The Good Daughter (The Good Daughter #1) - Karin Slaughter Page 0,125

into his trap. “Do you have any question or doubt in your mind about the defendant’s ability to assist you or understand the nature of these proceedings?”

“I’m not raising that issue at this time, Your Honor.”

Lyman would not let her off so easily. “Let’s humor ourselves, Miss Quinn. Should you, as co-counsel, raise the issue in the future—”

“I would only do so on the basis of any scientific testing, Your Honor.”

“Scientific testing?” He looked askance.

Sam said, “Miss Wilson has exhibited a vulnerability to suggestion, Your Honor, as I am certain the prosecution can confirm.”

Coin jumped up. “Your Honor, I cannot—”

Sam talked over him. “Miss Wilson’s verbal intellectual range is narrow for an eighteen-year-old. I would like to have assessed her memory encoding for visual-non-verbal communication, language functioning, any deficiencies in word and encoded information retrieval, and to quantify her emotional and intellectual quotient.”

Coin huffed a laugh. “And you expect the county to pay for all that?”

Sam turned to look at him. “I was told you take your capital cases seriously down here.”

There was a bubble of laughter from the crowd.

Lyman banged his gavel several times before they settled. Sam caught the slight lift of the corners of his mouth as he suppressed a smile. Judges rarely enjoyed themselves in the courtroom. This man had been on the bench so long that he likely thought he had seen everything.

“Your Honor,” Sam said, testing the waters. “If I may raise another issue?”

He gave her an overly generous nod to illustrate the latitude he was allowing. “Why not?”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” Sam said. “Miss Wilson’s parents are eager to return to their home. A timeline from the prosecution as to when they expect to release the Wilson home would be welcomed.”

Ken Coin jumped up from the table again. “Your Honor, as yet the county does not have an estimate for completion of said search of the Wilson abode.” He seemed to realize he could not match Sam’s formalized language. He flashed his teeth at the judge. “These things are very hard to predict, Judge. We need time for a thorough search, properly performed under the guidelines put forth in the warrant.”

Sam kicked herself for not reading the warrant ahead of time.

Lyman said, “There is your answer, Miss Quinn, such as it is.”

“Thank you, Your Honor.” Sam watched him pick up the gavel. She mulled the judge’s such as it is in her mind. She felt a rush of certainty, her instinct urging her that now was the time. “Your Honor?”

Lyman again laid down his gavel. “Miss Quinn?”

“As to discovery—”

“I believe that has been addressed.”

“I understand that, Your Honor; however, there was a video recording made of Miss Wilson yesterday afternoon while she was being detained at the hospital.”

“Your Honor.” Coin was on his feet again. “‘Detained?’”

“In custody,” Sam clarified.

“Oh, come on,” Coin’s tone dripped with disgust. “You can’t—”

“Your Honor—”

Lyman held up his hand to stop them both. He sat back in his chair. He steepled together his fingers in thought. These moments happened often in the courtroom, where the judge stopped the proceedings to think through the intricacies of a request. Most times, they ended up kicking the problem down the road, asked for motions to be written, or simply said they would delay their decision to another time.

Sometimes, they threw the question back to the attorneys, which meant that you had to be prepared to succinctly argue the merits or run the risk of prejudicing the judge against your position for the remainder of the case.

Sam tensed, feeling as if she was locked into the starting block, staring down the open track. Lyman had mentioned discovery very early on, so he likely knew that Ken Coin was prepared to follow the letter, not the spirit, of the law.

Lyman gave Sam the nod.

She took off, “Miss Wilson was in the custody of a plainclothes police officer who accompanied her from the middle school to the hospital. He was in the ambulance with her. He stayed with her in her hospital room through the night. He rode with Miss Wilson in the police car that took her to the jail this morning, and he was present when she was Mirandized this morning. If I use the words ‘detained’ or ‘in custody,’ that is because any reasonable person—”

“Your Honor,” Ken said. “Is this an arraignment or a special episode of How to Get Away with Murder?”

Lyman gave Sam a flinty look, but he also gave her more leeway. “Miss Quinn?”

“Pursuant to the prosecutor’s stated position