Based on the "bystander effect," first popularized after the murder of Kitty Genovese in the mid 60s. Interestingly, by the time this episode aired, the previously accepted story about the Genovese case (that when Genovese was raped and murdered, many witnesses who resided in her apartment complex saw the event transpire and chose not to act either by intervening directly or alerting the authorities) had been largely debunked--it was found to have derived almost totally from one heavily inaccurate account of the murder. But this has not stopped the case from remaining emblematic of bystander apathy and group inhumanity in the public imagination; despite the record having been set straight, many laypeople (and even some psychological professionals) still retain their prior misunderstandings about the case and continue to call any instance in which a bystanding individual or group fails to intervene the "Genovese syndrome."
Most states don't distinguish between preventing someone from giving a statement to police and preventing someone from testifying in court. Doing either one gets you charged with witness intimidation. New York has separate penal codes to distinguish between the two offenses (tampering and intimidation). Preventing someone from giving a statement or acting as a witness to the police is witness tampering. Witness tampering in the fourth degree is a class-A misdemeanor, third degree is a class-E felony, second degree is a class-D felony and first degree is a class-B felony. Preventing someone from testifying or being a witness at a grand jury hearing or a trial is witness intimidation. There are three degrees of witness intimidation: third degree is a class-E felony, second degree is a class-D felony, first degree is a class-B felony.
This was Jack Larson's first non-"Superman" related acting role since PFC Gomer Pyle (1965) 45 years earlier.
Orlagh Cassidy has played three different characters over the course of the series:
- Episode 18.19 Conversion (2017) - Cheryl Davenport
- Episode 11.11 Quickie (2010) - Mrs. Christensen
- Episode 3.2 Wrath (2001) - Valerie Plummer