Kelly Gaffney

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Law & Order character
Kelly Gaffney
Time on show	2005
Preceded by	Unknown
Succeeded by	Unknown
First appearance	"The Abominable Showman"
Last appearance	"Eros in the Upper Eighties"
Portrayed by	Amy Carlson

Kelly Gaffney is a fictional character portrayed by Amy Carlson on the now defunct Law & Order: Trial by Jury. Gaffney is a Manhattan assistant district attorney, consistently working alongside Tracey Kibre. Of the two ADAs, Gaffney is the younger assistant who comes from an Irish-Catholic family with a history that runs deep in the city of New York. Gaffney is a graduate of Boston College, and is often more by-the-book when it came to law and its application than her superior. She often challenges Kibre in pertinence to cases they prosecute, and sees the law in more shades of gray than her partner.

Gaffney always sits second-chair to Kibre while prosecuting. Her role during trials is limited, as Kibre often tries the entirety of most cases the pair prosecuted. Gaffney's role is often most significantly played out at the crime scene investigation at the start of the show, at which point she often goes to the crime scene and interviews those who either witnessed the crime around which the show is set to revolve or were in the vicinity of the crime scene during its occurrence. The two prosecutors usually try homicides, though they did once try a high-profile rape during a crossover with Law & Order: SVU when Casey Novak was viciously attacked.

Gaffney is more idealistic than Kibre. After a jury returned a verdict of guilty in a case in which a babysitter was charged with murder due to Shaken Baby Syndrome. The judge, however, overrode the ruling, at which point Gaffney suggests to Kibre that they need to do something, whether it be filing an appeal or having the judge transferred to Staten Island Traffic Court. Kibre tells Gaffney that all they can do is move on.

[edit] Trivia

• Prior to playing Kelly Gaffney, Amy Carlson previously appeared in an episode of Special Victims Unit as Patricia Andrews, a woman who claimed that her police officer husband had raped her, later to rescind her statement.

• Carlson also appeared on the second episode of season 15 of Law & Order called Dead Wives Club, in which she kills the woman who stole her husband after the murder victim's first husband was killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.