Patrick Henry, un procès capital Série-Collection : Rendez-vous avec le crime

Irène Richard
1997 - 57 min - Betacam SP - Couleur - France

January 1976. A little boy of 8 was kidnapped in Troyes. For 18 days, Patrick Henry, 23 years old, the kidnapper and assassin, went about his business, paraded in front of the cameras after being in police custody.
The trial of Patrick Henry was to be the first stumbling block for the death penalty in France. It has to be said that he was defended by Robert Badinter.
Seldom has a trial spoken to men's consciences to this extent, because, in the Assize Court in Troyes, it was no longer the trial of the murderer of a child, but the trial of the death penalty.
And since that day, 20 January 1977, the knife of the guillotine in France has been going rusty. This trial that had unleashed strong feelings became part of history through the will of the jurors to grant to an assassin, in spite of pressure, threats, "the benefit of the absolute circumstance : of being a man. In spite of everything and in spite of himself", as Pierre Georges wrote in "Le Monde" at the time.