"I believe that I was declared innocent" - Florence Cassez, on her arrival in Paris
"Pobre país, tan cerca del aplauso fácil y tan lejos de la auténtica justicia - What a sad country; so ready to applaud, so far away from real justice" - Sen. Javier Lozano Alarcón (Puebla)
To French poet and novelist Victor Hugo is attributed the statement, "There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come." Some in la République française surely will be thinking about those words as they take le petit déjeuner and devour the bold headlines in cafés this morning (it's already Jan. 24 for them).
Anybody who paid attention to the bizarre twists in L'affaire Florence Cassez, especially in the last year, was not surprised by today's Mexican Supreme Court ruling. The handwriting has been on the wall for months. But that doesn't make it good handwriting.
It was heartbreaking to see a young Mexican woman outside the women's correctional facility in Mexico City this afternoon, waiting in anguish for the Cassez motorcade to depart for the airport. She was inconsolable, wailing, beside herself with grief, as a Milenio reporter tried to calmly interview her.
"This case proves we can't depend upon our own courts, on our own institutions," she cried. "What's the use? Why bother reporting crime to the police, when in the end this is what happens?"
More than a few will agree with her sentiments.
This country just entered the seventh year of what is colloquially called Mexico's Drug War. It could far more accurately be denominated the United States' Drug War Being Fought on Mexican Soil, but that's a theme for another day. In the meantime, responsible officials must bear in mind that legal decisions always have practical consequences. And sometimes they're not desirable ones.
Kidnappings are a common tool of the monolithic drug cartels and organized crime groups which every day give Mexico's government a real run for its money. Today the nation's highest court laid aside very credible evidence of Florence Cassez' enthusiastic support for a kidnapping gang, Los Zodiaco, and gave her a plane ticket home amidst much trumpeting about "human rights violations." To their credit, two ministers of the five judge panel would have denied her amparo petition, finding that admitted procedural violations in the case had little if anything to do with the determination of guilt by lower courts. The dissenting judges got it right. The majority didn't.
Thirty-three years of practicing law in the United States of America makes me comfortably certain that most courts there would have quickly disposed of the claims made by Cassez, a well-heeled child of privilege whose parents probably exhausted several fortunes to spring her. Consider these facts relative to one of her main claims - the denial of access to consular assistance from French diplomatic personnel in Mexico:
On Jan. 7, 1982, brothers Karl and Walter LaGrand walked into a bank in Marana, Arizona, intent on robbing it. In the process they killed a man and injured a woman. A state court jury convicted them and sentenced both to death for murder committed during a felony.
The LaGrand brothers were German nationals. And although they had lived in the United States since they were toddlers, neither one had ever become a U.S. citizen. During the lengthy appeals process, they complained that Arizona prosecutors had not notified them of their right to consular assistance. Ultimately, Germany filed a civil lawsuit against the United States in an effort to stop their execution [Federal Republic of Germany v. United States, 526 U.S. 111 (1999), per curiam order denying motion for temporary restraining order, preliminary injunction and for leave to file a bill of complaint].
It didn't work. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to stop Arizona from proceeding with its justice, and the brothers were put to death in 1999. The LeGrand case is far from the only such one in U.S. law books. Many, many Mexicans are in U.S. prisons tonight, having never received a nickel's worth of consular assistance from their own government. They made the same claims that Florence Cassez made in Mexico, but no one paid any attention to them. It's anybody's guess how many there are. (With a little help from his friends, Jon Hammar released).
Yes, many in this country will be glad the Cassez case is finally over. One of them is Mexico's new PRI president, Enrique Peña Nieto, who finds his perimeter surrounded by other challenges: AK-47 wielding traffickers, decapitated bodies in streets, police officers who abandon their posts because they're terrified of being next on the narco hit list, huge numbers of unemployed and poverty stats that would make any chief executive cringe with embarrassment (about 46% - and growing).
But for the Mexican on the street, who every day must get out of bed and confront the often times brutal reality of how to stay alive in the Republic of the United States of Mexico, the words of the three judicial ministers who today liberated Mlle. Florence Cassez will sound much like betrayal.
Florence Cassez is aboard an Air France jet at this hour, bound for Paris. She's flying first class.
Dec. 26, 2013 - Condemned Mexican's approaching date with Texas execution chamber poses international risks for U.S.
Feb. 11 - Poor Florence, burned in effigy in Mazatlán
Jan. 30 - Another foreigner who'd like to pull the Cassez Maneuver, and trade balmy Mexico for frigid Ontario
Jan. 30 - Jalisco kidnappings a la Cassez
Jan. 27 - López Obrador: Peña Nieto leaned on Supreme Court to free Cassez
Jan. 27 - In an entertaining editorial entitled Omelette a la francesa (French Omelette), a columnist acknowledges shortcomings of Mexico's judicial system in its handling of the Cassez case, but adds: Hay que ver la insolencia del gobierno galo recibiendo como una heroína a esta escoria social - "One must consider the insolence of the French government in receiving this social scum as if she were a heroine." Ouch. Hopefully that won't get back to M. Hollande in Élysée Palace, or to P.M. Jean-Marc Ayrault.
Jan. 23 - Mexican Supreme Court orders Florence Cassez freed
Mar. 8, 2012 - "Florence Cassez doit payer pour ce qu´elle a fait"
Le Monde's front page, Thursday, Jan. 24: "Florence Cassez is free, after seven years in prison"
