James Deakins

On the show, Deakins supervises New York City's Major Case Squad. His top detectives include partners Robert Goren (Vincent D'Onofrio) and Alexandra Eames (Kathryn Erbe), as well as partners Mike Logan (Chris Noth) and Carolyn Barek (Annabella Sciorra).

Although Deakins' first priority is the success of criminal investigations, he is often forced to rein in his more unpredictable detectives, especially Goren and Logan, to manage the bad publicity they occasionally attract. While this has created some friction between Deakins and his detectives, for the most part they respect his professional judgment and authority.

Deakins and his wife, Angie, have three daughters. He had a bout with Bell's palsy at the end of Season 4. While in recovery, he took to wearing an eye patch over his affected eye. He is now more reliant on eyeglasses. (Sheridan actually had Bell's palsy himself when those episodes were filmed.)

Deakins leaves his post at the end of Season 5 rather than battle a conspiracy to frame him instigated by former police officer Frank Adair (Michael Rispoli), whom Major Case detectives had arrested for killing his lover and her husband and sentenced to life without parole.[2] The trouble begins when Logan is forced to shoot a man in self-defense.[3] Later, Logan learns that the man he shot was an undercover cop. A uniformed policeman, officer Martinez, backs up Logan's self-defense claim, but Adair plants an e-mail falsely implicating Deakins in official corruption. Adair plans to claim that Deakins had "bought" Martinez's testimony for Logan. Goren and Eames uncover the forged e-mail,[4] but Adair continues fighting Deakins.

Unwilling to subject the NYPD, and his MCS unit in particular, to further embarrassment, Deakins decided to retire from service.[5] He is replaced by Capt. Danny Ross (Eric Bogosian), who joined the cast in the Season 6 premiere episode.