prosecutors must decide whether or not it is appropriate after an unlikely suspect murders an undercover police officer.

A female Navy pilot kills an officer over their affair. However, McCoy suspects that the Navy may be impeding the D.A. office's investigation because she is a valuable asset and a positive female role model.

A frustrated, over-stressed mother is charged with murder after starting a fire that killed her disabled son, but the case weighs heavy on Jack McCoy's conscience. Nora Lewin is introduced as DA Adam Schiff's replacement.

An activist college student is killed for investigating a meat packing plant. McCoy later uncovers a connection between the plant and five E. coli deaths at a fast food chain.

A teenage converted Muslim from a wealthy New York family acts as his own counsel in his murder trial, claiming that he is a victim of an American Anti-Muslim conspiracy.

A drug dealer turns up dead, leading detectives to members of a neighborhood watch group whose lives were poisoned by the victim. The priest who leads the group confesses to the crime, claiming that God told him to do it.

As the DA's office tries to prosecute a teenage sniper who killed four people, prosecutors discover that he was abducted from his real family as a child and emotionally abused by the man he was living with.

A popular Broadway composer is accused of murder. His psychiatrist blames it on a traumatic episode he had as a teenager, but McCoy discovers that the doctor may also have a motive.

A boy is murdered in the park in front of two witnesses by a man on a bicycle. When the witnesses are repeatedly threatened and one turns up dead, the case against the murderer begins to unravel.

Two women are accused of conspiring to murder each other's husbands, but Jack and Serena are forced to try the cases simultaneously and separately. Meanwhile, Detective Briscoe announces his retirement.