"I wanted to prove mathematically that I could not have been going as fast as (the officer) had me on his laser gun, but I lost.

"I wasn’t a very good attorney," Edelman acknowledged.

What’s worse, he ignored the advice of a Bexley neighbor, lawyer Terry Sherman, to just pay the ticket.

"I should have. It cost me $130 instead of $90."

But Edelman’s probing questions made an impression on Sherman, who offered Edelman an unpaid summer position in his Columbus law office. Sherman works by himself.

"He’s a great analytical thinker, he has a science background and he writes well," Sherman said of his eager helper, who jumped at the chance to give up his usual summer gig - assembling subs at a Bexley sandwich shop.

Edelman’s mother, Sheryl, who is friends with Sherman’s wife, brokered the deal out of necessity.

With Edelman off to college, his mom had turned his bedroom into an office for her promotional-products business.

"He would have probably slept till 4 p.m. and got to Grinder’s (restaurant) at 5, and I couldn’t work with him in the bedroom," Mrs. Edelman said. "I had to get him out of the house, to be honest, and Terry could use some help."

Edelman returned home from Emory just in time to assist Sherman in what he considers one of the most challenging and complex murder cases to come his way in 30 years.

Sherman and co-counsel Richard Clime were court-appointed attorneys for Gerald "Bob" Hand, who was convicted May30 in the slayings of his wife and a longtime friend.

Hand was accused of killing his friend to silence him about the pair's involvement in the unsolved slayings of Hand’s first two wives in the 1970s.

"This case was like a big puzzle, and Jason brought a fresh approach," Sherman said. "He’s a thinker and can put things together."

Edelman also offered suggestions to Sherman and Cline as they drafted their closing arguments to the jury.

As the month long drama unfolded in the Delaware County courthouse, Edelman soberly watched the emotional toll on the families of the victims and defendant.

"I could understand how they felt, that justice was brought to the person responsible for the deaths of their loved ones," he said after Hand was sentenced to death last week.

"And I couldn’t imagine sitting in a courtroom pleading for my dad’s life to 12 strangers for something (his father) didn’t believe he was responsible for," Edelman said of Hand’s son, Robert, who had tearfully addressed the jury.

Edelman said the most challenging part of the trial was the hours he spent trying to brainstorm with the lawyers as they analyzed crime-scene evidence.

"As a little boy, I would take apart my toys to see how they worked," he said. "My father said my first words were, ‘Daddy, it boke.’"

"I don’t know if he will go into law, but it is a good life experience," Lynn Edelman said of his son’s summer job.

Edelman’s creative-writing teacher at Bexley High School said she was not surprised that lawyers put his writing skills to good use.

"He could go into law and become a very good attorney because he knows and enjoys the language, and he thinks creatively and analytically" teacher JoAnn LaMuth said.

"And if there is a book out of this court case, Jason could write it."