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."

"Character issues?"

"Right."

He turned his head to face her. "But didn't you say the other day that we didn't want to bring up character? Once we did that, then the prosecution could introduce their own stuff and jump all over us?"

"You were listening." Wu didn't seem very happy about it.

"Damn straight. I'm a good listener. So now you're saying we need character?"

"Maybe it's a bit of a risk. Certainly it's a different situation. But the bottom line is we need to defeat all the criteria. Every one of them, or Andrew goes up."

North sighed heavily, cast his gaze out to the view. "I'll talk to Linda. Maybe between us we can come up with something. You got those things, the criteria, written down?"

"Yes. Right here."

"Okay. Leave them with me, and if we can come up with something concrete you don't already know, we'll get back to you. How's that?"

Wu arrived before her client did in the cold and tiny room- the scratched table, the ancient chairs, the antiseptic old-school smell. Suddenly, she noticed the bars of sunlight high on the opposite wall, and she realized that she'd been awake only for a little over three hours total today, and the daylight was already nearly gone.

And wouldn't her father have been proud of her for that? For wasting the day? Or the past weeks? She rested her head in her hands as a fresh wave of nausea and revulsion rolled and broke over her. An unconscious moan escaped.

"Are you all right?"

She hadn't heard the key, hadn't been aware that the door had opened. Now Bailiff Cottrell- the young one with the old eyes- stood in the entrance, holding a restraining hand up for Andrew, waiting for a sign that the interview was still on. It wasn't immediately forthcoming, so he asked, "Are we good here, ma'am?" Eventually she nodded, and the bailiff lowered his hand, let her client come in, closed the door.

Andrew warily kept his eyes on her as he pulled his chair over, sat on the front inch of the seat. "Are you mad at me?" he asked.

Wu's mouth was dry, her face clammy. She closed her eyes for an instant, ran her hand over her forehead. "No. I'm not mad at you, Andrew."

"I thought you would be because I didn't do what you wanted me to." He had his hands clasped together between his knees. "But I couldn't say I did it."

"I know," she said. "I wouldn't worry about it now. It's done. The thing we have to do now is prevail at this hearing, get you mandated in the juvenile system so you stay here."

"But I thought that was already over with." Confusion played itself all over his features. "I mean, that's what everybody is so mad about, right?"

"Not really. They're mad that now they have to go through the hassle of trying to move you back up to adult court."

"So you're saying your deal, even though I didn't agree to it, got me another chance anyway?"

"Yeah."

Suddenly, the look of confusion cleared. Her client tentatively smiled. "Well, then, if your job is my defense, how could it have been wrong? Maybe the guy you made the deal with wasn't as careful as he needed to be, either. You ever think of that? Maybe it wasn't all your fault?"

Wu wouldn't think ill of the dead, especially not today. But Andrew's rationale released some small bit of the tension she felt. "Well," she said, "at least some of it was my fault. But that's very nice of you to say, and I could use a little nice." For the first time with Andrew, she felt something like a connection.

But there was still the business, the five criteria for amenability to the juvenile system. After she had painstakingly gone through the list for him, she sat back with her arms crossed over her chest. "We need to talk about each of these individually, Andrew," she said. "If the court finds you not amenable on any one of them, you go up."

"Any one?"

"That's the rule. And I'm afraid we've got less than a week to prepare."

"But these criteria." Andrew scratched at the tabletop. "Most of them don't apply to me at all. I don't even know what they mean by criminal sophistication, or if I can be rehabilitated. Rehabilitated from what?"

"Your violent criminal past."

He looked a question at her. "I don't have one."

"I know. But I don't think sophistication is the problem. Neither is rehab."

"But gravity is."

Everyone seemed to understand that one immediately. "Yes."

He gestured around the small room. "If it helps me get out of here… but I was saying, even on gravity, if I didn't do it…" He raised his eyes, hopeful.

But she didn't want to raise those hopes. She came forward and reached across the table, a hand over his forearm. "This hearing isn't about whether you did it, Andrew. I need you to understand that. It's only about whether you go up as an adult or not. They're going to pretty much assume the gravity criteria."

"And they only need the one?"