TO END SUFFERING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20867, 6 November 1929, Page 9

TO END SUFFERING

MOTHER KILLED JBY SON,

JUSTIFICATION PLEADED,

TRIAL IN. FRENCH COURT.

(United Press Association.)

(By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) PARIS, November 3.

A strange conflict has broken out between Corbett and his counsel, Maitrc Brun, Corbett is firmly resolved to plead justification, and is angered bj his counsel’s decision to appeal for pity on the ground that Corbett’s mentality has been weakened by the study of occult science. Corbett declares emphatically tha he will interrupt counsel. It is too late for counsel to withdraw or for Corbett to obtain a new one. The jury arc therefore confronted by an unusual double-barrelled argument. In the course of an interview, Corbett said: “I am ready to face the judges without fear, regret, or excuse, except that I acted from motives of mercy. Many have forged me to change my plea, but I will not. I loved my mother, and I killed her because. I loved her. Ido not fear death, and I tried to die. On the. contrary, if prison is my fate I am ready. The case is attracting tremendous interest in French judicial and psychic circles. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Mr H. G. Wells have written to Corbett stating that they are willing to go to the trial as witnesses because they favour his theory.

VERDICT OP NOT GUILTY,

STATEMENT BY ACCUSED,

PARIS, November 4,

Corbett was found not guilty. He fainted in the court. Women were sobbing, and some also fainted. Corbett said: "Science having failed, I delivered her myself.” A juryman fainted, and the court was suspended. The majority smoked furiously to allay their emotions. A doctor testified that the mother’s sufferings were excessive. Corbett stated: “My mother incited me to kill her, but she never definitely asked me to do it. I deliberately killed her after administering a sleeping draught.”

A TRAGIC STORY,

MANY JURYMEN IN TEARS

7 LONDON, November 4. (Received Nov. 5, at 8 p.m.) A jury of 12 temperamental Frenchmen decided that a man has the right to kill his nearest and dearest when they are suffering agony from an incurable disease.

The Corbett trial has set all Europe talking because of the uncompromising attitude of Corbett. “ I did it because 1 had the right to do so,” he said. Public opinion throughout has been sharply divided on the issue, and the verdict has been responsible for an equally sharp division. Indeed, opinion in England would appear more against than in favour of the French interpretation of the law.

Tha Daily Express, in a leader, says: “ The trial moves humanity with equal horror and compassion, but the right to terminate a fellow creature’s existence is a. right which, whatever the motives, society can never recognise. To leave the awful issue-of another’s life or death tb' tlm; play--of ‘private Judgment : or hysteria is to legalise anarchy.” Corbett spoke in a strained whisper as the president’s questions dragged out the whole story. “We had a specialist from Westminster Hospital, London, to examine mother. He reported that nothing could save her from cancer. She might live three or four months at the longest, but she could hope for only a year of agony. What could I do? I saw the sweat,of intolerable pain on her forehead. I would wipe it away and say to her: *My mother, it is too much for any son to bear.’ On the day I killed her I had a letter from England saying that my grandfather had died. I was upset, and decided that something must be done.”

The president asked: “Did it occur to you .'that something more might be, done? The Almighty might have inter vened to spare her ,in His mercy.” 1 ’ ■ Corbett: That is just religious belief; nothing in my heart supports it. The president suggested that his mind was unhinged through worry, but Corbett refused to avail himself of tho loophole, and said: “I was clear-headed in everything 1 did.. I knew perfectly well what I was doing.” The Public Prosecutor’s speech . was relentless. “ Corbett,” he cried -tV the jury, “is a criminal and must face the fate of a criminal. The jury should not heed the unnatural, illegal appeal ftp: sympathy. Justice demands conviction and punishment of at least five- years. f Defending counsel’s speech played witih the tragic characters in the drama, and asked who among them would blame hiin because he brought certain death a little nearer. He declared that the adminijstering of morphia to people in agony was a slow, inhuman way of killing them. Corbett did in one second onjy what doctors would have done in thaee months. ( Throughout the speech Corbett brdke down and sobbed bitterly. Several women were carried out in* a hysterical condition, while half the jury wept. • The jury asked the president whether in the event of their bringing in a yerdiet of guilty, he could guarantee Hiat Corbett would not bo punished. The president said he could not give such a guarantee, and the jury accordingly brought in a verdict of not guilty'. The newspapers recall the caso of Albert Davies, who was of murder at Chester Assizes on October 22,- 1027, after he had drowned 1 his daughter, aged four, to end the agony of a deadly disease. There was a simi lar problem in 1927, when Mrs Delvinge gave arsenic to her mother, who 1 was suffering from cancer. The jury Sound' that Mrs Delvinge was insane. ■ ■

In May last Mrs Corbett, an English resident at. Nice, was found shot, j Le Matin published a remarkable letter written by her son, Francis, saying}; “ A doctor announced in November that my mother was incurably cancerous. Why, then, have 1 released my mother: from her awful suffering? Because thra State is unconscious of its duty to hopeless sufferers. There are 45,000 suicides annually in France, and of these half are the result of incurable diseases. It is the State’s duty to kill them iff they so request. I fired a shot point-blank at my mother’s temple during slfiep induced by a narcotic.” When discovered Corbett was found suffering Jfrom a wound, allegedly self-inflicted. I