MURDER CHARGE

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19769, 6 November 1929, Page 11

MURDER CHARGE

tCORBETT ACQUITTED. f TENSE SCENES IN PARIS COURT. CASE SETS EUROPE TALKING. tc*:rto niti *sao<-i*r:■ bt c.zcra:c ntijtOE**-* r orTa: gbt (Received November "fh, T.t ■ p.m.) LON fK)X, Xn iemi;»r 4. A jury Af tempcramcatal , Frenchmen that a man hnd the right to ki'! hii an 1 'i-Mtc*! if he or she was suffering ag >ay from aa incurable di>ea<e. Tfc«* trial of Corbett ha* *et all Europe talking, bcranse of the unoomj rommng attiiu-lt: >.f accused. "J dit it ' e<-:iusi I had a right I to do so,'" ho said. Public opinion throughout has been j sharply diii«lcd on th«- issut*. and th<? i • ••r-h t i§ r--*j for aa equally .iivi«: . Indeed, opinion in England would appear more against than in Savour of the French interpretation of the law. The "Daily Express,'' in a leader, lay«: The trial moves humanity with ecjual horror and rumpassion. but the right to terminate a f--Uow en-alurc *•» »*xist»-nt*« ii a right v. hi.-h, whatever the motivrn, society fan never rct'ogi nise. To leave the lawful issue of an t other's life or ■i• a• h to the piay or | private judgment or hyst«-ria it to make j anarchy legal. j t'orbett spoke in a strained whisper las the President "* <|ue»tions dragged j out the whole story. "We had a specialist from Westminster Hospital, London, to examine my mother." said h»-. "and he reported that nothing --oul-i save her from cancer. She might lit.three or four months, and at the longest she malii only hope for a year of agony. What could I do? I sa« thsweat of intolerable pain on h- r forehead; I would wipe it away and say to her, 'My mother, it is too much for any son to bear! ' On th«* >iay 1 killed her, I had a letter from England sa. i ing that my grandfather had died. 1 was upset ami deeide-l that something must be done. * * The President asked: Did it occur t» yoa that something more might be done? The Almighty might have inter vened to spare h<*r in His merry. Corbett: That is j-ist a religious belief; nothing in my h-c&rt supports it.. The President suggested that his mind was unhinged through worry, but Corbett refused to avail himself of this loophole and said: I was clearheaded in everything I did. 1 knew perfectly well what I was doing. The Pubi u* Prosecutor's »|n*ecb was rejentiesa, "Corbett.'' he cried to the jury, "is a criminal and must face the fate of a criminal. Yon," he safid to the jurymen, "should not heed an unnatural, illegal appeal for sympathy. Justice demands eonvirtion and [ninishtnent. by at least five years' imprisonment. '' Defending counsel's spceeh played with the tragic characters in the drama and asked who among them would blame Corbett became he brought certain death a little nearer. He dei-Sarcd that the administration of morphia to people ia agony was a slow, inhuman way of killing them. Corbett only did in one second what doctors would have done ia three months. Throughout his speech Corbett broke down and sobbed bitterly. Several women were carried out in a state of hysteria. Half of the jury wept unashamedly. The jory asked the President whether, if they brought in a verdict of guilty, he could guarantee that Corbett would nit be punished. The President refused to give such a guarantee, and the jury i accordingly brought in a vcrdirt of "not guilty." The newspapers recall the rase of I Albert Daviet, who waa acquitted at the Chester Assizes of murder, on Oe- | tober 22nd, 1927, after be had drowned j his daughter, aged four, to end her j agony and suffering from a deadly disease. There was a similar problem in 1927, when Mrs Dclvigne gave arsenic to her mother who was suffering from cancer. The jury found her insane. [Mr* Corbett was an Fnctlwdi resident of Nice, and was a dying woman when her son. to put ber out of her agony, gave her a sleeping draticht and then shot her through th" head. He declared «rben charged that he shot ber because he loved her. doctors were anahle to aid her. After killing his mother he turned the revolver on himself, but his attempt at suicide failed.)