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| “ | I needed the money. I was getting killed in the divorce! Everything I worked for, gone! Please, Adam, try to understand... They had so much money! They would have beaten it anyway! | „ |
| ~ Hynes trying to justify taking a bribe to Adam Schiff. |
Judge Edgar Hynes is the secondary antagonist of the Law & Order episode "Jeopardy". He is a corrupt New York State Supreme Court judge who takes a bribe in return for suppressing evidence and getting a wealthy family friend acquitted of murder.
He was portrayed by the late Louis Zorich.
Early life[]
Hynes went to Yale University with future food wholesale magnate Peter Nicodos, Sr., and graduated from law school in 1959, eventually becoming a judge. Prior to ascending to the bench, he married a woman named Jane and worked alongside future Manhattan County District Attorney Adam Schiff. He and Schiff became close friends and, over the next 35 years, helped each other's careers, with Hynes endorsing Schiff for his election to D.A. and Schiff using his political connections to get Hynes promoted to the New York State Supreme Court.
A month prior to the events of the episode, Jane divorced Hynes and took almost all of his money in the settlement. He also had to sell his luxury yacht, one of his most prized possessions, in order to pay his legal fees.
"Jeopardy"[]
Desperate for money, Hynes agreed to help Nicodos' widow, Elaine, get her son Peter, Jr. acquitted of murdering his own brother, Eddie, in return for a $600,000 mortgage loan from the Nicodos family's bank.
Hynes pulls strings to have another judge's law clerk assign Peter, Jr.'s trial to him. Peter, Jr.'s lawyer, Norman Rothenberg, objects to Executive Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy and Assistant District Attorney Claire Kincaid - Schiff's direct subordinates - including damning testimony from a forensic expert and Peter, Jr.'s mistress as evidence, an objection that Hynes sustains. He then grants Rothenberg's motion to dismiss the charges against Peter Jr., meaning that McCoy cannot try him again for Eddie's murder under double jeopardy rules.
Schiff is troubled by Hynes' ruling, so he has a drink with him as an excuse to ask him why he made such a decision; Hynes indignantly replies that he does not owe Schiff an explanation. Schiff looks up one of Hynes' decisions from a similar case years earlier in which he ruled in favor of the prosecution, and he comes to suspect that the Nicodos family had bought his verdict. He orders McCoy and Kincaid to investigate.
With help from NYPD Detectives Lennie Briscoe and Rey Curtis, who investigated the murder, McCoy and Kincaid discover Hynes' relationship with the Nicodos family and his mortgage loan, which the banker who issued it admits was orchestrated by Elaine Nicodos.
Schiff has Hynes arrested for bribery and official misconduct and watches grimly as Briscoe and Curtis interrogate him. Schiff then banishes Briscoe, Curtis, and Hynes' lawyer from the interrogation room and tells Lieutenant Anita Van Buren to turn off the recording equipment, all so he can talk to Hynes face-to-face about what he did without breaking the law. Hynes appeals to Schiff as a friend to get him out of trouble, only for Schiff to refuse and rebuke him for violating his oath as a judge. Hynes says he took the bribe because he was about to go bankrupt, and then rationalizes what he did by saying that Peter, Jr. would have beaten the charges anyway. Schiff replies that that is not the point, and then tells his old friend that it is up to him where and for how long he goes to prison.
Once Hynes' corruption is brought to light, McCoy and Kincaid convince an appeals court to reinstate the murder charges against Peter, Jr., by arguing that double jeopardy does not apply because the original verdict was achieved through corruption. Peter, Jr. ultimately pleads guilty in order to spare Elaine from being prosecuted for bribery. Hynes, meanwhile, goes to Sands Point Beach, where he owns a soon-to-be foreclosed beach house, and commits suicide by shooting himself in the head. A later episode reveals that, after Hynes' suicide, Jane sells the beach house for $3.5 million.
External links[]
- Edgar Hynes on the Law & Order Wiki
