Casey Novak

Senior Assistant District Attorney Casey Novak is one of the supporting characters of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. 
She is portrayed by Diane Neal.
== Personality ==
Novak is a confident and focused prosecutor who, while sometimes deeply affected by the horrific situations she deals with on the job, does not always reveal her emotions. Novak can sometimes see the world in black and white and follows the law strictly without sympathy for the suspects and their situation, unless she is convinced otherwise by the detectives in the Special Victims Unit, or by extreme mitigating circumstances. Her idealism becomes especially clear in situations involving abuse of power, coming from dirty cops, executives, and even judges. Although she quickly lost her innocence when first dealing with sex crimes, she still shows uneasiness while in the gray areas of human involvement, preferring the letter of the law to the messiness of each individual's reality."Law and Order: SVU: Casey Novak [INTJ]". Funky MBTI in Fiction. https://funkymbtifiction.tumblr.com/post/121192731902/law-order-svu-casey-novak-intj 
Novak has certain instincts about people and could actually aid in an investigation on her first appearance, concluding of that profession a rapist had and subsequently physically saving the girl. She often makes connections to help solve a case, looking into someone’s background for something that can be used against them to force their hand (or be used to help them in complicated situations involving innocent or tragic suspects). Novak is often brash with those around her, whether it’s the SVU squad, defendants, defense attorneys, or even her bosses. She can come across as having no regard for feelings other than her own. She is confident in her methods of obtaining information and getting people to make deals, although she’s less confident in her personal life, blaming herself for the eventual death of her former fiancé, who had gone off his schizophrenia medications and whom she had left, wondering if she hadn’t left that he’d still be alive."Law and Order: SVU: Casey Novak [INTJ]". Funky MBTI in Fiction. https://funkymbtifiction.tumblr.com/post/121192731902/law-order-svu-casey-novak-intj 
Despite her ability to think ahead, sometimes Novak has trouble with the here and now during investigations and prosecutions. She is professional at taking charge and using tangible evidence around her and adjusting to the defense’s tactics. However, she often comes off shortsighted as it became quite evident during season 9, where Novak had become more personally involved in certain cases than ever before. Most notably, in the season 9 finale "Cold", she was so in the grip of her position that she couldn’t see how her conduct would affect her future, she got a three-year suspension as an ADA because of her conduct involving a case against a corrupt police officer moonlighting as a rapist who was later (wrongly) acquitted. Regardless of her poor decisions, when she returns to SVU, all she needs is a conviction to restore her reputation - showing that she’s not afraid to seize opportunities in front of her, though she can appear hasty while it would take time to improve her situation."Law and Order: SVU: Casey Novak [INTJ]". Funky MBTI in Fiction. https://funkymbtifiction.tumblr.com/post/121192731902/law-order-svu-casey-novak-intj
== Early Life ==
Novak is possibly of Slovak descent. She went to elementary school with a bully named Doug Papillion who conned the other children in her class into eating rabbit droppings by saying they were raisins, but he never fooled her because "I would never put something in my mouth just because Dougie told me too", calling him a sadist and stating the last she heard of him he was selling used cars in Toledo, Ohio.
It was revealed in early Season 5 that Novak graduated from Harvard Law School and used to clerk for Judge Mary Clark. She initially joined the Manhattan DA's office in the Investigations department in the White Collar division.
During her final year in law school, she was once engaged to a man named Charlie, but the relationship ended when his untreated schizophrenia got out of control, as she revealed to Benson in Season 7. She tells Benson that the last she heard he was homeless, and that she regularly tries to find him. In Season 9, Novak tells Benson that she was called to the morgue to identify a John Doe, who turned out to be Charlie. 
Novak previously met SVU Detective Elliot Stabler in a law enforcement softball match between the ADA team and the police officer team in which Novak and her team won, though it implies that she did not talk with him very often prior to the Season 5 episode "Serendipity". 
== Notable SVU storylines ==
Novak replaced Alexandra Cabot as an ADA after Cabot joined the Witness Protection Program. At first, Novak did not get along with the SVU detectives, particularly Stabler (who first recognized her from having played against her in a softball game where she and her team won) and Olivia Benson, who saw her as arrogant and distant. Eventually, however, she learned how to be more of a team player, and became close to the SVU squad. Her first case dealt with a child rapist and Novak ended up saving the victim herself, figuring out that the rapist, Peter Nestler, was a fisherman and later where he stashed the girl. She then carries the victim to safety herself while Nestler gets arrested. She later asked Arthur Branch if she could leave the job because she couldn't let go of what happened to the little girl she saved. Branch denied the request, saying that at first he wasn't sure if Novak was right for the job, but the fact the case affected her showed him the job perfectly suited her for it. 
She narrowly puts her job on the line when she illegally reveals to the wife of an assistant district attorney, who was a murder suspect, that she may have been exposed to HIV after he was revealed to have it from an affair with another man. She tried to take the case towards trial despite its potential compromising revelations, although the lawyer of the suspect threatened to report her unless she withdrew the charges. Novak refused to do so and visited the wife to console her as an apology. These efforts were successful and with the wife, she visited the husband in jail, where a tearful confession was revealed, as Novak offered him a plea bargain once she noticed the full genuine regret in his facial expression. In return, the lawyer agreed to drop the complaint against Novak as a result without even being asked. 
