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Judge Gary Feldman is the secondary overarching antagonist of the eighth season of Law & Order. Feldman is a ruthless, politically-oriented judge who competes with the Manhattan District Attorney's office from within their own case loads, and eventually during election year.
He was portrayed by Cliff Gorman.
Biography[]
Feldman was a "hanging judge" hoping to bolster his career with tough sentences and making public statements about moral standards with his decisions in court. This was demonstrated when he tried Bernard Dressler for the vehicular homicides of three people while drunk at the wheel. Feldman and Executive Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy agreed to the strongest sentence possible, playing on McCoy's grief from losing his colleague and lover Claire Kincaid, to a drunk driving accident. He also bribed McCoy with a blank check, telling him to take the case as far as McCoy wanted. McCoy was intent on murder charges that would've risked the death penalty, and Feldman ensured that McCoy's motions would go in his favor. But when McCoy came to his senses, Feldman was furious and planned to make McCoy take the fall at the ethics committee. McCoy pointedly reminded Feldman he had just as much leverage over Feldman, so they both agreed to sentence Dressler to a prison term within the statutes of the law. Feldman pointed stated from the bench Dressler's actions disgusted him and he'd convict him of worse if the law allowed.
When D.A. Adam Schiff was up for reelection, Feldman was pitted against Schiff by a former associate of Schiff, Carl Anderton, as revenge for institutionalizing Anderton's grandson Terry Lawler, for an arson that accidentally killed Terry's baby sister. It came to a head when Feldman personally presided over the case of Jesse Castillo, who raped and attempted to kill a young black girl, Malika Richardson, in the projects where he worked security. It began when Feldman made the D.A.'s office own up to Owen Stokes being pressured into a false confession for the attack on Malika. Feldman advised Stokes to get a civil suit out of his persecution, released him, and ordered Castillo be personally tried by Feldman himself. McCoy got a confession from Castillo for a plea, but Feldman was furious and wanted a harsher punishment. McCoy said if Castillo was acquitted at trial, Schiff's constituents would surely blame him. Feldman bitterly accepted the plea, and eventually, he didn't take Schiff's seat once the election results came in.
