By Reason of Insanity (David Brunelle Legal Thriller Series Book 3)

by Stephen Penner

  The last thing a new judge wanted was to be overturned on appeal. Actually, the last thing a new judge wanted was to draw an opponent in the next election, and one way to draw an opponent was to be seen as vulnerable because he keeps getting overturned on appeal.

  Brunelle announced the case and prepared for his quixotic attempt to block the competency evaluation and its attendant delay of his prosecution. He knew he’d lose, but he’d put on a show. After all, there were cameras. And Fargas. And Robyn.

  “The first matter that’s ready is the State of Washington versus Keesha Sawyer,” he said as the jailers brought Sawyer in from a secure door to the holding cells behind the courtroom. “I’m handing forward to the court copies of the charging documents and ask that we proceed to arraignment.”

  Judge Adams took the offered papers from his clerk and looked down at Edwards. “Is the defense ready to do the arraignment?”

  “Absolutely not, Your Honor,” Edwards seemed almost proud to say. “My client is not competent to stand trial, let alone be arraigned.”

  That sent the appropriate murmur through the gallery. Brunelle tried to remember whether he’d mentioned the competency issue to Fargas.

  Judge Adams also seemed impressed. Or scared.

  “Oh. Well. Um,” he stammered. Prior to being elected, Adams had been a family law attorney. He did divorces, child custody disputes, etc., so he knew his way around a courtroom well enough, but we wasn’t very well versed in criminal law yet. “So what do we do now?”

  At least he was honest about it. Every judge is new at some point, and every judge has areas of the law he or she never really practiced. You could tell the judges who were going to be good because they didn’t hide their ignorance behind their black robes. They admitted it and sought input from the advocates. The ones who blustered and belittled to distract from their own ignorance, those were the ones lawyers hated going in front of.

  “Well,” Edwards started, “if you’re willing to take my word for it, you could just dismiss the charges now. Otherwise, my client needs to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.”

  Adams looked to Brunelle for confirmation.

  Brunelle didn’t provide it. “The State disagrees that there’s any reason to doubt Ms. Sawyer’s competency,” he began. “Admittedly, she has mental health issues, but she appears perfectly capable of understanding the situation she finds herself in now. Her mental issues touch more on the State’s ability to prove the charges, rather than the State’s ability to proceed with the prosecution.”

  “If I might, Your Honor?” Edwards interrupted. “It’s not Mr. Brunelle who should be deciding whether my client is competent. We have psychologists at Western State Hospital who do that.”

  Again the judge looked to Brunelle. The indecision was clear on his face. Maybe Brunelle actually had a chance after all.

  “I would submit, Your Honor,” he said, “that we don’t need to go to that waste of time and expense. The defense is moving the court for an evaluation. You can deny that motion if you see no reason to doubt her competency. The core question is whether she understands the charges against her and the nature of the proceedings. You could simply inquire of her, right here in open court, whether she knows what she’s charged with, why, and what could happen if she’s convicted. Ask her who you are, who I am, who Ms. Edwards is. Ask her what a trial is for and what witnesses do. Based on my experience with the case, I believe she will answer all those questions in a way that will satisfy the court that she’s competent to stand trial.”

  Adams looked to Edwards. “Any objection to that, Ms. Edwards?”

  Edwards scowled and crossed her arms. “Absolutely, Your Honor.” She glared at Brunelle for a moment, clearly irritated that the judge was even considering denying her motion. “First of all, my client has a right to remain silent. You can’t compel her to answer those questions. More importantly—and with all due respect, Your Honor—you’re not a psychologist. You have no specialized training in this field. Even if Ms. Sawyer could parrot back the right answers, that doesn’t mean she’s competent. Let the experts handle this. If they say she’s competent, then we can arraign her. There’s no reason to rush this. She’s not going anywhere.”

  Brunelle frowned slightly. That was a good point. There was no rush. And while she was at Western State, she would be held without any right to post bail. She wasn’t going anywhere.

