Jacques Verges, Devil's Advocate A Psychohistory of Verges' Judicial Strategy

This study undertakes a psychohistory of French criminal defence lawyer Jacques Verges' judicial strategy. His initial articulation of his judicial strategy in his book De la strategie judiciaire in 1968 continues to inform his legal career, in which he has defended a number of controversial clients, most notably that of Gestapo officer Klaus Barbie in the 1987 trial. Verges distinguished two types of judicial strategy in his 1968 book: rupture and connivence. Both strategies should be understood out of Verges' Marxist influences. This study looks into the coherence of his career in light of his initial articulation of judicial strategy and explores the shift in emphasis of his strategy from the defence of a cause to that of a person. The study adopts a three-level approach. It considers, first, Verges' discourse of his strategy, second, the world politics that shaped his discourse, and third, Verges' biography.;First, Verges' strategy grew out of the duality of rupture and connivence and transformed into what we call devil's advocacy, in which Verges pits an accused (as an individual) against the justice system. Devil's advocacy culminated in his defence of Barbie. After his defence of Barbie, Verges pitted himself against the justice system so that his own notoriety was reflected to his clients rather than the other way around.;Second, Verges' major intellectual and political influence was Communism. Although he left the Communist Party of France in 1957, at the time when he began his legal defence of Algerian militants during the Algerian War of Independence, the ongoing political reorientations and resulting splits in the communist movement did not allow him to disavow communism altogether. The split that took place between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China in the early-1960's allowed him to align his political views with the Chinese interpretation of communism and he has not relinquished his affinity to Chinese communism since the 1960's. On the contrary, he has conformed to the dramatic changes that Chinese communism underwent since Mao's rule. The study argues that those changes shaped Verges' psychological outlook, which entailed the development of a so-called African personality. It in turn provided the impetus for the further development of his judicial strategy beyond the initial duality of rupture and connivence.;Third, this study focuses on his childhood and youth in the French colonies, first in Indochina and then in the Island of Reunion. Verges colonial background has informed his political choices, which in turn have informed his legal practice. His overarching commitment is anticolonialism, which has manifested itself in various forms since his childhood. In his youth, it took the form of Stalinism, and communism in general. His Stalinism intermingled with his loyalty to De Gaulle during the Second World War. After Stalin's death in 1953, he aligned himself with the Maoist objective of perpetuating revolutions in colonies. In the course of his defence of Barbie, his anticolonialism revolved around his comparison of the French colonial regime to Nazism.