Known to defend the great thugs, the lawyer, who wore the fight for the abolition of the death penalty for years, was a model for a whole generation of penalists. He died on October 11, at 86 years old.
by
Pronouncing the name of Jean-Louis Pelletier, it is to see as soon as the thugs of Eph ‘, cross jackets and smoked rectangular glasses appear. Jacques Mesrine, “Public enemy number 1”, Albert Spaggiari, the brain of “Casse du siècle” in the bowels of Société Générale in Nice, Edmond Vidal, known as “Monmon”, from the Gang des Lyonnais, Francis Le Belge and So many others who were his customers. The lawyer, who died on Tuesday October 11, at 86, in Paris, wins with him an era. That of “proud by arms”, “beautiful guys” and “aristos robbers”. The one, too, where a pleading could tip everything and save – or not – the head of an accused of the guillotine blade.
Jean-Louis Pelletier is 29 years old and four years of bar when the man he defends, Antonio Abbate, is sentenced to death. The penalty from Hyères (Var), registered at the Marseille bar like his master Emile Pollak, took the plane for the first time in his life this July 13, 1965, and comes to ask the Elysée the grace of the president of the Republic Charles de Gaulle. The maintenance lasts eight minutes. The grace is granted and the sentence commissioned in life imprisonment.
Sixteen years later, the lawyer with a southern accent who opened a Quai de Montebello cabinet, in the 5 e arrondissement of Paris, a few steps from the Cité de la Cité And of the courthouse, enters the second time at the Elysée. In this month of May 1981, in the company of his colleague and friend Philippe Lemaire, he came to fetch with the newly elected president, François Mitterrand, the grace of his client, Philippe Maurice, sentenced to death by the Paris Assize Court October 28, 1980 for the murder of a peacekeeper. “You have done your job, I will do mine,” replied the President of the Republic to the two defenders, by signing the decree of grace. 2>
loyalty of the big thugs
When lawyer Robert Badinter, who became the Keeper of the Seals, went up on September 17, 1981 to the gallery of the National Assembly to vote for the abolition of the death penalty, the “Band of the Four” which wore this Combat for so many years – Henri Leclerc, Philippe Lemaire, Thierry Lévy, Jean -Louis Pelletier – has already resumed the courses of assize. “I am not the lawyer on the right, not the lawyer on the left, I am the environmental lawyer,” joked Jean-Louis Pelletier, who knew France of prisons and courthouses by heart.
You have 64.31% of this article to read. The continuation is reserved for subscribers.