Thomas Reddick, the CEO of a successful publishing company, is shot and killed near his home. Briscoe and Green are soon led to a suspect named Ray Burrows, who shot Reddick in a dispute over a cab. It's clearly calculated, since he'd followed Reddick home. Burrows is a violently racist white man and was angry that the cab driver didn't give him priority over Reddick, who was Black. The DA's office makes a deal with Burrows' friend Scott Turner, who was with him at the time; Turner confirms that the murder was racially motivated. Furthermore, it turns out that Burrows was recently fired for threatening a Black co-worker with a gun.
Defence Attorney Al Archer denies the murder was a hate crime. But Southerlyn and McCoy produce evidence of a letter Burrows wrote to try to get an interracial couple evicted from his apartment building. Burrows stands by his statements in the letter and is eager for a jury to hear his opinions about Black people. So Archer files an insanity plea, claiming that Burrows' racist beliefs are so extreme as to constitute a paranoid delusion. Skoda's assessment is that Burrows fully knows what he did was wrong.
At trial, Archer calls a Black expert witness who believes racism could be reduced if treated as a mental illness. McCoy argues that this is simply creating an excuse for bigotry. Burrows says that he'd already lost his job because of a Black person, and that caused him to lose his home; the argument with Reddick was the last straw. McCoy points out that Burrows can evidently control himself when he wants to, since he hasn't tried to attack the Black members of the jury. In his summation McCoy states that treating racism as a mental illness would be very dangerous and turn people like Burrows into victims. Burrows is convicted of second degree murder.
This episode contains examples of:
- Call-Back: References are made to the events of the Season 5 episode "Rage" (in which a Black defendant used the effects of racism as a justification of murder.)
- Evil Is Petty: What Burrows' motive amounted to.
- Insanity Defence: A key part of the episode's plot is whether racist beliefs justify such a defence.
- Maligned Mixed Marriage: The interracial couple whom Burrows targeted.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: The extremely racist and violent Burrows.
- Where da White Women At?: Burrows' belief in this trope is part of his mentality against Black people.
