This episode appears to be based on several cases/incidents:
- The 1991 murder of Paul Broussard. Broussard, was a 27-year-old Houston-area banker and Texas A&M alumnus, died after a gay bashing incident outside a Houston nightclub in the early hours of July 4, 1991. Nine teenaged youths, aged between 15-17, and one 22-year-old were intoxicated on drugs and alcohol when they left a high school party in the suburb of The Woodlands and headed for Houston's heavily gay Montrose area in an attempt to gain admittance to dance clubs located in the vicinity. After being refused entry to several establishments, they pulled into a parking lot where they encountered Broussard and two friends, who were also intoxicated. They then attacked Broussard and his friends. Broussard was beaten and stabbed twice with a pocket knife belonging to 17-year-old Jon Buice. He died several hours later as a result of both internal injuries as well as what an expert medical examiner termed "a delay in treatment" (in the early days of the AIDS crisis, police and medical personnel were slow to respond to calls from the Montrose area for fear of AIDS contamination). When Houston gay rights leader Ray Hill confronted police about solving the murder, he was told that they had no intention of doing so. Gay rights advocates, frustrated about being ignored and persecuted by city officials, marched through the streets and in front of the mayor's home for several days in what became Houston's largest and long-lasting gay rights demonstration in history. Ultimately, the boys, labeled "The Woodlands Ten", were apprehended and plea-bargained into prison without a trial for the murder of Broussard.
- The 1991 Darrell Lunsford case. On January 23, 1991, in Garrison, Texas, police officer Constable Darrell Lunsford pulled over a suspicious vehicle. Inside the vehicle were three men transporting marijuana from Texas to Illinois. After Lunsford requested to search the trunk of the vehicle, the men exited the car, tackled Lunsford, beat, stabbed, and shot him after a struggle. They then drove off after killing him. Lunsford's dashboard camera in his police cruiser recorded the murder. Footage of the murder is used in law enforcement training. The date of the murder has been described as one of the most infamous dates in the history of Texas law enforcement.
- Several cases of homophobic hate crimes in the United States.
- The Good Samaritan and duty to rescue laws regarding civil servants.
Ralph Byers has portrayed four different characters over the course of the series:
- Episode 1.21 Sonata for Solo Organ (1991) - Judge Barsky.
- Episode 3.21 Manhood (1993) - Neil Belden.
- Episode 5.17 Act of God (1995) - Alex Gaston.
- Episode 8.17 Carrier (1998) - Mr. Kiley.
Chris Noth (Detective Mike Logan) & Ralph Byers (Neil Belden) also worked together on two other episodes, and Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (2011) (episode 3.9), as Peter Florrick & Undersecretary Brattle respectively.