There seems to be a running scenario with many TV episodic writers where a military person is guilty of the crime and the "innocent" person who has been charged is a black man. Is this TV Writing 101? It seems the black man who is arrested and charged is innocent at least 99% of the time. This particular episode included many far fetched concepts which would ask the viewer to accept them as plausible. The most obvious is Jane believing that Raymond is guilty of killing his wife after meeting him just seconds before. The writing for The Mentalist series has gotten a little tired.
(Edited by A Fandom user)