Attorneys for the city who grappled with how to arrive at a just charge for the 9-year-old girl arrested Monday in the fatal stabbing of her 11-year-old friend received a two-day reprieve from a Family Court judge yesterday.

Attorneys on both sides met for several hours yesterday with a judge of Brooklyn Family Court, Ellen Spodek. She then adjourned the hearing until tomorrow, when prosecutors will bring specific charges against the girl, who remains in custody.

The 9-year-old, whose name has been withheld because of her age, allegedly killed her friend Queen Washington when the two got into a squabble over a rubber ball. The assailant, according to a purported confession provided to police, stabbed Queen in the chest with a steak knife, piercing her heart and killing her.

At the heart of the case is the set of difficulties presented by the alleged killer’s age.

State law requires that charges against children under 13 be adjudicated in Family Court. Police in Brooklyn’s 75th Precinct charged the girl with manslaughter Monday, though children under 13 cannot be tried with homicide or murder, the chief of the Family Court Division in New York City, Laurence Busching, told The New York Sun yesterday.

A professor of psychology at Temple University who specializes in the juvenile-justice system, Laurence Steinberg, said: “The goal of what’s going to happen in Family Court is not going to be to try to punish her. By referring her to Family Court, the state assumes there are problems in this girl’s life that need to be addressed.”

In formulating a charge, prosecutors must review the girl’s life, any traumas such as child abuse, and her mental capacity, all of which would help determine the state’s intervention, the legal director of the Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia, Marsha Levick, said.

Neighbors have said the 9-year-old had a sharp temper and often got into fights with other children in her neighborhood and at her school, P.S. 306, according to reports.

For now, though, the child remains in the state’s custody, though not in a jail.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some combination of family neglect and/or mental illness at play here,” Mr. Steinberg said.

Some neighbors have speculated that the 9-year-old’s brother, who is 15, may have goaded her on, and Mr. Steinberg cautioned against taking a confession at face value.

“Just because a 9-year-old said she did something doesn’t mean it happened,” the psychologist said. “Nine-year-olds can be easily coerced and talked into saying things that are not true.”

States such as Florida and Pennsylvania do not have a minimum age threshold that would protect children from being tried in criminal courts. In 2001, a 14-year-old, Lionel Tate, was tried for a murder he allegedly committed when he was 12. A judge later ruled that Tate’s initial trial was unfair because the defense attorney had not argued that he was unfit to be tried as an adult, Ms. Levick said.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, meanwhile, echoed the sentiments of others who have been shocked that a girl so young could murder a girl who was a close family friend.

“I don’t remember any defendant this young,” Mr. Kelly said, adding that he did not think the case should force changes in the minimum age requirements for trying juvenile defendants as adults.

“This is such an aberration,” Mr. Kelly said. “It’s terribly, terribly sad.”