The isolated country cottage in the Aube region of northeastern France was easy pickings for burglars, who regularly made off with furniture, children's toys, sheets and kitchenware. After a dozen such thefts, Owner Lionel Legras, 50, operator of a local garage, fastened some shotgun cartridges to the inside of a transistor radio and locked it in a cupboard; he wired it to a timer that would detonate the shells 90 seconds after the radio was moved or switched on. Outside, he posted a warning: ENTRY PROHIBITED,
DANGER, EXPLOSIVE DEVICES.
One evening in 1976, Woodcutters Rene Vermeulen, 31, and Andre Rousseau, 30, climbed over the fence outside Legras' cottage, forced open a door and broke into the cupboard. Vermeulen , turned the radio on, and the cartridges exploded. He was thrown to the floor, his chest ripped open and his right hand blown away; Rousseau, partially blinded, went for help. Vermeulen died; Rousseau, one eye permanently damaged, was charged with attempted burglary.
Rousseau then took a step that raised the case from a local incident to a French cause celebre: he filed suit against Legras, seeking $22,000 in damages. Even more galling, as many Frenchmen saw it, he nearly got his way. After a month-long dual trial, a court let Burglar Rousseau off with a two-month suspended sentence. As for Owner Legras, however, while no damages were assessed against him, he was declared guilty of using excessive force to defend his home. His sentence: eight months, suspended.
Legras' neighbors were appalled. "A man should want to defend his property from the ravages of criminals," said Marcel Delahaye, mayor of a nearby village. Some 1,000 townspeople marched to the town hall in support of the garage owner, and 6,000 area residents signed pro-Legras petitions. Huffed one observer at Legras' trial: "Who knows when we will find burglars drawing unemployment insurance in case of on-the-job accidents?"
French law recognizes a right of "legitimate self-defense" for crime victims who are put in fear of their life. But Legras' home was not occupied when the burglars broke in, and the damage done by his device was deemed out of proportion to the petty thievery the burglars presumably had in mind. For these reasons, the judges decided that traditional definitions of self-defense did not apply in Legras' case. But many others disagreed. The case spurred the formation of a Paris-based Movement for Legitimate Self-Defense, which counts several lawyers and former magistrates among its members. Their goal: a broader legal definition of legitimate self-defense. Says the movement's founder, former senior magistrate Francis Romerio: "Burglars can choose the time and place of their activities; police cannot. So it is only legitimate that a citizen should be able to defend his family and property the way he chooses."