Navy Blues (Season 8, Episode 3)
Premise: A Navy chief found shot in a Manhattan park turns out to have been involved with his pilot, a celebrated female aviator whose account of an accidental shooting keeps shifting.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 8, Episode 3
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Rey Curtis (Benjamin Bratt)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Jamie Ross (Carey Lowell), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- Kate Walsh as Lt. Kirstin Blair, Patti LuPone as defense attorney Ruth Miller, Molly Price as Quartermaster Stroud, William Parry as Commander Halibert, John Speredakos as William T. Ottenberg
- Ripped from the headlines
- The story draws on Lt. Kelly Flinn’s 1997 Air Force sex scandal.
- Director
- Jace Alexander
- Writers
- Story: Dick Wolf; Story & teleplay: Kathy McCormick
Summary
The Investigation
“Navy Blues” begins with the body of Navy Chief Robert Stroud lying below a park roadway, his ring, watch and wallet missing. The detectives first credit him to a mugger linked to four other killings, but after that suspect dies in a police raid, ballistics shows another gun killed Stroud. His wife, a quartermaster on a supply ship, once broke his rib in a bar fight after catching him with his pilot, Lt. Kirstin Blair, one of the first women in the Navy to qualify for night carrier landings.
Blair denies any affair, but a former boyfriend admits she asked him to mislead Navy investigators about their relationship. Her alibi does not hold, and a garage record and a newly replaced car window lead to glass fragments showing a shot was fired from inside her car. When police move to arrest her, the Navy claims jurisdiction. Blair then reads her Navy statement: Stroud pulled a gun and demanded sex, and the gun went off twice as they struggled. A waiter and a parking attendant contradict her, and the attendant saw Stroud take the wheel, which means she must have moved his body to the embankment.
The Trial
Ross quietly wins an indictment for second-degree murder while the Navy stalls, and the case stays in civilian court. A judge bars Blair’s Navy statement because she was never read her Miranda rights. Ross, an admirer of Blair, argues with McCoy that the charge should be manslaughter. Defense lawyer Ruth Miller attacks the Navy’s rules on adultery and Stroud’s record of 11 sexual harassment complaints.
Blair testifies that her training has taught her never to lose control. On cross, McCoy draws on William Ottenberg, a former landing signal officer who says she was qualified despite five major errors, and plays his recording of a night landing attempt in which Blair panics and threatens him over the radio.
Spoiler, the ending: Blair pleads guilty to first-degree manslaughter and is sentenced to 12½ to 25 years, as agreed with the DA’s office. Outside court she tells reporters the charge was unjust. McCoy notes that Ross got the outcome she argued for, and Ross compares the truth about Blair to learning that a famous pioneer was a fraud.
Why it stands out
- The episode was inspired by the 1997 Air Force case of Lt. Kelly Flinn.
- The DA’s office fights the Navy for jurisdiction, at one point obtaining a federal writ to stop the Navy from taking Blair out of the court’s reach.
- Ross’s sympathy for Blair puts her at odds with McCoy until the training tape undercuts Blair’s image.