  Adams looked to Brunelle one last time, but Brunelle was out of bullets. “She’s competent, Your Honor,” he insisted. “This is a waste of time.”

  The judge nodded for several seconds. He rubbed his chin. He pursed his lips. He stroked his new beard a few times. By the time he’d finished the tics, Brunelle was pretty sure he’d lost.

  “I understand Mr. Brunelle’s concerns about conserving judicial resources and not delaying matters unduly,” he began. Brunelle knew it was bad to be mentioned first because that meant he’d be followed buy the inevitable ‘but.’ “But it seems to me that there is no prejudice to either side to wait the short amount of time it will take the doctors at Western State Hospital to evaluate Ms. Sawyer. Whereas, if I deny the request for an evaluation, there may be great prejudice to Ms. Edwards and the defendant.”

  Which would result in a reversal on appeal, Brunelle finished in his head.

  “I will grant Ms. Edwards’ motion for a competency evaluation and we will set the matter for a hearing in two weeks to find out the results of the evaluation.”

  Edwards thanked the judge and handed her order to the clerk. Adams signed it and within moments, Keesha Sawyer was being escorted back into the bowels of the jail, her fate having been determined by people who barely even acknowledged her presence before them. Brunelle and Edwards each gathered their things up and Brad went ahead and called the next case.

  “Satisfied now?” Brunelle asked Edwards amicably.

  “Nope,” she replied with a smile. “That was step one. Step two is making sure the docs say she’s incompetent.”

  “You’re going to coach your client on how to game the eval?”

  “David! I am hurt you would even suggest that.” But her grin belied her assertion. “It’s simply that she has the right to have her lawyer present during the evaluation, so I will be sure to direct the attention of the doctors to the information most relevant for their determination.”

  “Most relevant to help you,” Brunelle translated. “And nothing that helps me.”

  The small talk wasn’t just the usual post-hearing banter among attorneys. Brunelle was waiting for Fargas to leave, and relaxed a bit when he watched him finally exit the gallery with his clients.

  “Okay, then,” Brunelle said, wrapping it up. “You win round one, but this is just the beginning.”

  “You have not yet begun to litigate,” Edwards joked. “Or something like that.”

  “Something liked that,” Brunelle confirmed with a smile.

  He stole one last glance at Robyn New-Lawyer, her red curls swaying slightly as she spoke to the judge. She seemed to sense it, as she turned around and gave him one last dimpled smile. Brunelle managed to smile back, then hurried through the security door and out into the hallway. He had known he was going to lose that hearing, but he still didn’t like it. Either way, though, it was over. He could head up to his office to consider his next steps in some peace and quiet.

  “Brunelle!” came a shout from behind him. He turned to see Fargas storming at him, flanked by his clients. “You have some explaining to do!”

  Chapter 7

  “What just happened in there?” Fargas demanded.

  His clients stood to the side and slightly behind him, a couple in their fifties, nicely dressed. The woman offered an awkward, apologetic smile. The man’s face was grim, his arms crossed. Brunelle looked back to their lawyer.

  “She was ordered out to Western State for a competency evaluation,” Brunelle answered.

  “I know that,” Fargas blustered. “We were in the damn gall
ery. What I want to know is why. And why you didn’t say anything about it before.”

  Ah, Brunelle realized. Fargas had forgotten to tell his clients about this possibility. So he looked stupid, or at least unprepared. Maybe both.

  “I would have thought,” Brunelle enjoyed saying, “that you would have foreseen this eventuality, given the nature of your claim against the state.”

  Fargas’ eyes twitched at the jab, but it worked. Mrs. Client’s slight smile at Brunelle turned into a clear frown at Fargas. Mr. Client’s grim glare didn’t change, but did transfer from Brunelle to Fargas.

  Now the overture to Fargas’ clients. “I do apologize,” Brunelle said. “I should have mentioned it. I knew it was coming and although I argued against it, I anticipated the judge would grant it. I’m confident she’ll be found competent, though, and then we can proceed with the prosecution.”

