Holly Marie Combs took a week off for an operation which is why Piper is out of town at a convention.
Jeff Kober, who plays Jackson Ward in this episode, was also a vampire in Buffy The Vampire Slayer. When Prue and Phoebe go to Jackson's grave, Phoebe asks "where's Buffy when you need her?". Jeff Kober also appeared in later episodes of Buffy as Rack, a warlock, which are evil beings in Charmed.
When rerun on TNT, this episode showed the opening credits with the cast of season 5. Alyssa, Rose, Holly, Brian, and Dorian were all shown in the opening credits for this episode. Shannen Doherty was not included.
The exterior shot of the courthouse (about 13:24 in) is The New York County Criminal Court Building, located at 100 Centre Street, New York, NY 10013. This was also used for the opening credits of Night Court.
The story line is that the antagonist was the last person executed at Alcatraz prison before it closed. In actuality, no one was ever executed at Alcatraz. It did not have facilities for this, and all executions were held elsewhere.