The Pursuit of Happiness (Season 4, Episode 10)
Premise: A meat wholesaler is shot in his own office, and the detectives look hard at his young Russian wife, who came to New York through a mail-order marriage broker.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 4, Episode 10
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Mike Logan (Chris Noth)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Ben Stone (Michael Moriarty), ADA Claire Kincaid (Jill Hennessy), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- Natalya Negoda as Irina Cooper, Jesse Corti as Alex Nunez, Faith Prince as Ms. Farrell, Bruce Altman as Tom Morrison, Bill Marcus as Phil Guardino
- Director
- Dann Florek
- Writers
- Morgan Gendel & Robert Nathan
Summary
The Investigation
“The Pursuit of Happiness” begins when employees of a Manhattan meat business find their boss, William “Billy” Cooper, 56, shot twice in the chest at close range in his office. The door was pried open and files were dumped, but Briscoe and Logan decide the struggle was staged. The weapon is Cooper’s own Browning, which he kept by his desk.
Two years earlier Cooper found his 26-year-old wife, Irina, through a Russian-American matchmaking service. She was weeks from her citizenship papers, which a divorce would have cost her but his death would not. Her lab co-worker Ms. Farrell describes a husband who resented her job and refused to bring her six-year-old son over from Russia, and his financial records show he cut off her charge accounts. Theater tickets for the next evening had sent Cooper to his empty office alone that night.
A Korean deli clerk recalls Irina shopping around midnight with a man in his 30s, and an insurance claim shows she recently had an abortion. The clinic doctor remembers a younger Puerto Rican man with her, which leads to lab worker Alex Nunez, who signed out early that night. Talc from his lab gloves matches residue found inside the gun, and both are arrested for second-degree murder.
The Trial
The prosecutors argue that Cooper forced the abortion and threatened to send Irina back to Russia, so she told her lover where to find him. The defense offers a manslaughter plea for Nunez alone, and Stone refuses. Farrell admits on the stand that the two were lovers and that Nunez bought Irina gifts, but her angry account of Cooper’s treatment of his wife wins the couple sympathy.
Nunez’s lawyer, Tom Morrison, attacks the deli clerk’s identification with a psychologist who testifies about cross-racial identification. The judge allows it but scolds Morrison for springing it late. Stone counters that the clerk, a New Yorker, chose Nunez from a lineup of six Hispanic men. Worried Irina could still walk, Stone cuts her charge to conspiracy and arranges with Immigration that she will not be deported if she pleads and gives up Nunez.
Spoiler, the ending: At Rikers, Nunez confesses to protect Irina, she admits she begged him to act, and he says she told him where the gun was. Nunez pleads to first-degree manslaughter at the maximum, and Irina pleads as an accessory for 3 to 9 years and stays in the country.
Why it stands out
- The defense turns to expert testimony on cross-racial identification to challenge a Korean-American eyewitness, and Stone answers it with the lineup itself.
- Forensic evidence hinges on lab-glove talc, matched by its anti-caking agent to residue inside the murder weapon.
- Stone works out a deal with Immigration so Irina avoids deportation in exchange for her plea.