“Fine. What if he’s the law student who deposes you,” Brian amended.
Though that was an unearned rank as well. The Defendant had applied widely to a number of reputable programs, but his admission scores were so poor that the only place that would take him was a night school called Tacoma Narrows, located in a shared office building in downtown Tacoma. He fell behind almost immediately, stopped attending classes, and the next quarter scrubbed all mention of his time there on his application to the University of Utah, where he got one year under his belt before he was arrested and charged with the kidnapping and attempted murder of Anne Biers. That was three years ago. He’d been a convict for twice as long as he’d been a law student.
“I’d almost prefer if it was The Defendant who deposed you,” Dad said, not joking in the least. “I very much doubt Shorebird Law turns out the best and the brightest of the legal profession.”
I busied myself, squeezing lemon all over the oysters, giving Brian a moment to recover. He was flushed a girlish pink.
“No, Dad,” I said, passing the platter his way and gesturing for him to dig in first. “Shorebird is the name of the school Brian and I are attending in the fall. The Defendant was at a place called Tacoma Narrows.”
My father smeared an oyster with horseradish, seemingly oblivious to the offense he had just caused. But I knew he was not. My father took great pains to appear laid-back, but that was a tactic too, one that belied his meticulous diction. His comment had been a deliberate, targeted attack on Brian, meant to remind him—his daughter had gotten into Columbia Law, but his daughter’s boyfriend had not.
“It’s those aquatic-sounding names.” Dad brought the wide end of the shell to his lower lip, tipped, and chewed before swallowing. “Tough to keep straight.” He pushed the platter in Brian’s direction, a peace offering.
“Thank you, sir,” Brian said quietly.
My father waved the waiter over, ordered another round of drinks, then insisted we all have the filet, though I knew Brian preferred the strip.
“Dad,” I said when the waiter had gone, “I’d love to pick your brain about something.”
Dad brought a fork to the side of his head, pretending to twirl his thinning blond hair. Pick away. I gave him the half laugh he was after.
I’d taken a debate and rhetoric class my junior year; learned about something called process values. In a rule of law–based society, you could make a winnable argument based on these values. Even when a legal outcome might not appear obvious, fair, or logical, you could at least show that the process to get there was. I clasped my hands in my lap, made my voice sonorous. “Don’t you think,” I started, “that if the state is going to use citizens’ tax dollars to extradite somebody, charge them, and prosecute them, then that should happen? The person should not be allowed to escape. Our system recognizes that as a criminal offense in and of itself.”
“Not every country penalizes escape,” Dad pointed out.
I nodded eagerly. I liked when we did this. Built a case together. “But ours does. And part of that penalization involves increasing security around an escaped prisoner if and when he’s recaptured, usually by moving the inmate to a higher-security facility.”
“Sure,” Dad said. “If a higher-security system isn’t available, measures like round-the-clock surveillance can be implemented by the judge.”
Our entrees arrived, and I readied the rest of my argument while the waiter fanned out the identical plates. My father had been a civil attorney for fifteen years before making the move to in-house counsel. He would have only cursory knowledge of criminal law, so the fact that he had retained knowledge like this boded well. The clearest argument is always the one that relies on ordinary people’s latent understanding of our system.
“The Defendant was remanded—appropriately—to a level-three facility in Utah after he was convicted of kidnapping Anne Biers,” I continued once the waiter had gone. “The Colorado DA came in and extradited him to a level-one facility in Aspen, which is the least restrictive—”
“Can you pass the breadbasket, Pamela?”
I passed Brian the breadbasket and tried to remember what I was saying. “Level one is considered minimum security. Someone who’s been convicted of aggravated kidnapping and charged with first-degree murder really should be somewhere more restrictive. At the very least, he should not be permitted to roam free, unshackled and unsupervised. Which is how he escaped the first time. You would think Colorado would have learned from that, put tougher restrictions in place. Instead, they remanded him to yet another level-one facility and failed to follow the judge’s ruling that he should have round-the-clock—”