MIAMI — A judge on Tuesday refused to suppress jailhouse statements from a man who allegedly expressed remorse for raping and murdering 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford in 2005.

Circuit Court Judge Richard Howard halted jury selection Tuesday in John Couey's capital murder trial to hold a hearing on whether to suppress the statements that the convicted sex offender allegedly made in 2006.

After hearing testimony from two corrections officers and a defense psychologist, Howard ruled there was not a "shred of evidence" to support the assertion that Citrus County jail guards created an environment that was the "functional equivalent of an interrogation" for Couey.

Defense lawyers argued that jail guards coerced Couey into making incriminating statements related to the girl's death by isolating him from other inmates and threatening to withhold privileges from him, such as bathroom trips and water for his coffee.

A defense psychologist also testified that Couey suffered from mental illness and retardation, which made him even more likely to issue false confessions or make incriminating statements to gain the favor of his captors.

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Dr. Robert Berland attributed Couey's IQ level of 64, about 11 points below the medical standard for retardation, to childhood brain damage and a proclivity for sniffing glue and gas as a teen.

Berland said that Couey reported to him that his mother's ex-boyfriend banged his head against a wall for wetting the bed. Berland said Couey also told him that a car hit him when he was 16 as he exited a bar.

As he issued his ruling, however, the judge noted that jail guard John Read encouraged Couey to get his GED and brought him Sudoku puzzles and a set of colored pencils so he could continue to draw after leaving the county jail.

"That was just an act of simple humanity. It was not an act of coercion," Howard said.

Read testified that Couey initiated at least two dozen conversations with him on topics such as current events, religion and, occasionally, the charges against him.

At the time, Couey was being held in protective custody on charges of first-degree murder, battery, kidnapping and sexual battery for the death of Lunsford, whose body was found buried in a plastic bag less than 200 yards from her grandparents' Homosassa home in 2005.

"Who decided what you were going to talk about?" prosecutor Richard Ridgway asked the corrections officer.

"Mr. Couey," Read said. "He got into some fairly graphic areas of the nature of the crime."

Read and fellow corrections officer Nathalia Windham testified Tuesday that Couey was isolated from the rest of the jailhouse population, except for a single guard who was with him at all times.

Both officers testified that they never read Couey his Miranda rights because they were not law enforcement officers who were interrogating him.

Howard agreed, noting that any evidence of Couey's mental condition did not automatically trigger his right to remain silent.

Jury selection resumes Wednesday. The proceedings will be streamed live on the Web at Court TV Extra.