In the opening Jerry Orbach as Detective Lennie Briscoe refers to the transit worker urging him to release the train as "Benito". This is a sarcastic reference to Benito Mussolini, whose fascist regime in Italy was reputed to have kept the trains running on time.
As is often the case in Law & Order, the Path train stands in for the New York City Subway.
"Tabula Rasa" is a Latin phrase which translates to "blank slate." It is mainly used as the name for a particular type of philosophy that believes that at the start of life everyone is a blank slate, in other words that everyone is born without any built-in mental knowledge (instinct) and that all knowledge a person possesses is acquired through experience or perception.
This episode appears to be based on the Rachael and Lisa Martin kidnapping case.
When Professor Rothenberg is trying to argue that what Nick Taska/Bill Fallon did doesn't constitute first-degree kidnapping he starts to quote New York penal code, article 135, section 30 but the judge cuts him off saying that she is familiar with that statute. New York penal code 135.30 states: " In any prosecution for kidnapping in the first-degree, it is an affirmative defense that (a) the defendant was a relative of the person abducted, and (b) his sole purpose was to assume control of such person."