She will not be available for her appeal trial. A woman sentenced in November to 10 years in prison for intentional homicide, after fatally shooting her violent spouse in 2016, will not be released until her appeal trial, according to a decision rendered Wednesday in Rouen. The investigative chamber of the Rouen Court of Appeal refused the request for the release of Alexandra Richard, 42, pending her appeal trial, the prosecutor general said. According to the lawyer of the condemned, Me Nathalie Tomasini, the magistrates justified their decision by relying on the concept of “disturbance to public order” given the media coverage of the case. She plans to appeal.
The lawyer challenges in particular the analysis of the magistrates on this question of media coverage that she considers unfounded in the present case. “We are basing ourselves on the fact that there would be an online petition on social networks, that there would be a support committee, which is false, which would have made a noise in front of the palace gates during the session of ‘sitting’, explains Me Tomasini. However, continues the lawyer, during the trial, “it was not a demonstration of his support committee but a rally on the occasion of the day against violence against women”.
“The room also mentions that my client performed on a TV set and that’s correct. At the time of the victims’ freedom to speak, and Alexandra was, I find it unacceptable that the media coverage of a woman, who is not really on her initiative, could harm her. In my opinion, it is today’s decision that creates a disturbance to public order, ”considers Me Tomasini.
“Alexandra was released in 2017 by the same investigative chamber which considered that there was no disturbance to public order”, also notes the lawyer.
A symbolic case of domestic violence
On October 16, 2016, Ms. Richard shot her 36-year-old husband with a hunting rifle at their home in Montreuil-en-Caux (Seine-Maritime), when the latter, alcoholic, had just risen from his chair by threatening to “kick his ass”.
This mother of three children, including one with the victim, was convicted of the murder of her husband. “Yes, he was a violent man, but you cannot respond to violence with violence,” the lawyer general said during the trial. She had asked for a requalification in “voluntary violence having resulted in the death without intention to give it”.
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“It was a deterrent weapon. I wanted (…) to run away with my children, ”the accused, with a clean criminal record, had admitted to having loaded the weapon. “That he died, that’s not what I wanted”, assured Alexandra Richard, in a relationship for about two years with this man, sentenced in 1999 for having shot a rival in love. “There was at least a doubt as to the intention to kill”, underlined Me Tomasini, who had pleaded an “accidental shooting”.
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