When she finished a cursory perusal of the magazine, she looked at her watch and frowned. Giving it one more minute, she ran out of patience, got up and walked to the reception desk again. "I'm sorry. Is Mr. North being held up?"
The young woman looked up. "I'm sure he's busy. He said he'd be right out."
"Yes, but I wonder if you would mind checking again. It's been fifteen minutes."
The woman lowered her voice, spoke conspiratorially. "Fifteen minutes is nothing."
Wu forced a tolerant smile. "I'm afraid it is to me. Would you mind trying him again please? Amy Wu."
She popped her gum and shrugged. "Sure. I remember." Pushing a few buttons on the console in front of her, she spoke into her headset. "Hal? Ms. Wu's still waiting." A pause. "Okay. Sure, I'll tell her." She ended the connection, looked at Wu. "He says two more minutes." But she held up her hand, opened and closed it twice slowly- the message clear. It was going to be closer to ten.
It was eight.
Projecting energy and command, Hal appeared from out of nowhere and suddenly was standing in front of where Wu sat. "Amy, sorry to have kept you. All kinds of madness going on back there. As usual. We're supposed to open the new Disney tonight and somehow somebody over in Walnut Creek lost six reels. Tell me where the hell you mislay six reels, I'd like to know. I gotta think somebody's stealin' them." She stood and they shook hands. "Anyway, I'm here now. What's the problem? I thought we were coasting on the legal stuff for a while until we got this next hearing scheduled. Is everything okay with Andrew?"
Wu was somewhat gratified to hear that both parents at least asked about Andrew's welfare. "Yes, sir. I think he's fine. I'm planning to go on up and see him after I leave here."
"Good. He told Linda he thinks you're upset with him, about what he did. He'll be glad to see you."
"So Linda already visited him today? She said she was going tonight, too."
"Did she? I don't know. What's today, Thursday? Thursday is normally her bridge group in the morning, I think, but maybe she went up. You'd have to ask her. Anyway. So what's up you need to see us all the sudden? You want to stay out here, by the way? Go in to my office? Whatever."
"Here is fine. I just wanted to tell you that they have scheduled the next hearing." She paused. "And it's for next Tuesday."
The slab face went into a shock riff. "Next Tuesday?" He counted silently to himself. "Five days. That's like it might as well be tomorrow, isn't it? I thought the courts liked to move slow on this stuff."
"Most of the time they do. In this case, the DA's mad Andrew didn't admit when he thought he was going to. He's expressing his displeasure."
"That's bullshit. Fuck him."
"Yes, sir."
Hal's scowl deepened, his voice suddenly harsh. "And I thought the plea change was part of your strategy all along. Now here we are sandbagged again. What's that about?"
Wu, expecting something like this, had prepared her reply. "It's about Allan Boscacci getting shot, sir. The whole thing would have rolled off his back I'm sure, but now we've got Clarence Jackman himself with his shorts in a twist. He's just asserting his authority. Anyway, I'm going to appeal the date, but my boss says it's not likely to change."
"Your boss?"
She nodded. "Dismas Hardy, you might have heard of him. He's good. And this is really very good news. If the hearing goes ahead on this accelerated time frame, he's going to come aboard to help out."
"And I pay extra for that?"
"No. The firm covers his time and expenses. We didn't make this problem with the DA, but we don't think it's right to ask you to pay for it, either. I'll be putting in a lot of hours, though. Just to let you know. We may be looking at another retainer payment, especially if Andrew goes up to adult."
"Which we're going to fight."
"Tooth and nail. Yes, sir. But on the assumption that the seven-oh-seven is going ahead as scheduled on Tuesday, I wanted to bring you and Linda up to speed on how it's structured so we can be prepared how to proceed."
"Jesus," Hal said. "It never ends." He threw a glance over his shoulder- all the work awaiting him behind one of those doors- then came back to Wu. "Maybe we want to sit down." They did. "All right," he said. "Shoot."
Over the next twenty minutes or so, Wu gave him the short course.
For all of its apparent complexity, a 707 proceeding concerned itself with only one question: is the minor "amenable to treatment" as a juvenile? From the perspective of the courts and the justice system, this determination was critical. Despite the insistence by some that one of the goals of adult incarceration should be rehabilitation of the inmate for an ultimate return to society, in practice, adult jail and prison time was essentially punishment. By contrast, the juvenile system's ethic took on a far more hopeful and optimistic cast. Though incarceration was part of the process, the goal was primarily to rehabilitate, not punish, the minor.
If you were in the juvenile system, the bureaucracy contemplated your eventual redemption. You still had a chance to turn out all right, to be a good citizen and a productive member of society, your youthful sins forgiven. So the system provided not just the stick of incarceration, but the carrots of education, psychological and career counseling, job training and a host of other social welfare programs. Because of these programs and treatments, each minor in the juvenile system would typically interact with an assortment of counselors, educators and social workers, and not just his warden and guards.
But this vast, bureaucratic apparatus of hope was not to be wasted on those it could not help, who were not "amenable to treatment." These were juveniles who, by virtue of their callousness, cruelty, history and crimes, must in justice be viewed as adults. Society would rightfully treat them as incorrigible and not squander its limited resources in a doomed and hopeless bid to try and rehabilitate them. And further, these lost causes wouldn't be permitted to contaminate the salvageable kids by their sophisticated and fixed criminality.
But first, the courts needed an objective formula to identify those who might be helped, and those who must be abandoned.
To that end, for violent crimes, five criteria for amenability had evolved. If in the court's judgment the minor failed the test for any one of these criteria, then that person would be found not amenable to treatment in the juvenile system and handed up to Superior Court to be tried as an adult. These criteria were (1) degree of the minor's criminal sophistication, (2) the likelihood of the minor's rehabilitation prior to the expiration of the juvenile court's jurisdiction (i.e., the minor's twenty-fifth birthday), (3) the minor's previous delinquent history, (4) the success of previous attempts by the juvenile system to rehabilitate the minor and (5) the circumstances and gravity of the offense for which the minor has been charged.
"Okay," North said. "So what's all that mean?"
"It means we're going to have to talk- you and me and Linda- about which if any of these criteria apply to Andrew. I mean, we've got a pretty good idea about number five, the gravity of the offense. It's murder, so it's serious. But we fight that one when we get to it. Meanwhile, I've got to know about all the others, so that if any of them seem to apply to him, we work up a defense, or at least an explanation for the court."
North was frowning deeply, sitting all the way back in the couch, his hands in his lap, his legs straight out and crossed at the ankles. "Haven't we already done that? Remember that second day at the house, I think it was. When you wanted to know all about the blowups, and we talked about his shrink and all that?"
"Sure. I remember. But this is getting down much more to the nuts and bolts. Individual events. Reasons he shouldn't really be considered an adult."