Jurisdiction

This episode appears to be based on the following:

• The United States territorial jurisdiction law.
• The 1966 Richard Speck case. Speck was an American mass murderer who systematically tortured, raped, and murdered eight student nurses from South Chicago Community Hospital on the night of July 13 into the early morning hours of July 14, 1966. He was convicted at trial and was sentenced to death, but the sentence was later overturned due to issues with jury selection at his trial. Speck died of a heart attack after 25 years in prison. In 1996, videotapes featuring Speck were shown before the Illinois State Legislature to highlight some of the illegal activity that took place in prisons.
• The 1963 George Whitmore Jr. (aka "Career Girls Murders") case. On August 28, 1963 Emily Hoffert and Janice Wylie were murdered in their apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan . George Whitmore, Jr., was charged with the murders and other crimes, but he was later cleared. Richard "Ricky" Robles, the true culprit, was later found guilty of the murders.
• Ripped from the British thriller film Frenzy (1972).

David Zifrin is charged with assault in the first degree, robbery in the first degree, attempted murder in the second degree and murder in the second degree. However there are multiple aggravating factors in these homicides that make murder two an insufficient charge. New York's penal code says that a murder committed during the commission of a violent felony like assault or robbery constitutes first degree murder. Plus at least one of the nurses had her genitals mutilated by a knife before she was killed, which is a form of torture, a person being tortured prior to being killed also constitutes first degree murder; as does intentionally killing, or attempting to kill, more than one person in the same criminal act. So the correct homicide charges for Zifrin would be attempted murder in the first degree, and murder in the first degree.