Law & Order (TV Series)

Prince of Darkness (1992)

Michael Moriarty: Executive ADA Ben Stone

Quotes 

• Adam Schiff : The gun dealer was in the yard at Riker's; had his throat cut. Buenaventura was strangled in the kitchen at Dannemora. And Manuel Ortega's mother fell out of a window.

  A.D.A. Paul Robinette : What about the little girl?

  Adam Schiff : She was picked up at school by her uncle.

  Executive A.D.A. Ben Stone : She doesn't have an uncle!

  [cut to Schiff's horrified expression before the credits roll] 

• A.D.A. Paul Robinette : Cristobal's son, 19, police report says Gaitan put three bullets in the back of his head. Maybe Frank Hoover has a point.

  Executive A.D.A. Ben Stone : Terrific. You don't like the system, go get a gun. We can paint the courthouse steps red.

  Adam Schiff : A lot of people would rather give him a medal than a sentence. Frank Hoover has a case for extreme emotional disturbance.

  Executive A.D.A. Ben Stone : I'm not hard hearted, but I don't get this one. It's premeditated, it's wrong.

  Adam Schiff : I'm not up on my Catholic theology, but is self-righteousness a mortal or a venial sin?

  A.D.A. Paul Robinette : You killed a man who killed your son, to a jury it doesn't matter how premeditated it was.

  Adam Schiff : Let him do four to 12.

  Executive A.D.A. Ben Stone : OK, just as long as you take the press conference.

• Executive A.D.A. Ben Stone : Have you ever heard of a man named Javier Laureano Gaitan?

  Mrs. Ortega : [Ben Stone looks at the defendant]  I've... I've heard of him.

  Executive A.D.A. Ben Stone : Have you ever heard him called anything else?

  Mrs. Ortega : They call him... they say, El Diablo, The Prince of Darkness.

• Adam Schiff : Twenty people in that restaurant. No ID. We say he's Gaitan, they say Esteban. Without fingerprints, they can say he's Peter Pan.

  A.D.A. Paul Robinette : The State Department buys dictators over breakfast, they can't get prints from the Colombians?

  Adam Schiff : Billions of dollars, the cartel is an underground nation. They kill judges down there for sport!

  Executive A.D.A. Ben Stone : Adam, is there an agenda here?

  Adam Schiff : The US Attorney's office did call. They say that Gaitan can make federal cases into the next century.

  A.D.A. Paul Robinette : He'll get six months, testify in three cases, and go home.

  Executive A.D.A. Ben Stone : Adam, that is nuts. We convict, the feds get leverage, and I think facing 25 years, he'd sell out anybody.

  Adam Schiff : The feds would like us to talk to Gaitan. You'll do it.