PERRY MASON INVESTIGATES THE COFFIN AFFAIR

Photo of Perry Mason (Erle Stanley Gardner) dictating in his office.

Click on the above pictures to read a letter sent by Perry Mason to the Brossard Commission.



Chapter 2 ( Brossard Report, volume 2, pages 405-409)

THE COURT OF LAST RESORT
(A literal translation by Clément Fortin)
An organism in the United-States devotes itself to bringing to the attention of the American public what it considers weaknesses of the American judiciary system and attempts to reopen investigations and reviews trials, which might have given rise to miscarriages of justice. This organism is particularly known in Canada, and in this province, from publicity that Erle Stanley Gardner, a well-known author of detective novels, and, to a lesser degree, from the publicity that it received from the American magazine « Argosy ». This magazine publishes articles about investigations led by the Court of Last Resort.
It appears that this Court of Last Resort would have been interested, for a while, in the Coffin affair. Strictly speaking, it was not within the purview of our own inquiry to investigate into the activities of this Court of Last Resort around and about the Coffin affair. If we have done so, it is because Messrs. Belliveau and Hébert have talked about it in their books, and because Mtre Gravel and Mr. Hébert insisted, without respite, that this Commission called Erle Stanley Gardner to testify and that it inquired about the information that The Court of Last Resort might have gathered.
In his book, published in June 1956, Mr. Belliveau did not allude to an intervention, which might have taken place from The Court of Last Resort ; he contented himself in expressing, in veiled terms, the hope that such an intervention would take place
We have learned, from the copy of a letter dated the 13th of March 1956, transmitted by Mtre Gravel to the secretary of the American Bar Association, that, for several weeks already, Mtre Gravel was in correspondence with this Court of Last Resort ; we do not know if Mr. Belliveau knew about this correspondence when his book was published.
In his volume, « I Accuse the Assassins of Coffin », Mr. Hébert, at pages 114 and 115, deals at length with this American institution and is loud in his praises of it by way of introduction to quoting excerpts of an article published by Mr. Stanley Gardner in the magazine « Argosy » in April 1957. The most important passage of Mr. Gardner’s article quoted by Mr. Hébert is the following :
In the Coffin case, it would certainly seem that new evidence was uncovered which might have been favorable to the defendant, if presented to the trial Jury or at a new trial.
In his letter, which he has sent us on the 11th of May 1964, Mr. Gardner informed us that he did not at all looked personally in the Coffin affair and that he had entrusted Mr. Steeger of the magazine “Argosy” with the follow up. (See Mr. Gardner’s letter in clicking on the images above.)
Previously, on the 31st of March 1964, Mtre Jules Deschênes, legal adviser to this Commission, had written to the publisher of “Argosy” to ask him, among other things: « I would also like to know whether the Court of Last Resort made any field investigation concerning this case and, in the affirmative, whether the record and findings could be made available to me for examination ». On the 1st of May, he received from Mr. Steeger the following laconic telegram: “The material you requested is not available.”
The Commission had already been able to lay hands on the issue of the June 1956 magazine “Argosy”, where, in an anonymous article, a description was made of the Coffin affair, in reviewing, in substance, the information and hypotheses submitted by Mr. Belliveau and by Mr. Hébert in their respective books. There was absolutely nothing in this article that had not been brought to the attention of Canadian authorities. The main facts, if not the only ones, which had not been brought to the attention of the Percé jury or which had not been discussed before them, were those referring to jeep tracks in the Gaspé bush and to the would-be presence, in this bush, of jeeps, one of which might have been the one that Wilbert Coffin had seen. Had Mr. Steeger or his assistants led, themselves, an investigation ? The laconic answer of the 1st of May 1964 leads us to believe that nothing was done ; in any event, it does not show neither from the article of the magazine “Argosy”, nor from that of Mr. Stanley Gardner, nor from the letter of the latter of May 11th 1964, that an investigation had been led and pushed by The Court of Last Resort. However, we know from a post-scriptum to the letter of Mr. Gardner of 11th of May that the magazine « Argosy », after having announced in August 1956 that an article following that of the month of July 1956 would be published shortly, none was published and that “the subject was dropped”.
To bring out the little importance that one should have given to this intervention of The Court of Last Resort, intervention, which for intellectual purposes more or less honest, Mr. Hébert has tried to render important, we should point out the following information which has been communicated to us by Mr. Belliveau : a short while after the execution of Wilbert Coffin, a committee of five or six persons including Mr. Belliveau himself, was formed, in Toronto, for the purpose of rehabilitating, if possible, the memory of Wilbert Coffin. It would seem that the majority, if not the totality of the members of that committee, if we believe Mr. Hébert, were opposed to capital punishment, as Mr. Gardner has otherwise himself declared formally in the letter he transmitted to us. This committee formed in Toronto only met once. However, it had asked Mr. Belliveau to act as intermediary between it and The Court of Last Resort ; after many interviews with one Mr. Schindler, of the Court of Last Resort, Mr Belliveau « was sorrily disenchanted and disillusioned ». The committee does not seem to have taken active interest in the Coffin affair… unless some of its members had focussed their attention on our enquiry.
Thus, must be sent back, to the haze of imagination and oblivion, another attempt to mislead the public, in bringing to his attention discoveries, which do not appear to have been made, and for which, at any event, no proof seems to exist.

