| “ | Come off it, Jack. You know what I did - exactly what you wanted me to. | „ |
| ~ Diane rationalizing her corruption. |
Diana Hawthorne is the main antagonist of the Law & Order episode "Trophy". She is a corrupt attorney who planted evidence to convict the wrong person of a series of murders.
She was portrayed by Laila Robins, who would later portray Liann Crosby in another Law & Order episode, as well as Pamela Milton in The Walking Dead and the young Livia Soprano in The Sopranos.
Biography[]
Backstory[]
Hawthorne is a lawyer who worked for Executive Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy as an Assistant District Attorney, and also engaged in a romantic relationship with him. In 1991, they served as the prosecuting team against Andrew Dillard, a white supremacist who was charged in the murder of five Black boys.
Two months before the trial, one of the police officers on the case, Detective Monfredo, gave Hawthorne a statement he took from a woman named Laverne Chalmers, which implicated a Black man in killing Jaleel Franklin, the third of the five victims. Hawthorne destroyed the statement and later approached a handwriting expert, examining the notes left near the bodies to go over his testimony. When he said he couldn't be sure, Hawthorne convinced him to lie under oath that the handwriting matched Dillard's by telling him that only he could stop a serial killer of children from going free.
As a result of her cover-up, Dillard was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Soon afterward, Hawthorne ended her relationship with McCoy and left the DA's office to set up her own practice as a defense attorney.
"Trophy"[]
Five years later, two more boys are murdered in the same fashion, proving that Dillard was innocent. NYPD Homicide Detectives Lennie Briscoe and Rey Curtis eventually find the real killer, Simon Brooks, a fanatically religious security guard who had murdered the boys because he considered them sinners.
Following this, McCoy finds himself on the receiving end of a lawsuit from Dillard, with Hawthorne named in the suit. After Claire Kincaid, Hawthorne's successor as McCoy's Assistant District Attorney (and his new lover), discovers Hawthorne's role in Dillard's conviction, she meets with her and asks her about the case. Hawthorne denies hiding the statement and attempts to implicate McCoy as the culprit. She also blames McCoy to his face when he confronts her, stating that he has bent the law numerous times to get convictions.
McCoy decides to prove his innocence and make an example of Hawthorne by charging her with two counts of second-degree criminal facilitation regarding Brooks' two recent victims. During her trial, she scapegoats McCoy, saying that he had made it clear to her that he wanted her to hide the report to make sure that he would be promoted. While cross-examining her, however, Kincaid manages to get Hawthorne to admit that she wanted to help McCoy get promoted to prove her love for him, and that he never asked her to do what she did; Hawthorne later admits as much to McCoy outside of court.
At episode's end, Hawthorne pleads guilty to solicitation in the fourth degree, and is sentenced to six months in jail, while also losing her license to practice law.
External links[]
- Diana Hawthorne on the Law & Order Wiki
