Sometimes it is possible to disagree with a court decision but to understand it better by reading it.
This is not the case with the judgment handed down by the Paris Appeals Court on Dec. 19 in the Sarah Halimi case. According to the judges, the suspect in her killing, Kobili Traoré, is criminally irresponsible because he "was not aware" that the massive use of cannabis could lead to an acute delirium.
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This is incomprehensible. Here is an individual who has been smoking pot every day for 13 years (up to 15 joints a day!), who suffered from growing irritability, paranoia and uncontrolled fits of rage and who therefore voluntarily put himself at risk for himself and other. And despite all this, a panel of experts ruled that he could not have known what he was doing.
Such reasoning is simply untenable. By making the use of alcohol and drugs as an aggravating circumstance for any crime or offense, the members of the French parliament had no doubt about the dangerousness of psychotropic substances.
By avoiding a real trial, let alone a conviction, the experts – followed with confounding unanimity by the defense, the Advocate General and now the judges – are sending a devastating message to society as a whole.
Drug users will see this as an incentive to use more drugs, since the more they use, the less responsible they will be held. This will see France slowly turn into a huge psychiatric asylum.
Beyond Mr. Traoré's will, and therefore his conscience, to put himself in a state in which he would be likely to lose control of his acts, it emerges from the elements of the file that his discernment was not abolished (total absence of conscience) during the 20 minutes of Sarah Halimi's agony.
What he felt at the sight of a 7-branch candlestick or a prayer book in Hebrew; the remarks he made to the neighbors as well as to the police officers about Halimi's alleged "suicide" just after having defenestrated her; his consciousness of wanting to flee the crime scene – all are elements in favor of a remainder of discernment, therefore of conscience, and therefore of responsibility.
Contrary to what the court's Investigation Chamber maintains, if these elements of consciousness are compatible with an acute delusional burst (ADB), it is with the proviso that this ADB caused an alteration of discernment (partial consciousness) and not an abolition. Otherwise, Mr. Traoré would have been in the black box described by many experts as impermeable to external elements.
There was, therefore, a coming and going of lucidity in Kobili Traoré's mind and this means that he still had a grip on reality. How then can the Investigation Chamber assert that "there is no doubt about the existence, in Kobili Traore's mind, at the time of the facts, of a psychic or neuropsychic disorder that abolished his discernment or control of his acts"?
Nothing in this judgment objectively establishes the abolition of discernment. Nothing except the desire not to send him back to trial. For, unlike guilt, in matters of criminal responsibility, doubt does not benefit the accused.
Mr. Traoré took drugs voluntarily. And because this was not the first time, because he already had a long history of cannabis use, because he had already been convicted of using narcotics and therefore necessarily alerted to the danger of these products, because he himself had suffered, and acknowledged to have suffered, the harmful effects of cannabis on his psyche, Mr. Traoré must answer for his actions before a criminal court.
Moreover, is it not contradictory for the Investigation Chamber to acknowledge both Kobili Traoré's "willingness" to kill Sarah Halimi and his total lack of awareness or control over her actions?
Finally, we cannot be satisfied with this legal blind spot: too "crazy" for prison, not "crazy" enough for psychiatric internment.
It is in this dark corner, far from anyone's view, that Sarah Halimi was buried for a second time. Mr. Traoré will not remain in the bonds of a compulsory hospitalization for long. But because he was "insane" at the time of the events, he shall not go to prison either.
Mr. Traoré will, therefore, leave his ward much sooner than a conviction for his crime should have provided.
About a week ago, rallies in various French cities such as Paris and Marseille saw thousands of Jews and non-Jews march together to protest the court's decision.
Hopefully, people will realize that when Jews are targeted, it is a warning that society is becoming sick. This case goes beyond the Jewish community.
Everybody should feel concerned because if the Supreme Court upholds the Investigation Chamber's decision, everybody could be at risk.
