Lennie Briscoe

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Detective Lennie Briscoe
Law & Order character

Time on show	1992-2004 (Law & Order) 2005 (Trial by Jury)
Succeeded	Philip Cerreta (Law & Order) None (Trial by Jury)
Preceded	Joe Fontana (Law & Order) Chris Ravell (Trial by Jury)
First appearance	Point of View (Law & Order) The Abominable Showman (Trial by Jury)
Last appearance	C.O.D. (Law & Order) Forty-One Shots (Trial by Jury)
Portrayed by	Jerry Orbach

Detective Leonard W. "Lennie" Briscoe (played by Jerry Orbach) was a fictional character on NBC's long running crime drama, Law & Order for twelve seasons from 1992 to 2004. He also appeared in all three Law & Order spinoffs, and was part of the original cast of Law & Order: Trial by Jury, appearing in only the first two episodes.

Briscoe worked for the 27th Precinct of the New York City Police Department as a homicide detective. His boss during his first year on duty at the 27th was Captain Don Cragen (Dann Florek); a year later, Lt. Anita Van Buren (S. Epatha Merkerson) took over the homicide squad.

Briscoe joined the Precinct in 1992 (episode: "Point of View") after Detective Mike Logan (Chris Noth)'s partner, Sgt. Phil Cerreta (Paul Sorvino), was shot by a black market arms dealer and was given a desk job. Since then, Briscoe became one of the two most popular characters over the 15-year history of the show, the other being Executive Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston).

Logan was transferred in 1995 to the Domestic Dispute Department in Staten Island for slugging a politician who had just gotten off on a murder charge (episode: "Pride"), and was replaced with Detective Rey Curtis (Benjamin Bratt) and later, Detective Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin) in 1999).

Over the 12 years Briscoe was featured on L&O, his wry, sarcastic wit became one of the show's most popular, endearing trademarks.

A veteran of two failed marriages, Briscoe had two daughters, Cathy and Julia, and a nephew, Detective Ken Briscoe (played by Orbach's son, Chris), who appeared in early episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. His family was fairly dysfunctional, however; an alcoholic for much of his life (he went sober in late middle age), he was often absent from his daughters' lives, and they had distant, fractious relationships with him as adults. Briscoe blamed himself, especially when Cathy, a methamphetamine addict, was murdered in 1998 by a drug dealer after she testified against him in court.

In the 1996, Briscoe fell off the wagon with disastrous results; ADA Claire Kincaid (Jill Hennessy) was struck and killed by a drunk driver while driving him home from a bar (episode: "Aftershock"). The experience shook him deeply, and he remained sober for the rest of his life.

Briscoe was raised Catholic, but was Jewish on his father's side and occasionally attended Jewish services as a courtesy to his first wife. Though not actually Jewish according to the traditional definition, Briscoe was sometimes the target of anti-Semitism from criminals and even some of his own colleagues. He seemed to be distant from his father, calling him "a son of a bitch," but seemed to be close to his mother, once telling Van Buren that any mother who seemed too good to be true probably is — except his.

Briscoe is one of many characters on the show to have served in the military; he was at one point a corporal in the United States Army. After leaving the Army, Briscoe joined the NYPD in the 29th Precinct and walked a beat there with stops at the 31st, 33rd, 110th, and 116th Precincts before rising to the rank of Detective.

One of Briscoe's former partners, Det. John Flynn (Kevin Conway), falsely implicated him in the 1996 (episode: "Corruption") of taking seized drugs from the Queens 116th Precinct evidence room (given to him by Flynn) during their stint there five years before. Flynn made this allegation partly to throw off a commission which had been convened to investigate police corruption, including the questionable shooting death of a suspect by Flynn himself. Briscoe, however, had an alibi for the time he was allegedly receiving stolen drugs from Flynn; he was having an affair with Officer Betty Abrams, a married woman. Against Briscoe's wishes, Abrams testified before the commission to exonerate him. Because of the affair, however, the commissioners questioned her credibility. Although Briscoe was ultimately cleared, defense attorneys of suspects he subsequently arrested exploited the allegations through the rest of his career.

Soon after they became partners, Briscoe and Green nearly came to blows during a particularly difficult investigation of a robbery/homicide. Their primary suspect confessed as he was being arrested, but because Briscoe was the only officer within earshot, Green, Van Buren, and McCoy were highly reluctant to believe him. Again, Briscoe was (eventually) vindicated, and he and Green worked to rebuild their professional rapport.

In 2004, Briscoe retired from the NYPD, and went to become a District Attorney Investigator with partner Hector Salazar (Kirk Acevedo), for District Attorney Arthur Branch (Fred Dalton Thompson). His successor in the 27th Precinct was Joe Fontana (Dennis Farina).

In 2005, the Briscoe character was written as having died, to coincide with Orbach's death from prostate cancer.

Since his debut, Detective Briscoe has become one of the most popular TV show characters of all-time, being voted the 30th great TV show character of all-time by Bravo TV.^[1]

Briscoe's badge number was 8220.