The indicted teenager says a voice that suggested he murder his teacher. The prosecutor nevertheless believes that he could be responsible for his actions, in particular by virtue of a psychiatric expertise, disputed by his lawyer.
Why did a student fatally stab his Spanish teacher, Agnès Lassalle, in the middle of class in a high school in Saint-Jean-de-Luz (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), Wednesday February 22? The mystery of his gesture remains intact, but the student was indicted for “murder” and placed in pre-trial detention on Friday. The Bayonne prosecutor, Jérôme Bourrier, had requested this indictment the day before, citing the results of a psychiatric expertise carried out in police custody: the suspect “appears accessible to criminal liability”.
The teenager’s lawyer, Thierry Sagardoytho, disputes this assessment and criticizes the expert for having neglected certain elements. His client “does not recognize being the conscious and lucid author of this drama”, recalled the council, Saturday on franceinfo. The psychological state of the adolescent should be the key to this file.
What do we know about the psychological state of the adolescent?
The elements of the investigation revealed by the prosecutor, Thursday, describe a methodical passage to the act: the teenager locked the door of the classroom before fatally hitting the teacher with a single blow “fluid” with a knife he had hidden in a paper towel roll. Described as “flabbergasted”, he then went to a nearby classroom, where two other teachers convinced him to lay down his gun. It was there that he would have affirmed, according to the comments reported by Jérôme Bourrier, that “someone would have taken possession of his body” and declared: “I ruined my life, it’s all over.”
In police custody, this second-grade student explained that he heard “a small voice” : “a being he describes as selfish, manipulative, egocentric, who incites him to do evil and who would have suggested to him the day before to commit an assassination”, detailed the prosecutor. His lawyer, for his part, claims that the young boy speaks for himself “in the third person”. “When he tells the facts, in my opinion, it is not he who acts. (…) I wonder about a possible dissociation of personality”, explained Thierry Sagardoytho at the exit of the court, Friday. On franceinfo on Saturday, he underlined another eloquent point in his eyes: his client “has perceived signs of danger on his person through looks, through innocuous things”.
A psychiatric examination was conducted by a doctor while in police custody. The expert observed “a form of reactive anxiety that can disrupt his discernment” but “no mental illness such as schizophrenia, manic state, melancholy”, none “mental retardation, nor any acute psychiatric decompensation”.
Contextual elements further complicate the psychological picture of the defendant. The teenager had attempted suicide using drugs last October, the prosecutor revealed. Since then, he was followed by a psychiatrist and treated with antidepressants. He had been “much affected” by acts of harassment in his previous establishment. To the investigators, he also said that he had argued with a comrade the day before the incident. According “a little fluctuating words” held to the doctor author of the expert’s report, he “would have wanted to commit the facts in the presence of this boy (…), as if to punish him said the prosecutor. But he also recognized “a form of animosity” towards his victim, possibly linked to poor results in his subject.
What are the important criteria for assessing liability?
A person “achievement, at the time of the events, of a psychic or neuropsychic disorder having abolished his discernment or the control of his actions” is not “criminally liable” of these, details article 122-1 of the Penal Code. It is by virtue of this principle that the question of the adolescent’s psychiatric state arises and can determine the legal future of this case. A person is only judged if they could not have committed the acts of which they are accused, summarizes franceinfo the psychiatrist Magali Bodon-Bruzel, expert at the Paris Court of Appeal. It recalls that discernment can also be considered as “altered”in which case the defendant is well judged, but “Justice must take this into account and soften the sentence”.
For an expert responsible for evaluating the discernment of a defendant, it is above all a question of determining whether he presents a “loss of reality”if he “does things related to one’s own inner reality, which is not the outer reality”, explains this doctor. During the examination, the respondent is questioned in order to seek “his mental state at the time of the events” and study possible “clinical signs” of a pathology. “It’s not just statements”adds Magali Bodon-Bruzel: in patients, we also observe signs in behavior, such as “disturbances in the course of thought”. This is the reason why there is only a very low risk, according to her, that a defendant will succeed in passing himself off as suffering from a psychiatric illness: “I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, but it’s exceptional.”
Is it usual to evaluate this question so early?
After the teenager’s indictment on Friday, his lawyer Thierry Sagardoytho strongly criticized the psychiatric examination in his eyes “summary” And “really not serious” the results of which had been mentioned the day before by the prosecutor: “In a matter of this gravity, when one is not certain or when one does not know, one is silent.”
But it’s not unusual for a prosecutor to ask for a psychiatric report before an indictment, “For clear the ground”, explains to franceinfo Magali Bodon-Bruzel. And this evaluation is rarely done over the long term: “We can see the person several times if we consider it necessary, but, in principle, within an hour, the psychiatrist has managed to establish whether he has a disease, symptoms and what treatment is necessary.”
The observations made during this interview have, moreover, more weight than the elements of the investigation that the justice can choose to communicate to an expert, adds the psychiatrist. What the lawyer for the mis en cause of Saint-Jean-de-Luz seems to deplore, who affirms that the expert has submitted his report “without consulting the previous psychiatric file, without considering the medications this kid was taking and without considering what he may have said to the police.”
Can the assessment of its responsibility evolve?
“The truths of today are very likely not to be those of tomorrow”, added the lawyer for the indicted student. The prosecutor acknowledged this possibility when discussing the findings of the first examination on Thursday: “The adolescent appears accessible to criminal responsibility”but “subject to the expertise that will have to be ordered and a possible alteration of his discernment”he immediately added.
Especially since, if the prosecutor requests the indictment, it is up to an examining magistrate to decide whether or not to refer the defendant to trial. The latter may request other expertise. Likewise, “the parties have the right to challenge the reports” and to ask the investigating judge for a second opinion, adds Magali Bodon-Bruzel. Sometimes the conclusions of several experts diverge, forcing the judge to decide whether or not to hold a trial.
In the case of Saint-Jean-de-Luz, the prosecutor indicted the teenager for murder, which implies the premeditation of the gesture. But, without commenting on this specific case, Magali Bodon-Bruzel recalls that premeditation does not exclude the possibility of being declared criminally irresponsible. Some pathologies abolish the patient’s discernment without taking away his ability to plan his actions: “A delusional paranoiac, for example, is someone who reasons correctly, but starting from a false postulate.”