EUGENE LINDSEY'S PICK UP DRIVEN BACK TO PENNSYLVANIA

Click on the opposite image to

read a letter from captain

Matte, dated 29th August 1953,

authorizing the handing over

of Eugene Lindsey's truck to

Mr. RITZ, Mrs. Eugene Lindsey's

son-in-law.

PERRY MASON INVESTIGATES THE COFFIN AFFAIR - ENQUÊTE SUR L'AFFAIRE COFFIN

À VENIR: PERRY MASON ENQUÊTE SUR L'AFFAIRE COFFIN

COMING SOON: PERRY MASON INVESTIGATES THE COFFIN AFFAIR

En attendant, cliquez sur le lien suivant et visitez un site intéressant.
http://andrepronovost.com/MainFrameset7.htm

BILL BAKER'S PICK-UP - GMAC HAD A LIEN

On the 17th of September 1953, Claude Poirier, of

the Credit Department of GMAC, informed the

Attorney General that it had a lien of $1,282.05
on Baker's pick-up truck. The same pick-up Baker

had lent his partner Wilbert Coffin.
Click on the above image to read that letter.

COFFIN SUED FOR DEBTS

Whorrell W. Annett poursuit Coffin pour recouvrer $1,188.00 et les frais, le 29 novembre 1951.

Click on these

images.

L'EXÉCUTION DE COFFIN: DANS LES COULISSES

CHAPITRE 12
L’EXÉCUTION DE COFFIN
Rapport Brossard, volume 3, pages 526 à 532

Au tout début de son volume « J’accuse les assassins de Coffin », à la page 15, après avoir fait une description assez émouvante des derniers moments de Coffin et de l’exécution elle-même, monsieur Hébert, avec infiniment de délicatesse et de charité se livre aux commentaires virulents suivants contre le capitaine Matte :

Pages 15 et 16
« Parmi les témoins se trouvait le capitaine Alphonse Matte de la Police provinciale à qui on avait confié la tâche de trouver le meurtrier des trois chasseurs américains assassinés dans les bois près de Percé. Le capitaine Matte décida un jour que Coffin était le coupable ; puis, avec un sadisme qui relève de la clinique psychiatrique, il s’acharna contre son coupable jusqu’à ce qu’il fut condamné à mort.
Son rôle était pourtant terminé le jour où il livra Coffin à Me Noël Dorion et à Me Paul Miquelon, deux réputés chasseurs de têtes qui ne laisseraient sûrement pas s’échapper un bon suspect de la Couronne.
Belles âmes, vous ne connaissez pas encore le capitaine Matte ! Sachez tout de suite que ce policier consciencieux voulut entendre les derniers hoquets de son pendu : c’était sa récompense.
Sans honte, il quitta la prison par la porte principale et se montra aux curieux rassemblés. Il savourait sa victoire. La veille, il avait déclaré aux journalistes : « La Justice a triomphé ! »

