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| “ | After everything that happened to my family, he couldn't make one lousy phone call! | „ |
| ~ Yost explaining his motive for wanting to kill Horace Garrison |
Jamie Yost is the main antagonist of the Law & Order episode "Executioner". He is a grieving father who murders a doctor under the mistaken impression that he is the physician who botched the execution of the man who murdered his son and grandchildren.
He was portrayed by Michael Rooker, who also portrayed Henry in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Grant Grant in Slither, Vikke in Lollipop Chainsaw, the title character in The Bone Collector, Yondu Udonta in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie series, Lutador in Vivo, Terry Cruger in Sea of Love, Savant in The Suicide Squad, and Merle Dixon in The Walking Dead.
Early life[]
Yost's son Chris and his two sons were murdered in South Carolina by a burglar and drug addict named Lionel Hartigan, who was quickly apprehended, found guilty of murder, and sentenced to death by lethal injection. Nine years later, Hartigan's appeals ran out and he was scheduled to die, with Yost among the people invited to view the execution.
The execution went wrong, however; Dr. Horace Garrison, the physician overseeing the procedure, accidentally injected the death row cocktail used into Hartigan's muscle tissue rather than his veins, causing Hartigan to suffer violent seizures and oxygen deprivation in his brain, leaving him in a permanent semi-comatose state. Since it was illegal to execute a sick person, Hartigan's death sentence was delayed indefinitely and Yost was denied justice for his son and grandchildren. Hartigan became a cause célèbre for opponents of the death penalty, which only made Yost angrier.
Yost fell into a deep depression and began drinking heavily, all the while obsessively researching the people who administered the failed execution. He eventually found out that Garrison was at fault for what happened and decided to kill him. He stalked Garrison to a medical conference in a New York City hotel and left a note with a clerk for Garrison to meet with him, intent on killing him once they met.
Unbeknownst to him, however, Garrison had switched rooms with another doctor named Mark Burns to avoid a confrontation. Yost broke into Burns' room just as the doctor was having a tryst with a hustler who was planning to rob him. After the hustler fled the room, Yost grabbed a bottle of champagne they had been drinking and bludgeoned Burns over the head, killing him.
"Executioner"[]
NYPD Homicide Detectives Ed Green and Cyrus Lupo investigate Burns' murder and track down the hustler who scammed him, who surrenders a recording she made of the encounter, which ends with someone pounding on the door and yelling for "Garrison". Deducing that the killer targeted the wrong person, Green and Lupo question Garrison and travel to South Carolina, where they find out about Hartigan's botched execution and an altercation that Yost had with Hartigan's brother.
Green and Lupo question Yost, who claims he doesn't know Garrison. Soon afterward, however, they find out that he had followed Garrison to New York and tell him that the person who murdered Burns had intended to kill Garrison. Yost's remorse-stricken reaction gives away his guilt,and the detectives arrest him.
Executive Assistant District Attorney Michael Cutter and Assistant District Attorney Connie Rubirosa try to persuade Garrison to testify at Yost's trial, but he refuses, while Yost and his lawyer refuse Cutter's offer of a plea bargain for manslaughter instead of murder. Meanwhile, District Attorney Jack McCoy discovers that Garrison performed two executions on prisoners whose appeals were not yet exhausted, so he orders Cutter and Rubirosa to arrest him for murder in the hopes that they can force his testimony against Yost. The gambit works; Garrison agrees to testify in return for McCoy dropping the charges.
Garrison testifies about what went wrong with the execution, while Yost's lawyer argues that witnessing the event left Yost with post-traumatic stress disorder and introduces Hartigan as an "exhibit", horrifying the jury. Yost then testifies about Hartigan murdering his family and the failed execution and claims that he only wanted to talk to Garrison, and that he killed Burns on impulse after the man became aggressive.
During Cutter's cross-examination, Yost reveals that Garrison had ignored his note asking to meet, something Garrison had neglected to tell the prosecution. Cutter recalls Garrison as a witness and forces him to admit that he received Yost's note and switched rooms with Burns to avoid him. In closing arguments, Yost's lawyer argues that Burns' death was the result of Garrison's cowardice and that Yost has suffered enough, while Cutter says that the murder of Yost's family, while tragic, does not justify or excuse taking someone else's life, especially that of a completely innocent person.
Sensing that he is going to be found guilty, Yost asks for a deal in which he would serve 10 years in prison, but Cutter refuses to go any lower than 15 years to life. Yost agrees on the condition that Cutter does whatever he can to make sure Garrison is punished, as well. Yost then pleads guilty to second-degree murder.
External links[]
- Jamie Yost on the Law & Order Wiki