  Then he addressed Fargas’ clients directly. “If there’s anything I or my office can do for you, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

  Mrs. Client smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Brunelle.”

  Her husband just nodded curtly.

  “I’m their attorney, Brunelle,” Fargas reminded him. “Your office can go through me.”

  Brunelle didn’t say anything. He knew Fargas was right, and besides his goal hadn’t been to connect with the clients as much as to disrupt their connection with Fargas. The last thing he needed was hostile family.

  For his part, Fargas finally showed some judgment: he ended the conversation. He jabbed a finger at Brunelle. “Keep me informed.”

  Brunelle forced a smile and nodded. “Will do, Charles.”

  Fargas gestured to his clients to follow him and stormed by Brunelle. Georgia’s sister reached out and touched Brunelle’s arm as she passed. “Thank you again.”

  Brunelle smiled, for real this time. “You’re welcome.”

  It was nice to feel appreciated.

  Chapter 8

  The clinking of dishes and the sizzle of woks mixed genially with the growing conversations as the crowds started to thicken at The Jade House, the Chinese restaurant that was starting to become Brunelle and Kat’s regular dinner spot. At least on Fridays.

  “And then he said,” Brunelle went on, punctuating his point with a jab of his fork, “‘Keep me informed’.”

  Kat nodded and raised her own chopsticks to her mouth. Cashew chicken. “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah,” Brunelle affirmed. “So I said, ‘Will do, Charles’. He was just so aggressive. I get along fine with the defense attorneys. I don’t know why the civil attorneys think they’re supposed to be jerks all the time.”

  Kat gave a crooked smile as she chewed. “We deal a lot more with you criminal types,” she said, “but every now and again one of those corporate suit lawyers will call and ask us to do something for them.”

  “Like what?” Brunelle mumbled through his basil beef.

  “Well, about a month ago,” Kat related, “we had a suspicious death. No external violence to the body, but no know illnesses either. And she was young. Thirty-something. But just as we’re ready to crack her open, we get a call from some big law firm downtown. The husband’s hired a lawyer and they’re trying to block the autopsy on religious grounds.”

  Brunelle raised an eyebrow. “Sounds suspicious.”

  Kat nodded. “I thought so too. I mean, the husband? That’s always the first suspect.”

  Brunelle laughed. He smiled at his girlfriend. “Absolutely.”

  “On the other hand,” Kat continued, “he’s also the one who would know about any religious objections and care enough to try to stop it.”

  Brunelle nodded. “Fair enough. So what did you do?”

  Kat chuckled. “I don’t even remember. My boss handled it. I just remember the lawyer was a complete dick.”

  Brunelle laughed and took another bite. The noise in the restaurant was picking up. It threatened to drown out the conversation at their usual table that was almost but not quite too close to the kitchen.

  “Yeah, well this guy is definitely a complete dick too,” Brunelle said. “I just hope he stays out of my way.” He thought for a minute. “If I can even get going on my way, that is. We couldn’t even do the arraignment. She got sent out to Western State for a competency eval.”

  It was Kat’s turn to nod. “Well, you said she was crazy,” she reminded him before popping another bite in her mouth.

  “Sure, but she’s not incompetent,” Brunelle replied. He didn’t want to explain it again. Instead, he was about to tell her the timetable for getting the evaluation competed and the case back on track. But she beat him to the next comment.

  “I’m just glad they’re already dead before I get into their heads. Brains are a lot simpler when they’re just wrinkled gray flesh.”

  Brunelle grimaced and looked down at his beef. It was more of a brown than gray, but still. “Yeah, well, anyway, the eval should be done within two weeks. Then we can arraign her and get this thing moving again.”

  Kat washed down her next bite with a sip of wine. “I always wondered about those guys in med school who wanted to become psychiatrists. They always seemed to be pretty screwed up themselves.”

  “Maybe they just wanted to understand themselves better,” Brunelle suggested with a grin. “Doctors are notorious narcissists.”

