Badinter contre la peine de mort, le proces Patrick Henry

"There are no big trials." With these words, Robert Badinter began a closing argument that would change the course of a trial whose outcome was expected to be the death penalty. This argument was delivered on January 20, 1977, in Troyes, during the trial of Patrick Henry. His crime was abominable: the kidnapping and murder of a 7-year-old child. No mitigating circumstances seemed likely to save him from the guillotine. However, the jurors were convinced by the lawyer's words. And Patrick Henry saved his head. Reconstructed by actors from the Comedie Francaise, snippets of Badinter's plea recorded clandestinely and Badinter's own words make it possible to reconstruct this seminal moment.