What I am writing is not a novel but an investigation. As far as the analysis is concerned, the exploration of the various modalities of truth, the deconstruction of the rationales for lying among the police, the flaws in the investigation and the justifications for the dismissal of the case resemble the means in a work of detection, similar to the method by which Carlo Ginzburg proceeds in The Judge and the Historian. His book was written in defense of his friend Adriano Sofri, who was accused of having organized, sixteen years earlier, the execution of a police chief himself suspected of being responsible for the death of an anarchist. To this end, Ginzburg points out the implausibilities and contradictions in the suspect avowals of the informer who accused three of his former Lotta Continua comrades in exchange for a suspension of sentence for his own involvement, and he discusses the question of evidence and proofs, which are necessarily treated in different ways depending on whether one is conducting a trial or undertaking research, as the title of the book suggests. Although the event under consideration and the judicial process are very different in my case, I proceed similarly to a counter-investigation. However, I do so not having decided in advance that the gendarmes did not fire in legitimate self-defense but by systematically taking up each piece of evidence the judges drew on or, conversely, ignored in their process of establishing what they call judicial truth. It is what ultimately leads me to propose another interpretation of the facts, one that pays more attention to the improbabilities and contradictions in the official version and that aligns better with the existing evidence and proofs.
What fascinated Foucault and his fellow researchers in the story of Pierre Rivière was the process of veridiction at work, among the doctors, judges and the murderer himself, in a case that combined crime and madness, criminal responsibility and mental health. What drove Capote’s investigation and Ginzburg’s counter-investigation was the possibility of drawing out a truth, in the first case through literature, in the second in the name of justice. These, then, are two distinct projects with regard to the question of truth-telling: for Foucault and his colleagues it is the interplay of utterances of truth that interests them; for Capote and Ginzburg it is the truth itself that is at stake. The present book moves progressively from the former to the latter, from the operation of veridiction toward the search for truth. This truth, which I have called ethnographic truth, is independent of the relations of power and knowledge underlying the production of judicial truth. It has no argument to make apart from the fact that it arises out of the twofold decision to give all accounts the same credit and to rely solely on assessment of the evidence. Deliberately limited in its ambition, this version, unlike the judicial truth, has no bearing on recognition of the guilt or innocence of those accused. But it has weight for those to whom truth is habitually denied, for it restores some part of their dignity and even offers them a glimpse of the hope of justice. While it has no impact in the courts, it partakes of an ethical concern.
This concern is a live one. It articulates a matter of urgency. While the death of men in interactions with the police is a frequent occurrence generally fostered by the exoneration of the alleged perpetrators, it is rare to have access to all the evidence in one of these cases, and even exceptional when the case has been dismissed because it is then subject to judicial confidentiality, breach of which is punishable in France by one year’s imprisonment and a fine of €15,000. Having been granted authorization to consult the documents in the case concerning Angelo’s death, I have therefore felt an obligation to put this privilege to good use by seeing this work through. Apart from the singularity of the case, starting with the fact that it concerns a Traveller, with all the marginality, suspicion and ostracism implied by that identity, it seemed to me that, both in the method of intervention chosen to effect the young man’s arrest and in the logic of the judicial process that culminated in the absolution of the two men who fired the fatal shots, there were a number of features that could be identified or inferred in many other cases throughout the world. The details of these cases may vary, but they are tragically alike in their dénouement: the loss of a life and the impunity of those responsible. In this respect the simple story of the death of Angelo, extended through his sister’s fight for justice and truth, acquires if not a universal then at least an exemplary significance.
D.F., August 2020
Terminological Note
The organization of law enforcement and the operation of the judicial system is specific to each country, and even sometimes to each jurisdiction within a given country, as in the United States. Some explanations are therefore in order so as to make the account that follows clear for readers unfamiliar with the French systems.
In France there are two main law-enforcement institutions, which have roughly equivalent authority but distinct legal status and territories of operation. The national police is a civilian force that operates within cities and on their outskirts. The national gendarmerie is a military force operating in rural areas and small towns. There are also municipal police forces under the authority of local mayors, whose role is more limited, complementing the two other forces. In this text the generic term “police” is used to refer to law-enforcement bodies. Angelo’s family, who live on a farm, have only ever had dealings with the gendarmerie, and the two who killed the young man were adjudants (non-commissioned officers), the first rank above beat officer. For the purposes of clarity, the translation uses the term officers for these two in order to distinguish them from the other gendarmes involved in the operation. All belong to an elite unit, the GIGN, or Groupe d’intervention de la gendarmerie nationale (National Gendarmerie Intervention Group), which was created to intervene in terrorist attacks, hostage situations and the fight against organized crime – in other words, circumstances very different from a simple arrest.
The judicial system in France, as in the majority of countries in continental Europe and their former colonies, is based on civil law, derived from Roman law, and thus quite different from the common law that operates in the United States, the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. One notable feature is the stage of judicial investigation, prior to the trial at criminal court, that is instigated by the procureur de la République (public prosecutor), or requested by the victim(s), and is conducted by a juge d’instruction (examining magistrate). The latter’s role is to establish whether a breach of the law has been committed and whether there is evidence to support charging the perpetrator(s). At the end of her or his investigation, after having received a statement (réquisition) from the public prosecutor and the responses (observations) from the counsels, the magistrate draws up a ruling (ordonnance), which may be either a dismissal (non-lieu), in which case there is no trial, or a referral to the criminal court (renvoi) where the accused will be tried. A decision to dismiss may be appealed in the same way as a court decision. If the decision or verdict is upheld on appeal, there remains the possibility of a petition to the Court of Cassation, but this court rules only on points of procedure, not on matters of substance; if procedural problems are confirmed, this leads to a new trial. One final stage, when all internal means of recourse are exhausted, is to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, if the appellant considers that her or his rights have been violated. If the European Court rules in favor of the plaintiff, it may issue a decision against the state in question, accompanied by a requirement to pay the appellant a sum corresponding to the legal costs and to the material and moral harm suffered. However, such a decision does not mean that the case has to be retried and therefore does not expose the individuals charged to any form of judgment or sanction.
The victims in the present case belong to the social group known as gens du voyage (travelling people). Determining the right way to name them is always a sensitive matter, for there are several words whose definitions and implications vary depending on context and speaker. The choice has been made here to respect the way the protagonists identify themselves. As far as Angelo and his family are concerned, most of them think of themselves simply as voyageurs (Travellers). The term may seem paradoxical given that they are settled, but it is noteworthy that, at the family property, a former farm, all prefer to sleep in caravans rather than in the buildings, testimony to a sort of nostalgia for a traveling way of life despite the fact that some of them have never known it. They sometimes use the term manouche when speaking about
