The Ledger

3.2 Conspiracy

In this episode (3.2), the leader of an African-American political group is assassinated at a rally, and Logan and Cerreta encounter opposition from the group's more militant members as they attempt to find the killer.

The episode begins at the rally, where the leader of the group, Marcus Tate, is giving a rousing, but somewhat balanced, speech about race releations in America. As he leaves the stage, he is surrounded by a crush of people. A shot rings out, panic ensues, and when the scene clears he's on the floor, critically injured. Cerreta and Logan arrive to investigate, and all the witnesses agree on one thing: the shooter is white. They quickly determine that the shooter set off a small explosive device in a trash can to divert attention, and then shot Tate a moment later.

As Logan and Cerreta investigate, they immediately encounter resistance from those close to Tate, including his legal adviser, Mr Books (memorably played by familiar character actor Joe Morton). Books insists that no one talk to the detectives, and explains to them how he was a "punk with a du-rag" before he met Tate.

Without many witness statements to go on, the detectives turn to photos of previous Tate rallies to see if they can identify any white people who appear at many of them. This unlikely technique turns out to work. Mr Cook, one of Tate's bodyguards, comes in to look at the pictures, and is obstinate, but Tate's wife (played by Gloria Foster, familiar to most viewers as The Oracle in The Matrix movies), looks at the pictures and says a white man in them is the man she saw with the gun at her husband's shooting.

A clue in the picture leads them to believe that he is an alumnus of Amherst, so they check the yearbooks at the local Amherst club, and identify the man in the pictures as Mitchell Koblin, class of 1974. They visit his elderly parents, who are defensive. They lead them to Koblin's wife, who turns out to be black, a fact which becomes crucial later on. She says they are now divorced, in part because she couldn't be "black enough" for Koblin. She says he always encouraged her to play up her African background, and this is what got her involved with the AAC, Tate's organization. She tells the detectives, "the blacker I got, the more he wanted me." But she says her husband grew jealous of her relationship with Tate, and suspected something else was going on. There's your motive! She says she doesn't know where to find him, but eventually, through his job, they trace him to the local YMCA, where they find him in the gym. He tries to flee, but Logan tackles him. They find the gun in his gym bag.

He soon lawyers up. His defense lawyer, Gary Lowenthal (played by famed monologuist Eric Bogosian), insists his client is innocent. Olivet examines him to figure out how crazy he is, and then the trial begins (32 mins). Koblin's wife, on the stand, admits an affair with Tate, and then Tate's wife testifies (40 mins). Mr Cook, the bodyguard also testifies, and Lowenthal scores some sort of victory by getting Cook to expose his anti-Semitism on the stand. (Koblin is Jewish). As it begins to look like the case is not going well for the prosecution, Mr Books tells Stone that "the LA riots will be a pillowfight" if Koblin is acquitted. Nonetheless, the verdict comes back (49 mins): not guilty of Murder 2.

Schiff comes up with a solution: go after Koblen for a federal civil rights violation. But Stone and Robinette note some inconsistencies in Mr Cook's story. Earlier in the ep, Cook had said he didn't recognize Koblin in the pictures, but at trial, he said he recognized him at the rally. They begin to suspect that someone within the AAC may have killed Tate. They talk to The Oracle, Tate's wife, about this, and she reacts angrily, saying they couldn't make the case against the white guy, so they're choosing to "blame it on the n*****rs." Robinette and The Oracle have a conversation about race, but Robinette is not distracted. He thinks the Oracle is withholding evidence, and he wants to charge her with conspiracy. They tell Book and Cook that the Oracle rolled on them, but to no avail: the investigators give up on the case, leaving it unsolved.

Perhaps as a result of this, another shooting at the AAC is the subject of a later episode, Entrapment, in which The Oracle also stars.

The episode is notable because of the strong cast -- Joe Morton, Eric Bogosian, The Oracle -- and because of the unusual non-resolution: the case is unresolved, but just because everyone gives up, not (only) because of the not-guilty verdict. Usually on the show when someone is found not guilty, the audience is led to believe that they are, in fact, guilty of the crime of which they are accused. In this instance, however, there is certainly reasonable doubt in our minds as to whether Koblin committed the crime, especially once Cook's inconsistent testimony is factored in.

Posted by adm at May 23, 2004 11:01 PM

Comments

Post a comment

validate