Gaijin (Season 14, Episode 22)
Premise: A Japanese tourist is fatally shot on an empty Manhattan street, and her husband’s story of a Black robber collapses only after he has gone home to Tokyo to denounce New York.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 14, Episode 22
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin), Lt. Anita Van Buren (S. Epatha Merkerson)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Serena Southerlyn (Elisabeth Röhm), DA Arthur Branch (Fred Dalton Thompson)
- Guest stars
- Will Yun Lee as Hiroji Yoshida, James Hiroyuki Liao as Bobby Ito, Spencer Garrett as defense attorney Stephen Olson, Ann Hu as Lucy Chen, Donna Hanover as Trial Judge Deborah Burke
- Ripped from the headlines
- Reportedly based on the cases of Kazuyoshi Miura, a Japanese businessman accused of arranging his heavily insured wife’s fatal 1981 shooting in Los Angeles, and Charles Stuart, who killed his wife in Boston in 1989 and blamed a Black gunman.
- Director
- Jace Alexander
- Writers
- Wendy Battles
Summary
The Investigation
“Gaijin” begins with a frantic 911 call: Hiroji Yoshida, a Tokyo nightclub owner, and his wife, Tamiko, a model, have been shot in a deserted downtown district on a Sunday after a visit to Ground Zero. Tamiko is hit in the face, Yoshida in the arm. He describes a tall Black man in a stocking cap who took her purse and necklace and, he thinks, drove off in a red van. A maintenance firm’s driver, Thomas Walker, lied to his boss about his whereabouts, but after Tamiko dies, Yoshida cannot pick Walker out of a lineup, and his alibi checks out.
As City Hall and the national press pressure Van Buren, the detectives notice Yoshida only heard the van leave. Walker had mentioned a Lexus racing up Hudson Street, and Holland Tunnel camera stills lead to a New Jersey couple whose grandson, Bobby Ito, borrowed the car that day. His tattoos mark him as a yakuza member, and he is caught fleeing his apartment with a .22. Yoshida, back in Tokyo, tells reporters New York is a jungle.
Ito’s lawyer trades information: Yoshida paid Ito $5,000 to kill his wife. Police hear that Yoshida owes a yakuza boss about a million dollars from gambling. Waitress Lucy Chen saw the two men meet at her diner, and a $3 million policy on Tamiko surfaces. The Japanese consul signals that Yoshida will not be extradited, so Branch calls a press conference announcing an arrest and urging Yoshida to return as the lone eyewitness. Van Buren objects that the public is again shown a Black face tied to a crime; Branch proceeds, and Yoshida is arrested on his return.
The Trial
Charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy, Yoshida is remanded. Defense attorney Stephen Olson calls the ruse an end run around extradition and seeks a change of venue, which the judge refuses. In jury selection Olson strikes every Black juror for cause; McCoy’s reverse Batson objection fails because the judge finds specific answers, not race, cast doubt on their fairness.
Chen identifies Yoshida. Ito, who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, testifies that Yoshida asked him to shoot Tamiko in the head and Yoshida himself in the arm and chose New York expecting police to blame a Black man. Yoshida now names Ito as the gunman but says the yakuza killed his wife to pressure him over his club. McCoy presses him on the insurance and his public lies.
Spoiler, the ending: Branch rejects a plea to second-degree murder despite fears of a hung jury, and the jury convicts Yoshida of first-degree murder and conspiracy. Afterward, the worry lingers that many who saw the original story of a Black gunman will never see the correction.
Why it stands out
- Unable to extradite Yoshida, Branch lures him back with a press conference that appears to confirm his robbery story and asks him to identify the suspect, over Van Buren’s objection.
- The prosecution makes a reverse Batson challenge after the defense removes every Black juror, and the judge lets the defense challenges stand.
- Donna Hanover, New York City’s first lady from 1994 to 2001, appears in her recurring role as a trial judge.