Philippe Maurice

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Philippe Maurice (born June 15, 1956 in Paris ) is a French medieval historian . He is the last person who was sentenced to death in the highest court in France and thus legally binding . The verdict resulted in the last conversion of a death sentence to life imprisonment in French judicial history by an act of grace by the President .

Criminal offenses

In the case of Philippe Maurice, the Cour de cassation upheld a death sentence for the last time in its history in March 1981.

Philippe Maurice, who grew up in difficult social circumstances in the banlieue of Paris, helped his brother, who was incarcerated for car theft, to break out of prison twice in 1977. He also joined a counterfeiting ring and was caught in the same year with counterfeit money with a face value of 15,000 francs . He received a five-year prison sentence.

In May 1979, he returned from a clearance not return to prison. He and an accomplice carried out two bank robberies. They were surprised by the police in an attempted car theft in Paris on December 7th; Maurice's accomplice killed one policeman, he himself injured another. On the run, they ran into a police control with their vehicle. Philippe Maurice opened fire, a projectile from his weapon killed an officer. His accomplice, who shot another police officer, was fatally hit by a police bullet. The injured Maurice escaped and was arrested the following day.

Death penalty and pardon

On October 28, 1980, the competent jury in Paris sentenced Philippe Maurice to guillotine death . On January 24, 1981, he attempted an escape. On March 19, 1981, the Court of Cassation ( Cour de cassation ) rejected a request for an appeal. Thus, Maurice was finally sentenced to death . Only an act of grace by the president could prevent the execution .

The presidential candidate François Mitterrand declared during the April 1981 election campaign that if he won, he would want to abolish the death penalty in France. Mitterrand was elected president on May 10th and took office on May 21st. Just four days later, he converted the death sentence against Philippe Maurice into a life sentence.

classification

Philippe Maurice is the last person to be sentenced to death in France. His pardon was the last presidential pardon for a death row inmate in French history. After the end of Charles de Gaulle's presidency in 1969, only six executions of the death penalty had taken place in France, the last being on September 10, 1977 against Hamida Djandoubi .

On September 18, 1981, the National Assembly resolved to abolish the death penalty, and the Senate joined on September 30. The law was promulgated on October 9th and came into effect the following day.

In the barely twelve months between Maurice's conviction and the final abolition of the death penalty, French courts still passed death sentences against eight other people in the first instance, but none of them became final through confirmation in the last court instance. Seven of the convicts benefited from the automatic commutation to life imprisonment enshrined in the law of October 9, 1981; one had previously died of natural causes in prison.

Scientific activity

Philippe Maurice passed the Baccalauréat in prison and took up a distance learning course in medieval history. His master's thesis was printed in 1989 by the Société des lettres sciences et arts de la Lozère . 1995 awarded him the University Tours to doctoral degrees . In November 1999, Maurice was given leave and in March 2000 he was paroled . Since 2002 he has been working as a research assistant and lecturer at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS). He wrote about 20 scientific essays and several books on medieval history, including an extensive monograph on William the Conqueror . In 2001 he published the book De la haine à la vie ( German  from hatred to life ), in which he describes his experiences in prison.

Maurice advocates the worldwide abolition of the death penalty and fundamental reforms in the prison system. He participated as a speaker at the 1st World Congress against the Death Penalty in 2001 in Strasbourg and at the 2nd World Congress against the Death Penalty in 2004 in Montréal .

Book publications

  • Les relations familiales en Rouergue et Gévaudan au XVe siècle d'après le trésor des Chartres. Société des lettres sciences et arts de la Lozère, Mende 1989 (also: Mémoire de Maîtrise [Master's thesis] University of Tours 1989).
  • La famille en Gévaudan au XVe siècle (1380–1483). Publications de la Sorbonne, Paris 1998, ISBN 2-85944-340-1 (also: Dissertation University of Tours 1995).
  • De la haine à la vie. Cherche Midi, Paris 2001, ISBN 2-86274-849-8 (Additional edition: Gallimard, Paris 2002, ISBN 2-07-042270-4 ).
  • Guillaume le Conquérant. Flammarion, Paris 2002, ISBN 2-08-068068-4 .
  • Diocèse de Mende. Brepols, Turnhout 2004, ISBN 2-503-52159-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Judgment of the Court of Cassation of March 19, 1981, accessed January 23, 2010
personal data
SURNAME Maurice, Philippe
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French Medievalist
DATE OF BIRTH June 15, 1956
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris