Mariska Hargitay's real-life father, Mickey Hargitay, appears in the episode "Control". He plays the grandfather on the escalator, who first encounters the male victim, and is seen speaking to Mariska's character, Detective Benson.
Horace Gorman was based on John Jamelske, a millionaire serial rapist-kidnapper, who kept his victims in an underground "sex bunker."
This was Mickey Hargitay's first acting role since he appeared in The Reincarnation of Isabel (1973) - 30 years earlier. This episode would also mark his final acting role before his death in 2006.
This is the 100th episode of the series.
The "Payton Violation" which the lawyer uses to get the judge to throw out Juliet's confession, refers to the 4th Amendment protections afforded to homeowners, preventing police from entering a domicile, unwarranted, to make a felony arrest. The name stems from Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573 (1980), in which SCOTUS vacated a conviction based on evidence found during such a search. This is one of the cases forming the foundation of the "fruit of the poisoned tree" doctrine of evidentiary exclusion.