Writer:	William N. Fordes, Lynn Mamet, Kathy McCormick, Matt Witten
Director:	Constantine Makris
Star:	Steven Hill (DA Adam Schiff),  Jerry Orbach (Det. Lennie Briscoe),  S. Epatha Merkerson (Lt. Anita Van Buren),  Sam Waterston (Exec. ADA Jack McCoy),  Angie Harmon (ADA Abbie Carmichael),  Jesse L. Martin (Det. Ed Green)
Recurring Role:	Tom Bloom (Aaron James),  Gerry Bamman (Stan Gillum),  Jordan Charney (Judge Donald Karan)
Guest Star:	Robert Emmett (II) (Dr. Samuel Bookman),  Tibor Feldman (Ted Kellogg),  Laine Valentino (Jean Kellogg),  Tom Ligon (Malcolm Sanford),  Timothy Devlin (Doug Purcell),  Dan Mason (Martin Ezell),  Catherine Curtin (Stephanie Hollis),  Michael Duran (Kevin Hodges),  Todd Cerveris (Russell Wolenski),  Chaz Mena (Itzhak Antonovich),  Allison Briner (Erica Severs),  Diana Henry (Sheila Luterik),  Paul Sparks (Paul Luterik),  Tracy Griswold (Rhodes),  Gary Galone (Robert Perry),  Eliza Clark (Courtney Tyler),  Ruthie Henshall (P.K. Todd),  Tom Berenger (Dean Tyler),  Linda Emond (Carolyn Tyler),  Richard Council (Claude Hays),  Leonardo Cimino (Tommy Valducci),  Keith Alan Benjamin (Sid Bascom)

The author who is shot in this episode is named P.K. Todd, which is the name the real life writer of the episode Standoff. (edit)

(Green looks at a receipt found on the victim, Martin Hoss.)
Ed Green: Mr. Hoss paid for a meal at Cafe Rouge, 8:16, tonight.
Lennie Briscoe: Dinner for two?
Ed Green: Looks like it.
Lennie Briscoe: Hope he enjoyed it. (edit) (Reading P.K. Todd's fan mail.)
Anita Van Buren: Oh this is lovely: "You write worse than an uneducated trout."
Lennie Briscoe: If I was the fish, I'd take offense. (edit)

This episode does not have any trivia. Add some now!

While discussing the gay panic defense, the Harvey Milk assassination is mentioned. In November, 1978, openly gay San Fransisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone were gunned down in their offices by a disgruntled former City Supervisor Dan White. White received a reduced sentence by claiming (among other things) that he was disoriented by eating a great deal of junk food before the shooting, known as the now infamous "Twinkie Defense". (edit) This episode appears to be ripped from the headlines of the Eugene Bennett case. In 1996, Eugene Bennett kidnapped Reverend Edwin Clever at gunpoint and forced the minister to place a call to his estranged wife, Marguerite. A suspicious Marguerite took a gun to the event. When all was said and done, Bennett pointed the finger at the messy divorce he was in the middle of, and the allegations that, four years earlier, his wife had an affair with well-known novelist Patricia Cornwell. (edit) Jack McCoy: The bigots who killed the gay man in Wyoming?

In 1998, Matthew Shepard was robbed, beaten, and tied to a fence by Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, who left the 21-year-old there to die. The two men claimed that Shepard had made sexual advances toward them (known as the gay panic defense), and they killed him in a panic. Both men were eventually sentence to two consecutive life sentences apiece without the possibility of parole. Sam Waterston (Jack McCoy) also played Mathew Shepard's father in a movie based on the events.
(edit)