Page 58 of The Right to Remain
The morning after Elliott’s assault, Jack visited the detention center and met with the TGK staff physician.
An ambulance had taken Elliott to the nearest emergency room, which was at Jackson Memorial Hospital. TGK was one of several nearby detention facilities, and Jackson treated more victims of violent crime than any hospital in America—gunshots, stabbings, sexual assaults, and everything else under the Florida sun—which meant that survivors could literally look out a hospital window and see where their attackers were incarcerated. In Elliott’s case, the ER team had decided against a room with a view. He was evaluated, treated, stitched up in the ER, and returned to TGK the same day.
“The doctors at Jackson saw no evidence of concussion,” the staff physician told Jack. “And neither do I.”
Jack was in Dr. Wilson’s office at TGK, seated across the desk from him. He had a copy of the medical report from Jackson and the incident report from the TGK officers.
“The incident report says Elliott lunged at his cellmate from the top bunk and hit his head on a steel toilet,” said Jack. “And you’re saying no concussion?”
“All three cellmates confirmed it was a glancing blow.”
“Glancing? It took eleven stitches.”
“Head wounds can be real bleeders. That doesn’t necessarily mean major trauma, much less brain injury. The CAT scan at Jackson was normal. So were the cognitive tests.”
Jack checked the medical report. “How could he have passed a cognitive test? According to the ER physician, Elliott was noncommunicative.”
“The doctor never said the patient wasunableto communicate. The patient refused to answer any questions. That’s exactly how this inmate has behaved since he arrived at TGK.”
Since his grand jury testimony,thought Jack, but he took the doctor’s point.
“We here at TGK have little patience for these games,” the doctor added.
“What game do you think my client is playing?” asked Jack.
“I’ve seen it all. We’ve even had inmates go on hunger strikes. It’s not that theycan’teat. They choose not to. Your client appears to be on a speech strike. There’s nothing physical, mental, or emotional that prevents him from speaking. He chooses not to. There’s no medical justification for putting him in a hospital and allowing him to avoid a jail cell.”
Jack didn’t accept the doctor’s premise that Elliott was playing a “game,” but he did agree that Elliott was choosing silence.Whyhe was making this choice Jack didn’t know. The sooner he found out, the better.
“I’d like to see my client now,” said Jack.
The doctor seemed more than happy to get rid of the lawyer in his office. He phoned the warden’s office himself to speed things along. A moment later, a guard arrived to take Jack down the hall and through two sets of locked doors to the attorney-client visitation area. He showed Jack to an available room and closed the door.
Jack took a seat at the wooden table in the center of the windowless room and waited. A few minutes later, the metal door on the opposite side of the room opened. A corrections officer entered first, followed by the shackled inmate in the company of another guard. As they escorted Elliott to the chair, Jack rose—less out of courtesy or manners, and more out of concern for the beating Elliott’s face had taken. The stitches above the right eyebrow were the least of it. His eye was completely swollen shut, and the bluish-purple discoloration made him look like he’d been kicked by a mule. The guards placed Elliott in the chair.
“Please wait outside the door,” Jack told the officers, and they left the room. Elliott’s gaze was locked on to the floor.
“I’m not going to lie,” said Jack. “You look horrible. Who did this to you?”
Jack was just trying to start a conversation, but Elliott didn’t bite.
“Your cellmates told the guard that you were the instigator,” said Jack. “They said you were in the top bunk when you lunged at the one named Mona for no reason, and you ended up going face-first into the steel toilet.”
Elliott was silent, still looking at the floor.
“My gut tells me your cellmates are lying,” said Jack. “You don’t strike me as a violent person, despite the murder charge. And I know you’re too smart to pick a fight with an inmate twice your size. My guess is that Mona decided to kick your ass, and you got the worst of it.”
More silence.
“This is a very serious mistake you’re making, Elliott—the way you’ve twisted the right to remain silent into a refusal to say anything in your own defense, even to your own lawyer. It’s not clever, and it’s not amusing. It’s nonsensical and self-defeating.”
Elliott said nothing. Jack tried a different approach.
“Have I ever told you about my daughter?” asked Jack. “Righley’s nine. Not too long ago, my wife and I drove her to Disney World. Anybody who’s made that drive knows about the billboards for the truck-stop strip clubs. There’s a stretch of the Florida Turnpike where, every two minutes, you see a huge billboard that says, ‘We Bare All!’ Righley thought it was hilarious. She would read aloud every time we passed one: ‘We Bare All!’ My wife told her to knock it off, but that only made it worse. Every ten seconds, billboard or not, Righley would blurt it out in a different accent. French. Spanish. Southern. ‘We Bare All!’ It was funny at first, but after a while, Andie and I were over it. I told her to zip it. So, you know what she did?”
Elliott didn’t answer.
“She said, ‘Fine, Dad. You want me to zip it? I won’t say anotherword the rest of this trip.’ With Righley, of course, that lasted about five minutes. But my point is, I get it. Nobody likes to be told to shut up. Righley’s immediate reaction was to give me the silent treatment.”