FIRST YOU READ, THEN YOU WRITE (Sep 2021) SUPPLEMENT
One of the revelations in this book is that
Aunt Juliette’s fortune began when she poisoned her wealthy husband
fifteen or twenty years earlier. Maigret confidently states that
therefore what she inherited will be divested from her estate and given
to her late husband’s nearest relatives. But is this so?
Suppose Nicole Brown Simpson had left OJ
something in her will, which in fact she didn’t. Even though he was
acquitted in the criminal trial, in many states the proceeding in which
he was found civilly responsible for Nicole’s murder would indeed have
led to the forfeiture of the hypothetical bequest and its passing to
Nicole’s nearest relatives. Was French law back in the 1930s the same?
Before I retired we had a law professor from France on our visiting
faculty and I could have asked him. Now I can’t. Quel dommage.
But even if French law were the same, there are huge
differences between the two cases. (1) Nicole’s death was clearly
murder and happened recently, while Juliette’s husband died many years
earlier and at the time his death was accepted as natural. Maigret
tells us that even after so many years the poison will be found in his
remains, but is he right? (2) OJ was alive at the time of the civil
proceeding against him and there was abundant evidence that he had
killed her, but Juliette is dead and the only evidence against her is a
series of old and ambiguous letters between her and a co-conspirator.
Even if French law allowed for divestment on a finding of
civil responsibility, would a French jury have found her civilly
responsible on these meager facts?