I'm not as enthusiastic as other reviewers about this installment. I like action and suspense from my Hitchcock episodes, not talky disquisitions on legal ethics.
To be honest, the ethical issues hardly seem clear-cut to me. Are defense attorneys only supposed to defend innocent clients? Perry Mason had that luxury, but in the real world most criminal defendants are guilty, guilty, guilty. And their lawyers know that they are guilty, guilty, guilty. Does that mean the lawyers should run to the prosecutors with evidence against their clients? Then why bother with defense attorneys in the first place?
Beyond the legalities, the episode dawdles along with way too much talking and agonizing over the ethical conundrum. Things finally start to move at the end, but the padding is excessive throughout the middle half of the show.
I still give the episode five stars for Frank Gorshin's crazily over-the-top performance as the perp. He could genuinely scare any audience with his barely controlled psycho act. Speaking of Psycho, maybe we should have heard shrieking strings every time Gorshin appeared onscreen. Martin Landau chips in a solid performance as the tormented lawyer, though Gorshin overshadows him and everybody else in the episode.