The third season of Law & Order aired on NBC between September 23, 1992, and May 19, 1993 which remained unchanged. This season marked the introduction of Jerry Orbach as Lennie Briscoe, who replaced Paul Sorvino after "Prince of Darkness." A year prior, Orbach had guest starred as a defense attorney in at least one season two episode: “Wages of Love”. At the end of the season, both Dann Florek and Richard Brooks departed the main cast.
Season 3 began with an unchanged cast. However, during the third and sixth episode, Carolyn McCormick was credited in the opening theme and starting with the ninth episode, she is credited for the rest of the season. This made her the first woman to be part of the cast in the series. A third of the way through, Lennie Briscoe (played by Jerry Orbach) replaced Phil Cerreta (Paul Sorvino) in the role of senior detective. This was the first mid-season replacement of a major character in Law & Order's history; the next would not occur until season 15. This was also the final season to feature Dann Florek as Capt. Don Cragen, and Richard Brooks as Paul Robinette. Both men would later return in guest roles, with Florek eventually joining the cast of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
Eric Bogosian, who guest starred as a defense attorney in the episodes "Conspiracy" and "Night and Fog", would later have a starring role in Law & Order: Criminal Intent.
After photographer Julian Decker is found murdered in his studio, Logan and Cerreta discover that Decker's real business was prostitution and acting as a pimp for models who aren't getting the work they needed. Their investigation leads to Angela Brandt, one of Decker's models who found more money working for Decker in other ways, but they also discover that Decker was romantically involved with Angela's teenage daughter. Stone realizes that something strange is going on when the case gets weaker against Angela, but all of a sudden she wants to cut a deal.
After Marcus Tate, the respected leader of a controversial African-American rights movement, is assassinated at a rally, Logan and Cerreta attempt to get information on the crime but are stonewalled by many of Tate's followers, who aren't interested in talking to white police officers. Photographs lead them to Mitchell Kolbin, a white man who had followed Tate religiously but who seemed to lose some of his wonderment when Tate began an affair with his wife.
Eric Bogosian, who guest-stars as defense attorney Gary Lowenthal, would later star in Law & Order: Criminal Intent as NYPD Major Case Squad Captain Danny Ross. Bogosian reprised his role as Lowenthal in "Night and Fog".
After Beth Milgram is found beaten to death in an alleyway after her going away party, Logan and Cerreta initially turn their suspicion to the girl's father after her fiancé, Tommy Beltran, claims that he had hit her after Beth told him they were engaged, but it isn't long before their primary suspect becomes Beltran himself. Stone has the unpleasant task of facing the renowned Cyrus Weaver, who is determined to prove that Tommy Beltran is not guilty of murdering Beth Milgram because he was a poor young man from a Mexican family who could not restrain his rage when his upper-class girlfriend broke up with him. (Plot derived from Bonnie Garland murder case.)
Cerreta and Stone find themselves on opposite sides of the fence when George Costas a storeowner kills two robbers and then claims self-defense as a justification.
Cerreta poses as a weapons dealer to help Stone build a case against a Colombian hit man, but the deal takes an unexpected turn, resulting in bloodshed.
Logan has trouble dealing with Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), who has been brought in while Cerreta recovers from surgery during their investigation of the murder of Tommy Duff, a small-time hood. Their investigation leads them to a woman who claims Duff raped her, and when her attorney, an old friend of Stone's from law school, calls Olivet to the stand to testify in Mary Kostrinski's defense, Schiff forces Stone to use Olivet's recent rape (from the episode "Helpless") to discredit her testimony. Logan is upset to learn that Cerreta has accepted another position within the department and will not be returning; at the end of the episode, Logan has no choice but to accept Briscoe as his new partner.
Engineer Phillip Marietta and tribal chief Gimju Nwaka become the chief suspects in the death of Kelani Amoda, a Nigerian woman who died while smuggling heroin internally.
When Janet Silver kidnaps her daughter from the mall, Logan and Briscoe are sent in to investigate and learn that she committed the crime with the assistance of a children's help organization after going to them with fears that the little girl's father was sexually abusing her.
After Stone accepts a plea bargain from Steven Gregg the much younger and poorer lover of Barbara Spiegleman a wealthy older woman found murdered in her apartment, he begins to have doubts that he has sent the right man to prison, especially as he learns more about Kevin Doyle the attorney who handled the woman's estate.
The confession of an elderly man that he assisted his shoah survivor wife in committing suicide doesn't fully satisfy Stone when evidence surfaces that the man was once a Nazi collaborator.
The investigation into the murder of Jennifer Gorham a young physician leads to the discovery of an unorthodox and illegal relationship between her fiancé and his psychiatrist.
The absence of a murder weapon complicates the investigation into the murder of Dawn Bryan a drug addict who stole from her family to support her habit.
Stone battles the Brooklyn D.A.'s office over prosecutorial jurisdiction in the case of David Zifrin, a mentally handicapped man who confesses to the stabbing deaths of two women.
Stone and the police battle the closed ranks of the Navy to investigate the death of Tracy Hagen a female Naval officer during a party in a Manhattan hotel.
The initial investigation into the death of Faye Walsh a research scientist leads to an animal-rights group until evidence surfaces that her husband's affair with Susan Boyd a coworker may point to a possible motive for the murder. When the husband is acquitted, the investigation turns to the individual who provided evidence of the affair.
While investigating several deaths at a diabetes clinic, Briscoe and Logan discover that teenage computer hackers may have tampered with the clinic's medical database.
When a Romanian immigrant kills, his lawyer announces he will plead his client "not guilty due to cultural insanity" claiming the man had been conditioned to violence in his homeland.
The statement of a drug dealer who survived a shoot-out that killed a cop leads Logan and Briscoe to suspect that the cop died because he was gay and his fellow officers were reluctant to back him up.
This episode was later remade as the Law & Order: UK season 2 episode titled "Samaritan".
Logan and Briscoe begin their investigation into the death of Kathleen McKenna a hearing-impaired young woman by questioning her two most recent boyfriends.