A case of French justice – a window on the nation
The burglary defendant hauled his loot in a taxi, the defense attorney wore slippers, and the judge deemed the victims guilty by reason of naiveté.
from the January 31, 2008 edition
Page 2 of 3
Dahib's judges – there was no jury of peers – had some leeway in sentencing. But if Dahib were to commit another crime in the future, he'd be tried under the tough new law that makes a long prison term compulsory.
"He knows very well that this is his last chance," said the defense attorney, a young man who wore house slippers and bluejeans that peeked out from under his black robe. "He knows that if he commits another crime there's not going to be much we can do for him."
The trial took place in the cavernous Palais de Justice. Built on the foundations of a 3rd-century fortress, the 10-acre compound with 15 miles of corridors, 700 doors, and 3,150 windows, played a starring role in French history. It was set afire in the Revolution and then during the Commune. Marie-Antoinette was sentenced to death here. Zola, Marshall Petain, and Mata Hari were tried here, as was Sarah Bernhard (for breaking her contract with the Comédie Française). Compared with such weighty matters, Dahib's case seemed almost comical. According to his own account, his modus operandi was simple. Thanks to an accomplice in the post office of the 12th arrondissement in Paris, a friendly mailman called him every time keys were spotted in a mailbox during morning deliveries. Dahib came by in the afternoon and, using a postal service master key, simply retrieved the keys and let himself in to apartments while their owners were away. The alleged accomplice was never found by the police.
The judge-rapporteur, who summarized the case against the defendant on behalf of the court, recounted the burglaries as if he was reading out tales of the Indiana Jones's adventure series.
"It was amazing," the judge observed, that on the day Dahib was arrested, he'd asked the doorman of a building he had just burgled to call him a taxi to take his loot home. He returned to the same building to hit another apartment. With a set of stolen golf clubs and other items in his arms, he asked the same doorman to call him a taxi again. "Maybe he has problems but he is also a practiced con man," the judge said. "He committed 14 thefts over a period of not even two months. His storage room was like Ali Baba's cave."
Dahib listened attentively to the description. He seemed impatient. Only a month earlier, he'd told the court that he was eager to get the trial over with. But it had been scheduled on a day that transportation workers across France went on strike. His lawyer was stuck in the Paris suburbs and could not come. "You know and I know it's not going to make a difference whether he's here or not," Dahib said then. But the judges postponed the trial.
As it turned out, Dahib was well served by his defense attorney, who successfully argued that his client's criminal record was proof of psychological problems that the state was obliged to treat, not punish.
"I've been representing him for five or six years in criminal trials and I always ask myself the same question: Why, at the age of 31, is he still doing this?" the lawyer told the court. The answer, he said, was that Dahib "suffers from an unhealthy psyche."
That opened the way for a long philosophical discussion between the presiding judge and the defendant that ranged from abstract principals to amateur psychology.
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