MAËLYS CASE: LAWYER OF NORDAHL LELANDAIS UNDER ATTACK
LaDepeche.fr
https://www.ladepeche.fr/article/20...t-de-nordahl-lelandais-dans-la-tourmente.html
Exasperated by the alleged murderer's attitude, Maëlys' parents and their lawyer criticized Nordahl Lelandais and Me Jakubowicz who, according to them, supported his client in his denials.
Now that the analysis of Maëlys' bones has revealed a fracture to the jaw, will Nordahl Lelandais tell the judges more about the girl's death on Monday? Since the beginning of the case, the civil parties have doubted and criticised his attitude, which has revived the old debate on the rights and role of the defence. "Do not come and tell us that the defendant is working to find the truth," said Fabien Rajon, the lawyer for the girl's parents, on March 8, accusing the suspect's counsel, Alain Jakubowicz, of having supported him in his denials.
"By lying to everyone, he lied to me too," the latter justified himself after his client's turnaround and the discovery of the remains of the child. Nordahl Lelandais had the right to "express a truth that proved to be inaccurate," Jakubowicz said.
An "unacceptable" position in the face of the parents' pain, the civil parties retort. For them, Maëlys' family was "taken hostage" for six months by the defence when the case should have encouraged them to "cooperate" instead.
But is that his role?
"Not at all, it is not apparent from any text. It is the judge's duty to find out the truth; the lawyer's duty is to defend his client. This does not prevent him from inciting his client to confess when the evidence is there," according to Me François Saint-Pierre, a criminal lawyer from Lyon known in particular for having defended Maurice Agnelet in the Agnès Le Roux case. The word "truth" does not appear either in the decree of 12 July 2005 on the rules of ethics of lawyers or in the national internal regulations of the profession, nor in the oath taken by its members.
Many criminal lawyers believe that it is even better to "have a doubt about guilt," according to Edwige Rude-Antoine, research director at the CNRS. To build his defence, the lawyer wonders about the "credibility of his client's word" in relation to the elements of the case, both prosecution and defence; he is "in search of the plausible" and "free to discuss adverse evidence" - a "card" that the defence could not "play" in the Maëlys case, in the eyes of the parents' lawyer.
"It is none of your business," Jakubowicz replied to journalists who asked him, while he was arguing against the accusation, if he was convinced of Nordahl Lelandais' innocence.
"It is not up to the lawyer to ask this question to his client," says Me Saint-Pierre. Since the suspect's partial confessions, the debate has shifted to the moral field: should lawyers for alleged perpetrators not encourage their clients to confess, rather than defend their interests? At the risk, sometimes, of abusing the presumption of innocence.
In another highly publicized case, that of the death of Alexia Daval, the public prosecutor in Besançon, Edwige Roux-Morizot, deplored the fact that this principle was "flouted every day" at the time of the husband's arrest, by hammering that he had "the right to modify his statements, to specify them, to adjust them, and this throughout and until the end."
BBM
