David Montagné, Guillaume Dominguez, edited by Loane Nader and Gauthier Delomez
The investigation into the road accident caused by Pierre Palmade is continuing. We now know that the pregnant woman present in the car hit by the comedian has actually lost her baby because of the violence of the shock. A first medical report confirms it. The young woman who was between her sixth and seventh month of pregnancy gave birth by caesarean section to a fetus born “viable and alive” at 10:18 p.m. and declared dead almost half an hour later, at 10:51 p.m.
Manslaughter when the child is born alive
It is now a question of defining the penalty that the comedian must incur as well as the reason for its attribution. The death therefore aggravates the proceedings against him, as assured by Jean-Christophe Saint-Pau, the president of the French Association of Criminal Law. “The qualification of manslaughter can apply when the child is born alive, and breathes a few moments after being separated from its mother. It falls within the scope of the criminal protection provided for by article 221- 6 and that therefore the characterization of manslaughter is applicable.”
In the case of the Palmade case, the fetus is therefore well and truly considered a legal person, because it needs to have been “expelled” and to have breathed, even for a very short time.
Homicide dismissed in similar case
Before having knowledge of the state of life of the baby, there remained a legal vacuum. Indeed, article 221-6 of the penal code which defines an involuntary homicide as the fact of “causing by clumsiness, imprudence, inattention, negligence or negligence the death of others”, only takes into account “legal persons “, that is to say recognized by law.
For example, in 2001, the Court of Cassation had been seized in a similar case, and in a judgment, it had dismissed an appeal. At the time, a motorist injured a six-month-pregnant woman, who also lost her baby in the crash. Based on “a strict interpretation of the criminal law”, the judges were opposed “to the incrimination provided for by article 221-6 of the criminal code being extended to the case of the unborn child, whose legal regime comes under particular texts on the embryo or the fetus”.
Protection of the right to abortion
This legal complexity can be explained by the desire to protect the right to abortion. Indeed, the Court of Cassation has positioned itself in the spirit of the law, by not recognizing a dead fetus in its mother’s womb as a person in its own right. Otherwise, if the Court of Cassation had recognized a fetus as a legal person, this case law could allow opponents of the right to abortion to find a loophole to bring down the text. It is therefore a kind of safeguard to perpetuate the Veil law of 1975.
For having caused the death of the future baby of the 27-year-old young woman, Pierre Palmade therefore faces up to 20 years in prison, an increased sentence due to aggravating circumstances due to his drug use as well as the state of recidivism in which it is. In fact, in 2019, the comedian had been sentenced for the use of narcotics.