During a case involving a wealthy man named Gabriel Duvall who was a suspect of raping illegal immigrants, Novak arranges for one of them to have legal status until she testifies in court, after which she promises to fight for a green card for her. Novak returns to her office along with Benson during the night to work out the details of the case. A phone call came to Novak's office saying that someone had sent her flowers. Novak tells the caller to send them up, but she fears they are from Gabriel's defense attorney. Benson offers to go get some coffee and leaves. Suddenly, a man dressed in black enters with flowers and begins to brutally beat Novak. She suffers several blows to the head and a few kicks as well, despite her attempted physical resistance, and calls for mercy for him to stop. Benson returns to her office to find the A.D.A. knocked out on the floor. She calls an ambulance and rides to the hospital with her, while she tells Stabler to check the security cameras. At first, Gabriel was a suspect, but after checking the security tapes, Stabler finds he was not behind the attack. The attacker happened to be the victim's brother. He is arrested and explains that, under his interpretation of fundamentalist Islam, Novak deserved to die as she revealed that his sister was no longer a virgin. He also reveals that she no longer wishes to testify. Stabler offers to go talk to her, but Captain Donald Cragen demands Novak does. Stabler objects that she is off work and doesn't want to be seen, and Cragen reveals that is why he wants her to go. Novak talks to the victim as she clearly stated that there would not be anything to prevent her from prosecuting her rapist, and she agrees to testify again. However, Novak soon finds she is taken off the case. 
In the episode "Blinded", Novak deliberately caused a schizophrenic defendant (who had physically assaulted Stabler earlier) to have a psychotic break during trial in order to save him from potential execution, as she knew that not even his defense attorney would make the jury see past his heinous actions despite his mental illness. While she had gone into trouble with her boss, District Attorney Jack McCoy, as she faced anger and extreme disapproval from both Benson and Stabler as a result, she still felt she did the right thing of putting the defendant into a psychiatric institution rather than prison or death row. She later visited the defendant at the institution after she learned he had tried to commit suicide from all the guilt he had, and after inviting him to call her by her first name, she told him he would eventually forgive himself.    
In the episode "Cold", her conduct during the trial of a corrupt police officer who raped two illegal immigrants leaves her facing a lengthy suspension. She was later present with the SVU detectives when Chester Lake got arrested after presumably killing the same cop, and shared a shocked look when he got taken away without incident. In the Season 10 episode "Confession", Novak's replacement ADA Kim Greylek asserted that Novak was disbarred for her actions. 
== Temporary Return ==
Novak returned as a guest character in Season 12 episode "Reparations," which Stabler and Detective Odafin Tutuola welcomed her back to the squad. It was revealed that she did not get disbarred, but that she only faced censure as her license got suspended for three years. She returned to the District Attorney's office, but her trustworthiness was challenged on her first case back, as she needed a conviction to restore her reputation. In her first case after being re-hired by the DA's office, she finds herself at odds with Deputy District Attorney Joe Dekker, who is the defendant's lawyer, as well as his cousin. Dekker cites Novak's previous misconduct several times throughout the episode. When the case goes to trial, the presiding judge is Lena Petrovsky, whom Novak lied to in the episode "Cold". When Dekker's cousin goes against the deal in place at the allocution hearing and says he only broke into the woman's house and did not rape her, Petrovsky asks Novak if she is trying to railroad another defendant into custody; a shocked Novak replies that both the defendant and his attorney agreed to the deal. In the end, Novak and Stabler realize that the accuser made the rape story up because her racist grandfather told her to. Novak subsequently makes a deal with Dekker for his cousin's breaking and entering charge, and has the accuser arrested for perjury. It is known that the case of this episode is the final time Novak ever worked with Stabler, who resigned not much later from the NYPD following a traumatizing shootout.   
She also returned as a recurring character in Season 13 while serving in shared ADA duties with Cabot, Michael Cutter, and David Haden. She is first seen in the season's third episode "Blood Brothers", in which the SVU squad is investigating the teenage son of a high-profile political couple. She gets into a heated argument with Benson after she tells her she is "off," to which Benson replies that Novak and her office have "lost their nerve." She was last seen as the lead prosecutor in "Valentine's Day", in which she goes up against Defense Attorney Marvin Exley, who is defending a woman who seems to have fabricated her own abduction and rape. 
Although her departure was never explained or confirmed, it is likely that Novak either retired from her job, or was transferred to a different department.
== Trivia ==
* Diane Neal previously portrayed Amelia Chase, a different character in the series who is a secondary villain in the SVU episode "Ridicule".
* Novak is a redhead, although she had her hair dyed strawberry blonde and blonde for some of her appearances.
* According to Judge Elizabeth Donnelly, Novak has a 71% conviction rate. 
* She is Catholic, like her friend Elliot Stabler.
* Novak has been physically assaulted five times in the series. She was assaulted twice in the courtroom, and once in her office, and she was also choked by a suspect and held at gunpoint at separate times. 
* Novak plays softball in a law enforcement league on the ADA team and likes to visit the batting cage. Cragen found her in the batting cages to discuss a case involving compromising interrogation methods.
* Novak rides her bike to work, even during rush hour while wearing biker clothes.
== External links ==
* Casey Novak on the Law and Order Wiki
* Casey Novak on Funky MBTI in Fiction
== References ==
Category:Lawful Good
Category:Lawful Neutral
Category:TV Show Heroes
Category:Protectors
Category:Protectors of Innocence
Category:Arrogant
Category:Jerks
Category:Tragic
Category:Supporters
Category:Chaotic Good
Category:Officials
Category:Loyal
Category:Fighters
Category:Honorable
Category:Honest
Category:Friend of a Villain
Category:Successful
Category:Victims
Category:Voice of Reason
Category:Female
Category:Self-Aware
Category:Control Freaks
Category:Controversial
Category:Merciful
Category:Disciplinarians
Category:Type Dependent on Version
Category:Strong-Willed
Category:Strategists
Category:Crossover Heroes
Category:Insecure
Category:Pragmatists
Category:Bond Protectors
Category:Damsels
Category:Failure-Intolerant
Category:Rescuers