Arthur Branch
Arthur Branch is a fictional character on the long-running TV crime drama Law & Order, portrayed by former Senator Fred Dalton Thompson. Thompson was also a regular cast member as Branch on the short-lived spin-off Law & Order: Trial by Jury, making him one of the few actors to have a regular role on two TV series simultaneously as the same character.
Branch and his wife have lived in New York City since the early 1980s. He was elected the District Attorney of New York County in 2002, replacing DA Nora Lewin. His administration was a sharp contrast to that of Lewin, as he had little difficulty in accepting capital punishment in certain cases, and condemned what he perceived to be any outlandish interpretations of the US Constitution, including the existence of a right to privacy. This often put him in conflict with Executive Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy, a relatively liberal centrist, and his Assistant District Attorney Serena Southerlyn, a liberal idealist.
While his legal philosophy is decidedly conservative, he is not blindly partisan; he ascribes cynical, political motives to drug prohibition and is not averse to seeking alternatives to the death penalty when he thinks it appropriate. While he personally opposes abortion rights, he ordered the immediate arrest of a doctor who deliberately misled a young pregnant woman to ensure her pregnancy would develop past the legal time limit for the procedure, thus prompting her to desperately ask her boyfriend to assault her to induce a still birth.
In 2005, he fired Southerlyn because he felt she was inappropriately sympathetic toward the defendant she was prosecuting. When he fired her, she revealed that she was a lesbian.
Branch, a Republican, would be the first member of that party to serve as New York County District Attorney since would-be Governor Thomas Dewey.
When Thompson first accepted the role, he was still a sitting member of the Senate (his term would not expire for several more weeks), thus making Thompson the first sitting US Senator to accept an acting position - although he had already been an actor for many years before being elected.
Scenes with a cop
Branch has thus far shared a scene with a member of a police force five times.
- Anita Van Buren in "Mother's Day" and "Gaijin".
- Elliot Stabler in the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episodes "Shaken" and "Goliath".
- Don Cragen in the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Gone".