A body dragged and dumped in the cellar entrance of a basement apartment is what opens up a new homicide to investigate for Jerry Orbach and Jesse L. Martin. The victim is the CEO of a publishing house and as it happens he's black. After going up a few false trails, the two detectives find it was a hate crime pure and simple. The victim beat a Ku Klux Klan wannabe for a cab and the perpetrator took it as some kind of affront. As he was known to carry a firearm, this was a man waiting for the opportunity to use it.
Use it Steven Rishard did. This man is one racist the kind you found loud and clear in the pre-civil rights era. His defense attorney puts up a defense that says irrational racism is some kind of mental disease. If the episode probed a little deeper I'm sure a rationality would have been found for Rishard's behavior be it an incident, general upbringing, et al. No justification, but in his mind a root cause.
Still the whole concept of what lawyer Dennis Boutsikaris is using is what Sam Waterston is fighting. An interesting essay into how much is environment and mental makeup and how much is personal responsibility. Waterston is right, just how much can be explained away and if all is justified, there is no personal responsibility.
Steven Rishard is chilling, I'd watch this episode for him alone.