  Kat raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me? Doctors? What about lawyers?”

  Brunelle raised his own eyebrows. He drew himself up in his seat. “I serve the public, madam.”

  Kat laughed out loud. “Oh please. You serve yourself, Mr. Brunelle. Not that I’m complaining. I like a confident man, but you’re as much a narcissist as any doctor.”

  Brunelle felt a little stung by the comment. His expression must have shown it as he searched for a reply.

  “Come on, David.” She smiled beneath narrowing eyes and pointed her chopsticks at him. “Three times just now I tried to comment about my work or my experiences, and three times you steered the conversation right back to you and your case.”

  Brunelle’s eyebrows knitted. He wasn’t sure that was true. And even if it was, hadn’t she done the same thing? Wasn’t that how a conversation worked?

  “I’m sorry,” he offered anyway. “I didn’t realize.”

  “Of course you didn’t,” she teased. “That’s because you’re a narcissist.”

  Brunelle smiled at the barb, but only to cover the twinge in his gut.

  “You should look into that,” Kat jabbed again over her wine glass.

  Brunelle’s smile weakened. “Yeah,” he decided to agree as he pushed at what was left of his beef and rice. “Maybe so.”

  Chapter 9

  The competency hearing was scheduled for two weeks after the aborted arraignment, so of course the evaluation report showed up on Day 13. In the afternoon.

  Nicole walked into Brunelle’s office and handed him the multi-page fax.

  “Who uses a fax machine anymore?” he asked as he took the document. “It’s positively medieval.”

  Nicole smiled. “Well, it is a mental institution,” she said. “There’s something inherently medieval about that.”

  “I suppose so,” Brunelle agreed. He was no student of history, but he had a mental image of a medieval asylum—and it looked like Hell on Earth. He fought off a shudder and tapped the front of the report. “Did you read it?”

  Nicole put a fist on her hip and cocked her head. “Well, of course.”

  Whenever she did something like that with her body, it just reminded Brunelle how much poise and grace was packed into that statuesque frame. He didn’t know much about her personal life. She wasn’t one to talk about it; he wasn’t one to ask. But she held herself like someone who’d stared down some pretty tough demons and come out the stronger for it.

  “What does it say?” His question wasn’t spurred by laziness. He’d read the report full through. It was just that the reports were written almost as crazy as the people they were about. One would
expect the reports to start with the answer everyone cared about: is the defendant competent? Brunelle would have liked a large “Yes” or “No” at the top, maybe with check boxes next to them. But instead, the reports were typically twelve or fourteen pages, reciting all of the defendant’s criminal history and childhood tragedies, followed by a detailed description of his or her current grooming and hygiene habits. Finally, somewhere toward the end, but not the very end—that would be too easy to find—buried in the middle of some paragraph, would be one ambiguous sentence, neither boldfaced nor italicized, that said something like, ‘The patient presents as understanding the nature of the charges against her, however there may be some question as to whether her paranoid delusions might impair her ability to effectively assist her counsel.’

  Sometimes he thought the doctors were as crazy as the patients.

  “It says she’s competent,” Nicole reported.

  He exhaled. Thank God. He’d been worried. They’d found her incompetent once before, although he was still convinced that was because the doctors felt sorry for her and didn’t want her prosecuted for shoplifting food. But this was murder. The shrinks needed to get out of his way. He was glad they had.

  “Barely competent,” Nicole clarified. “And only because she’s been on intravenous anti-psychotics since the night of the murder.”

  Brunelle slapped the report onto his desk and displayed an exaggerated grin. “Good enough for me!”

  He considered reading the entire report just then, but then he remembered the hour. The courthouse would be closing in ninety minutes. “I wonder where Jessica is right now.”

  Western State had certainly faxed the report to her too, but the public defender’s office was notorious for letting faxes and voicemails back up. Hundreds of needy clients who get your services for free can clog up an in-box pretty fast.