Leonard W. Briscoe was a fictional character on NBC's long-running police procedural and legal drama television series Law & Order.

Phil Cerreta (Paul Sorvino), is shot by a black market arms dealer and transfers to a desk job in another precinct.

[14] A veteran of two failed marriages, Briscoe has two daughters by his first wife, the elder Julia and the younger Cathy (Jennifer Bill), and a nephew, Det.

In the 1996 episode "Aftershock", after witnessing an execution from a case that he helped investigate, he falls off the wagon with disastrous results; Assistant District Attorney Claire Kincaid (Jill Hennessy) is struck and killed by a drunk driver while driving him home from a bar.

[19]: 63  Briscoe blames himself, especially when Cathy, a methamphetamine addict, is murdered by a drug dealer named Danny Jones (Johnny Dapolito) after she testifies against him in court.

[15][26] His father served in the United States Army during World War II and helped to liberate the Dachau concentration camp in Germany.

[30] He plays golf, and he is also revealed to be a skilled pool player, in one episode defeating an opponent in eight-ball after the break without giving up a turn.

[32] Briscoe used to read Langston Hughes back when he was a beatnik "for about five minutes" because "it used to work pretty good on Jewish girls from Riverdale.

[34] In the 1994 episode "Kids", the son of Briscoe's former colleague Detective Ted Parker (Robert Hogan) is arrested for shooting another teenager.

At the end of the episode, Parker tacitly acknowledges to Briscoe that he used his contacts in his old precinct to engineer the shooting death of a key prosecution witness in his son's case (resulting in a mistrial).

While investigating a 20-year-old cold case, Briscoe learns that one of his former colleagues, Tommy Brannigan (Brad Sullivan), had been convinced by his superior to accept promotion to detective first grade in exchange for letting a wealthy murder suspect go free.

The now-retired Brannigan ultimately confesses in court, which helps Executive ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston) convict the suspect in the long-cold case.

In addition, Curtis is called as a defense witness so he can state his belief that the original police report was correct; McCoy is forced to attack his credibility in order to salvage the case.

[38] Shortly after Ed Green is assigned as Briscoe's partner, the two nearly come to blows during a particularly difficult investigation of a robbery-homicide in the 1999 episode "Marathon".

Although not addressed directly on the main series until 2008, his death was implied in 2005 and confirmed in 2007 on an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

The three official mentions of his death were made by each of his three junior partners on the series: Mike Logan, Rey Curtis and Ed Green.

Soon after his retirement, Briscoe joins Law & Order: Trial by Jury, having accepted an appointment as an investigator in the office of New York County District Attorney Arthur Branch (Fred Thompson), with partner Inv.

In 2005, the Lennie Briscoe character was written out after the second episode of Trial By Jury, coinciding with Orbach's death on December 28, 2004, from prostate cancer.

[2] The character's departure from the show was originally to be in the episode "Baby Boom" in which members of the DA's office attend a memorial service for him.

In the 2007 Criminal Intent episode "Renewal", Mike Logan mentions that Briscoe has died, but that he still sees him alive in his dreams.

[42] In the 2008 Law & Order episode "Burn Card", Ed Green says that his gambling addiction relapsed briefly after Briscoe died.

[43] In the 2009 Law & Order episode "Fed", Rey Curtis returns to New York to bury his wife Deborah, who had finally succumbed to complications related to multiple sclerosis.