Casey Novak
| ADA Casey Novak | |
|---|---|
| Law & Order character | |
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| First appearance | "Serendipity" (2003) |
| Last appearance | "Valentine's Day" (2012) |
| Portrayed by | Diane Neal |
| Time on show | 2003–08, 2011–12 |
| Seasons | 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13 |
| Credited appearances | 112 episodes (SVU) 1 episode (TBJ) 113 episodes (total) |
| Preceded by |
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| Succeeded by | |
Casey Novak is a fictional character on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, portrayed by Diane Neal. She is the only female Assistant District Attorney (ADA) to have appeared in five complete seasons in any Law & Order series and the longest-running ADA in the entire franchise.
Casey Novak is a young and focused senior-assistant district attorney who's been with the Manhattan DA's office since 2001. It is revealed in early season five that she graduated from Harvard Law School, as seen on a plaque in her office. While sometimes deeply affected by the horrific crimes she deals with on the job, she does not often reveal her emotions. This is an exception to her first appearance; when Detective Benson came into her office to berate her for being too hard on a young child in a lineup, she finds Novak in tears. Although she quickly loses her innocence when dealing with sex crimes, she still shows uneasiness when dealing with the gray areas of human involvement, preferring the letter of the law to the messiness of each individual reality. Nonetheless, Novak has a 71 percent success rate in the cases she prosecutes, whereas the average for prosecutors is 44 percent.
It is revealed that in her final year of law school, Novak was engaged to a man, Charlie, who suffered from schizophrenia. She ended the relationship when his symptoms became so severe she felt she was no longer safe with him. In 2002, Charlie attacked her in her home during a psychotic episode. She convinced the police not to press charges, but ended the relationship. He eventually became homeless, and was found dead as a "John Doe" in the spring of 2007. She developed a deep compassion for the mentally ill afterward. While prosecuting a case, she deliberately sabotages a competency hearing for a schizophrenic child rapist to avoid him being extradited to Louisiana where he would face the death penalty. Manhattan's new DA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston) calls Novak into his office and threatens to fire her and have her disbarred if she abuses the authority of the DA's office again.
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