Geaghan: A few updates

L'affair Papon

From Paris: Le Monde reports that Maurice Papon was buried on Wednesday with his Légion d'honneur medal, despite widespread opposition. Papon was responsible for the deportation of 1,690 French Jews to Auschwitz during World War II and the mass killing of Algerian demonstrators in Paris in 1961 when he was chief of the Paris police. Libération's story is headlined: "Papon, outside the law even in the tomb."

The Kouchner law

France has its "loi Kouchner," which allows for the early release of prisoners for humanitarian reasons, but what about the U.S.? Executive clemency is our rough equivalent, though it provides no real criteria for deciding whether to release aged or critically-ill prisoners. For example, Oregon's clemency law (ORS 144.649) simply states: "Upon such conditions and with such restrictions and limitations as the Governor thinks proper, the Governor may grant reprieves, commutations and pardons, after convictions, for all crimes and may remit, after judgment therefor, all penalties and forfeitures." Interestingly enough, Oregon law (ORS 144.787) also states that the "youth, advanced age or physical disability" of the victim may be considered an "aggravating circumstance" that can justify a harsher sentence. But the "youth, advanced age or physical disability" of the defendant isn't recognized as a "mitigating circumstance" that could result in a reduced sentence.

State clemency boards are unlikely to recommend clemency without a "compelling justification" or a showing of "extraordinary circumstances."

On the federal level, the power of granting pardons and reprieves is granted to the president under Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, "except in cases of impeachment" (1). During the last thirty years, about 10% of the 600 applications for pardons have been approved.

Road rage revisited

The irate driver who threw a cup of McDonald's soda into another car had her sentence reduced by a Virginia judge from two years in prison to probation. She has been in jail since January 4th but will be released as soon as she clears a warrant from a Mississippi court on an unrelated matter. (Maybe, for now, this result will rein in the endless variations on "McDonald's"—like "McMissile," "McWoman," "McJail" and "McProbation"—that seem to amuse the media every time the company makes the news.)

NOTES

(1) Though the House Judiciary Committee voted in favor of impeachment, Richard Nixon was never formally impeached (or tried) on the House floor.

Update: Papon and the Kouchner law

A story in today's Paris Libération, headlined "One of the rare prisoners freed by the Kouchner law," describes a provision of the French code that authorized the early release of Maurice Papon from prison on humanitarian grounds. As detailed in Geagan's post on the subject, Papon was freed in 2002 after serving just three years of a ten-year sentence for crimes against humanity during World War II. The Kouchner law permits a suspension of the remaining sentence

"...of prisoners for whom it is established that they have developed a life-threatening pathology, or [when] their long-term state of health is incompatible with their maintenance in detention."

In a communiqué on Pabon's death, the French Ligue des droits de l'homme (League of the Rights of Man) notes that Papon is one of the very few aged or infirm prisoners who have benefited from the Kouchner law. On the day that Papon walked out of La Santé prison and celebrated at a fine restaurant, there were 369 septuagenarians, 39 octogenarians and 2 nonagenarians in French prisons. The League condemned "the priority given to an accomplice of the Shoah in the liberation of sick prisoners over other prisoners who have not benefited from the same humanity as the purveyor of Auschwitz." The League contrasted Papon's "golden life" with that of other sick and aging prisoners, including the "calvary" of a 46-year-old political activist who died of lung cancer after her release on humanitarian grounds in 2006:

"How can we forget that one can always live through the terminal phase of cancer in prison, remaining in a cell while weighing only thirty kilograms [66 lbs], falling out of bed each night without getting help, and that there are still old people in prison who don't even know where they are?...

"There is too much inhumanity in the French penal system to get indignant over a measure of clemency granted to an old man, great criminal though he was. But it is intolerable that inequality before the law is so cynically assumed by public authorities."

A final note on Papon. In 1961, when he was chief of the Paris police, from 70 to 200 Algerian demonstrators were killed—typically beaten to death by police—and thrown into the Seine under his orders. The crime wasn't even acknowledged by the French government until 1998. Papon remained chief of police in Paris for a total of nine years (1958-67). He denied complicity in the events of 1961, not surprisingly, and was never prosecuted.

The Papon case demonstrates that it's not enough to have humane laws: they must be implemented fairly and without favoritism. It also shows that certain political and social elites are often exempt from the laws that apply to the rest of us.

NOTES

All materials in quotes are my translations from the French sources noted or linked.

GRAPHIC: Maurice Papon after his release from prison.