Ray Burrows was a frustrated, racist man who shot an African American CEO out of a trivial altercation.
History[]
Burrows was a staunch, unrepentant racist who held an irrational belief that all black people were out to get him. When an interracial couple showed its intention to buy an apartment in his building, Burrows wrote a hateful letter asking his co-op board to reject them. One day, at Burrows' real estate firm, a black client lamented his attitude towards him, and the manager decided to reassign the client to an African American agent. Enraged, Burrows insulted his colleague and threatened him with a gun. As a result, he was fired from his job, though he kept in touch with a former colleague and friend named Scott Turner. Burrows suffered financial difficulties because of his firing, and the bank decided to foreclose on his home, which frustrated him even more.
One evening, after meeting Turner at a bar near the realty firm, Burrows entered into an argument with one Thomas Reddick, the black CEO of a publishing company, over who should have gotten on a cab first. Reddick won, which angered Burrows to the point where he asked his cab driver to follow Reddick. While Turner decided to get back home on the cab, Burrows jumped out, approached Reddick, shot him in the chest, and concealed his body in a stairwell. Eventually, Detectives Briscoe and Green were able to track down Turner and Burrows through the cab driver who gave them a ride that evening.
Initially, Burrows' defense attorney, Al Archer, argued the murder was not a racially motivated crime but rather a fight gone wrong. However, Archer was forced to change his strategy once his client blatantly admitted being a fervent racist and requested that his letter to the co-op board be admitted as evidence. At that point, Archer pleaded his client's insanity, arguing his extreme racism met the criteria for a delusional mental disorder that was yet to be included in the DSM-4. Despite the contrary opinion of Archer's own expert, Dr. Emil Skoda concluded that although Burrows had anger-management issues, he was not insane, and that in no way racism could meet the criteria for a mental disorder. In the end, the jury believed the prosecution's version, and Burrows was convicted of second-degree murder as a hate crime. (L&O: "Prejudice")