The Perfect Alibi (Robin Lockwood #2)(47)
Kellerman made the smile disappear as soon as he spotted the reporters waiting outside the courtroom. Death cases should be serious business, and it would be unseemly to appear to be enjoying himself. Kellerman maneuvered his way through the crush while spouting innocuous answers to the shouted questions from the press. Then he walked down the aisle and through the low gate that separated the spectators from the trial participants.
Robin Lockwood was conferring with her client at the defense counsel’s table, and Marsha was sitting behind them. Lockwood had called Rex to let him know she was representing Armstrong, but Kellerman had told the receptionist to say he was unavailable. He was still furious with Lockwood for humiliating him in the Henderson case, and he didn’t want to talk to her. But knowing she was Armstrong’s lawyer had thrilled him because it would give him an opportunity for revenge.
The arraignment went quickly, as they usually did. Armstrong waived a reading of the charges and entered a not guilty plea. Lockwood filed constitutional objections to the death penalty, requests for discovery, and other motions. The judge set a date for a bail hearing and a tentative trial date. It was all over in twenty minutes. Then the guards took Armstrong away, and Kellerman heard Marsha choke up when she told Doug she loved him.
Kellerman left the courtroom quickly and headed for the elevator. As the doors started to close, a slender hand blocked them and Marsha Armstrong stepped into the car. There were tear tracks on her cheeks and she was flushed.
“Why are you doing this?” she demanded.
“Doing what, Marsha?” Kellerman asked innocently.
“Do you hate me so much that you’d kill my husband to get back at me?”
“I don’t hate you and I didn’t do anything. A grand jury heard the evidence against your husband and decided that there was enough of it to indict him for murder. He has a good lawyer. If he’s innocent, he’ll be acquitted.”
“You know he didn’t kill Frank. You’re going after Doug to get back at me for walking out on you.”
“Marsha, we’re two adults. We had a brief fling and you decided to go back to Douglas. That was your choice, and I don’t hold it against you.”
Kellerman stepped out of the car, and the doors closed on Marsha. The prosecutor broke into a wide grin. What a lovely way to end his morning, Rex thought as he walked to the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office.
Dr. Margo Schatz was waiting for Kellerman in the reception area. Schatz had been a prosecution witness in several of Kellerman’s trials. The psychologist was in her early sixties. Her silver-gray hair fell to her shoulders and framed a pleasant oval face. Soft blue eyes, lips that were quick to smile, and an appealingly plump body gave her a grandmotherly appearance that played well with jurors.
“I hope you haven’t been waiting long,” Kellerman said as they walked to his office.
“I just got here.”
Kellerman closed his office door and motioned Schatz into a seat across the desk from him. “Did you read my memo?” the prosecutor asked.
“I did.”
“Do you think Armstrong is faking amnesia?”
“There’s no way I can answer that question without interviewing him and administering a series of tests.”
“So, you can figure out if a defendant is faking amnesia?”
“It’s possible. Crime-related amnesia is common in cases involving extreme violence. It’s not unusual for perpetrators to fake amnesia to obstruct a police investigation or reduce their responsibility. I’ve seen studies that posit that twenty percent of criminals who claim no recollection of their crimes are feigning their memory loss and other studies that argue that the percentage is higher. One study found that twenty-nine percent of all criminals sentenced to life imprisonment who claimed amnesia at their trials admitted they were faking.”
“How could you figure out if Armstrong is faking?” Kellerman asked.
“Faking amnesia has been linked to increased brain activity in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, and increased pupil dilation.”
“Armstrong’s not going to submit to an MRI or CAT scan or whatever you’d use to see that stuff.”
“Symptom validity testing, or SVT, can also be used as a tool to assess whether people are faking when they claim to have no recollection of crimes they’ve committed.”
“How does that work?”
“SVT asks defendants to answer a number of questions about the details of the crime with which they’re charged. In answering each question, they must choose between two equally plausible answers, one of which is correct and one which is incorrect. If the defendant really has amnesia, the results should be random. In other words, correct and incorrect answers should be selected approximately equally. If the performance is significantly below chance—the incorrect answer is chosen significantly more than the correct answer—this indicates deliberate avoidance of the correct answer. That means the defendant most likely has an intact memory of the crime and is faking his amnesia.”
“So, we can trip up Armstrong if we can get him to take the test!” Kellerman said.
“Not necessarily. Armstrong is a lawyer, so he probably has above-average intelligence and good research skills. If he researched how to fake amnesia, he probably researched the methods you could use to prove he was faking. If he’s read the studies, he would understand the rationale behind SVT and how to game the test by giving random answers.”