France: Pierre Palmade’s trial opens Wednesday

Twenty-one months after the crash, the trial: Pierre Palmade is on trial on Wednesday for the serious road accident he caused in Seine-et-Marne under the influence of narcotics, leading to the highly publicized fall of a popular comedian stuck in his drug addiction.

On February 10, 2023 at the end of the day, Pierre Palmade took the wheel to go shopping, after several days of partying and unbridled drug consumption. On a road in the south of the department, his car collided with a vehicle coming in front.

In addition to the then 54-year-old actor, the accident left three seriously injured from the same family: a 38-year-old man, his six-year-old son and his 27-year-old sister-in-law, who lost her baby after the impact. ‘she was waiting.

One road injury accident among the 52,000 recorded in mainland France that year. But due to the notoriety of the accused, this collision will explode into a media storm of rare intensity.

A dark side

Throughout the cascade of revelations about the lifestyle and addictions of this drifting artist, the general public discovers with astonishment the dark side of a popular comedian, although a little out of fashion, who has been staging since 30 years of his struggle against his existential terrors.

After a long year of judicial investigation, the investigating judge referred Pierre Palmade to the Melun Criminal Court at the end of May on the sole charge of involuntary injuries, aggravated by the use of drugs.

She did not retain the qualification of involuntary homicide, which the prosecution had requested for the loss of the fetus, considering that this thorny question at the confluence of bioethics and law deserved a “debate before the trial court”.

Following the accident, the baby was urgently extracted by cesarean section from his mother’s womb at six months of pregnancy, but declared dead after 32 minutes of resuscitation, without having given any sign of extra-uterine life.

However, according to consistent case law from the Court of Cassation which has ruled on similar cases of road accidents, a child who is not born alive does not exist as a legal person.

“The strict interpretation of the criminal law does not authorize the repression and therefore prosecution of acts of involuntary homicide in the case of a child who was not born alive, which is the case” in the case Palmade, estimated the investigating judge in her order for referral to the criminal court, consulted by AFP.

Cocaine and 3M™

At the end of a February day, Pierre Palmade had a large quantity of cocaine and 3MMC (a synthetic drug) in his blood when he got behind the wheel with two “bringue” companions, who were not prosecuted.

His heyday of the 1990s-2000s behind him, heavily in debt, the comedian is so mired in his drug addiction that he is no longer able to work.

On the departmental 372 near Villiers-en-Bière, the Peugeot 3008 of its production company veered into the oncoming traffic lane and collided head-on with the Renault Mégane of the Y. family, which was arriving in the opposite direction.

Although the artist says he has no memory of the accident, “Pierre Palmade committed a driving error when he suddenly turned the steering wheel, thus causing his vehicle to drive in the wrong direction,” concluded the judge. instruction.

The injured family members are still suffering the physical and psychological after-effects of the accident.

During his first questioning before the investigating judge, Pierre Palmade said he was “disaster” at the consequences of the accident for the victims.

“I’m obsessed with this, with the baby who died (…). I am dangerous because of drugs, I am a nice guy, I am a good person,” declared the artist, who himself lost his father in a road accident at the age of 8 years.

Pierre Palmade is a repeat offender due to a conviction in 2019 for drug use. He thus faces a sentence of fourteen years’ imprisonment and a fine of 200,000 euros.

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