This convict was guillotined in 1957 for the murder of a police officer. His son asks for the “restoration of his honor”.
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This is an unprecedented question that the highest French court must address this Thursday, June 6: should we rehabilitate almost 70 years after a death row inmate who, according to his son, demonstrated a process of redemption? This extraordinary story, debated before the Court of Cassation, is that of Jacques Fesch, guillotined in 1957 after killing a police officer during an armed robbery. His son is now asking for his honor to be restored, a unique case in France.
On February 25, 1954, Jacques Fesh, 23, attacked a stockbroker and stole 330,000 francs from him. In his escape, the criminal kills a police officer and injures several passers-by. For these facts, he will be sentenced to death. Except that, during the three years preceding the guillotine, Jacques Fesh says he found faith. According to his son Gérard, he then becomes another man, a “example of redemption“: he hears thus”show that every man has the right to a second chance, to become better“.
“My father is a murderer. He will be remembered as a murderer. But it is also to remember the other side of the condemned, that of the repentant”
Gérard, son of Jacques Feshat franceinfo
But, beyond the personal fight, this approach is also a symbolic act against the death penalty, believes Gérard Fesh’s lawyer, Me Patrice Spinosi. “By rehabilitating Jacques Fesh, in reality the Court of Cassation will be able to recognize the extent to which the death penalty is an unfair sanction because it leaves no hope and it refuses to any man the right to mend his ways vis-à-vis of the society.”
It remains to be seen whether this redemption will be upheld by the court of cassation. In his opinion delivered on May 18, the Advocate General considers that the religious conversion of Jacques Fesh falls within the intimate sphere and is not sufficient to justify rehabilitation.