Spoilers ahead for Episode 12 of Law & Order Season 24, called "Duty to Protect" and set to stream with a Peacock subscription.
Law & Order kept the spotlight on the attorneys of Season 24 in the latest episode of the 2025 TV schedule, although "Duty to Protect" didn't involve another family reunion for Nolan Price. Instead, ADA Sam Maroun had to take a stand when it fell to her to defend a victim against not only Price, but also their boss, DA Nick Baxter, when they wanted to prosecute and set a precedent. The case itself was one that I'd normally expect to see Mariska Hargitay and Co. investigating over on Law & Order: SVU, but I'm glad it fell to the Law & Order crew because actress Odelya Halevi crushed her performance.
The murder victim of the week was a teen girl who was killed by her adoptive father to prevent her from releasing a video that revealed his years of sexual abuse, and that was enough to make me wonder if we were in for a surprise cameo from Olivia Benson. Instead, the man who murdered her was quickly put on trial and then killed himself in court to avoid being convicted. Baxter and Price weren't ready for that to be the end of the story, though, after they learned that the girl's mother, Michelle Burns (played by Extended Family alum Abigail Spencer), had known about the abuse for years and didn't save her daughter.
Baxter was happy to charge Michelle with manslaughter, but Maroun had her misgivings when the truth came out that Michelle's actions had been due to trauma from her years of sexual abuse as a child followed by abuse from her husband as an adult. Price was trying the case according to the law, but also fighting kind of dirty, and neither Price nor Baxter were listening to her about key facts from Michelle's background being kept from the jury while Michelle cried on the stand.
Maroun finally hit her limit when Price said that they'd have to "agree to disagree" and firmly reminded him that she knows much, much more about dealing with abuse than either of Law & Order's other attorneys, saying:
Do you really think that you know more about domestic violence than I do? I've counseled victims, I've volunteered at shelters, I studied the psychological impact of trauma. And there's my sister, who died at the hands of an abuser. So please, don't tell me what Michelle should have done or what she was legally required to do. She spent most of her life being abused, and the truth is, Nolan, she wasn't capable of protecting herself, let alone her daughter. There is no punishment in the world that is going to change that. If you don't respect my opinion when it comes to this issue, then I don't know what the hell I'm doing in this office.
Tell him, Sam! To Nolan's credit, he finally started to hear what she was telling him and convinced Baxter that they needed to "start listening to her instead of telling her why she's wrong." So, Baxter agreed that precedent didn't trump all the sympathetic details of Michelle's case, and the result was a plea deal that resulted in one year in jail and three years of supervision rather than the maximum penalty of 15 years if found guilty by jury.
And all in all, I'm ready for Odelya Halevi to get the spotlight more often on Law & Order. The show is of course a procedural with an ensemble cast, so no one character is the focus every single week, but getting to see more of Maroun and – importantly – see her bosses actually acknowledge her arguments made for a pretty great episode.
As for what comes next, keep tuning in to NBC on Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET for new episodes of Law & Order Season 24. "Duty to Protect" even ended on a card with the number for the sexual assault hotline (1-800-656-4673), so it really did feel like it could have been an episode of SVU, but that is not a bad thing!
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