With a crease in his forehead that had grown more pronounced over the months Valerie had been seeing Ben, the boy was peering at the papers in his lawyer’s hands. His papers.
The file was thick.
Valerie had a version of the same file in front of her.
Without looking at the boy again, she began with the legal protocol, turning Ben from a twelve-year-old child to a case number. For the record she asked if Ben’s biographical information was correct. His attorney stated in the affirmative, both of them going through their notes during the exchange.
Detachment was critical to her. She was about to make a decision that was going to change, one way or another, the rest of this all-American-looking boy’s life.
Debbie Malcolm, for the state, recommended, in light of the evidence before them, that Ben be detained.
Valerie had known coming into the room that this would be the recommendation.
Ben’s attorney spoke next, trying to explain away repeated truancies as no danger to the community. In great and passionate detail, he told the court about the boy’s scholastic abilities, his remarkable IQ that was blamed for a boredom that drove him from classrooms. The misdemeanors the lawyer dismissed in much the same way, managing to assert more than once that detention was for those who were a danger to the community. He believed that there were other, more beneficial ways to handle the case before them and asked for a lesser sentence.
Six months ago, Valerie would have been swayed by the arguments. They were solid. Sound. As good as anything she’d ever done during her life on the other side of the bench.
Looking at the boy’s parents, she asked, “How’s he doing at home?”
Ben’s father said fine.
His mother wiped away the tears that were sliding slowly down her face.
Valerie glanced at Ben. His face was impassive, which sent alarms to her nerve endings. At twelve years of age, the boy was unmoved by his mother’s anguish. Anguish that he had caused.
His mother’s statement was rife with confusion, helplessness, an engulfing desire to do what
was best for her son and the honesty to admit she had no more ideas.
“Do you have anything to say?” she asked Ben, pinning him now with her most serious stare. Unless something happened in the next thirty seconds to convince her otherwise, Ben White had just sealed his fate.
“No, Your Honor.”
“Okay.” Valerie scanned the pages in front of her once more, making absolutely certain she’d seen everything—every note, date, justification, charge, recommendation and previous disposition. She was warm in her robe. Warmer than normal. She was aware of the heavy circular metal plaque on the wall behind her, almost as though it were radiating heat. Its words were emblazoned on her mind. Great Seal of the State of Arizona. 1912.
The state of Arizona had entrusted her with this decision.
“Ben, based on the number of times I’ve seen you in this court, and based on the fact that you’ve violated the terms of your intensive probation, I am going to have you detained, here at Juvenile Detention for a period of ninety days.” In spite of the sharp intake of breath she heard from the dais, Valerie continued, explaining legalities, conditions. “Do you understand what that means?”
She gazed at the boy. Not at his parents. His mother’s tears were not going to help Valerie do her job.
The boy was stone-faced, as usual. Until he opened his mouth to speak.
“No! Your Honor, no! Please don’t send me there! I’ll do everything just like you say, I promise.” With tears streaming down his face, he looked frantically over to his parents. “Please, don’t let them take me away from you….”
Basketball tryouts. Today Blake and Brian had basketball tryouts.
“Please!”
She read him the rest of the disposition.
Detention was this boy’s only hope.
She believed that.
The thought carried her from the room and down the hall to her office, but it didn’t erase the sight of that terrified face from her mind’s eye. Or stop her from imagining the next hour and the way the boy’s life was going to be drastically changed.
Ben had reason to be terrified. Juvenile detention stripped a kid not just of his freedom, but of any false pride he might retain. Her hope was that reducing Ben White to the most basic aspects of existence, he’d be able to begin again, to rebuild his life, to find a positive direction.