Des accusations injurieuses de monsieur Hébert à l’endroit du capitaine Matte, celle-ci s’avère l’une des plus indécentes.
Une preuve dont l’exactitude est incontestable a établi devant nous ce qui suit :
Depuis longtemps, une ligne de conduite suivie au Ministère du Procureur général veut que les policiers qui ont eu charge de l’enquête, à la suite de laquelle un accusé pour meurtre a été trouvé coupable, assistent à l’exécution et soient témoins à l’enquête du Coroner qui la suit ; ce fut sur les instructions du Ministère du Procureur que les capitaines Matte et Sirois se rendirent à la prison de Bordeaux, peu de temps avant minuit, le soir du 9 février 1956, pour assister, à ces fins uniquement, à l’exécution de Coffin. (Cliquez sur l’image ci-haut et lisez la lettre adressée par la Sûreté provinciale aux capitaines Matte et Sirois leur ordonnant d’assister à l’exécution de Coffin.)
À l’hôtel où ils s’étaient retirés avant de se rendre à la prison, les capitaines Matte et Sirois, en attendant le moment où il leur faudrait se rendre à la prison pour accomplir leur pénible devoir, furent invités par une connaissance du capitaine Sirois, rencontrée au cours de l’après-midi, à s’y faire conduire.
Cet ami du capitaine Sirois, un monsieur O’Dowd, a raconté ce qui s’est passé : Ils arrivèrent tous trois, en automobile, vers les 11.15, 11.30 heures du soir, aux grilles qui donnent sur le long chemin intérieur conduisant du boulevard Gouin aux portes de la prison. Il y avait devant les grilles un certain nombre de curieux : sa voiture ayant été admise à passer par des gardes de faction, il alla conduire les deux officiers de police jusqu’à la porte de la prison, revint à l’extérieur des grilles et stationna son véhicule le long du boulevard ; comme il se sentait « jittery », il décida d’aller se promener en attendant l’heure où ses passagers sortiraient de la prison ; il revint lui-même à la sortie de la prison vers les 1 heure moins quart du matin ; peu de temps après, les deux capitaines arrivèrent à pied.
Il y avait alors assez de monde autour de la grille ; il y avait aussi un certain nombre d’automobiles stationnées le long du boulevard Gouin ; dès qu’il aperçut les deux capitaines, il dirigea sa voiture vers l’entrée ; les deux officiers de police montèrent immédiatement dans sa voiture et ils retournèrent à l’hôtel. Il n’a pas eu connaissance que le capitaine Matte et le capitaine Sirois aient parlé à aucune personne : les piétons qui se trouvaient autour de l’entrée de la prison pouvaient être au nombre de 30 à 40 personnes au plus ; ces gens se tenaient là bien paisiblement, comme des curieux. Il y avait à peu près autant de gens lors du départ vers les 1 heures du matin qu’il y en avait eu lors de l’arrivée vers les 11.30 heures. Il n’a pas eu connaissance que lors du retour des deux officiers de police, il y ait eu quelques démonstrations que ce soit ; personne ne paraît les avoir reconnus : ils étaient tous deux vêtus de complets ordinaires.
D’après M. O’Dowd, lorsque ses passagers et lui retournèrent à l’hôtel, le capitaine Matte et le capitaine Sirois étaient « jittery and depressed » et ne parlaient pas. M. O’Dowd suggéra alors à Raoul Sirois d’aller prendre un verre ; « You might feel better » lui dit-il ; Sirois et lui se rendirent alors à un restaurant de l’autre côté de la rue pour y prendre une consommation, mais le capitaine Matte refusa de les suivre et rentra à l’hôtel.
Les capitaines Matte et Sirois confirmèrent le récit fait de leur voyage à la prison par M. O’Dowd, affirmèrent qu’ils n’avaient nullement demandé aux autorités de les envoyer assister à la pendaison, qu’ils n’y étaient pas allés de grande gaieté de cœur et qu’au contraire le spectacle lugubre qui se déroula sous leurs yeux les laissa abattus et tristes.
Ce fut là « la manière cynique dont le capitaine Matte reçut sa récompense en entendant les derniers hoquets de son pendu et se montra aux curieux rassemblés pour savourer sa victoire et le triomphe de la justice. »
Tout ceci est fort triste, mais triste surtout à cause de l’immensité de l’injustice commise par l’auteur sans aucune raison autre que celle de faire courir une plume trempée dans le vitriol.
Aux faits que je viens de décrire se rattache un incident qui s’est produit devant nous au cours de notre enquête.
Pendant que le capitaine Sirois témoignait, Me Gravel lui exhiba une photo qui s’avéra subséquemment être l’une de celles qu’avait publiées un journal de Toronto le lendemain de la pendaison ; cette photo était celle de deux personnes assises sur le banc d’un fourgon ; la légende au bas de la photo disait que l’une de ces deux personnes était « le capitaine Matte, hirsute, assis dans le fourgon qui transportait le cadavre de Wilbert Coffin ». Après que Me Gravel eût demandé au capitaine Sirois de regarder la photo et de lire la légende, le conseiller juridique de la Commission pria immédiatement Me Gravel de déposer cette photo comme exhibit ; celui-ci s’y refusa carrément et retira la photo des mains de M. Sirois, non sans que le témoin ait eu le temps de déclarer que le capitaine Matte n’apparaissait pas sur la photo. Plutôt que d’être obligé de produire cette photo qu’on devait savoir être accompagnée d’une légende fausse, Me Gravel retira alors les questions qu’il avait posées au capitaine Sirois à son sujet.
Dans l’après-midi, plus tard, le conseiller de la Commission produisit lui-même copies de la même photo et du journal dans lequel elle avait paru et procéda à faire la preuve des faits suivants : la même photo avait été reproduite par un journal de Montréal ; quelques jours après cette production, sur mise en demeure du capitaine Matte, ce journal publia une rétractation et des excuses, expliquant qu’à la suite de faux renseignements (ceux sans doute du journal torontois), on avait affirmé erronément que cette photo représentait le capitaine Matte.
Les deux capitaines affirmèrent tous deux qu’effectivement le capitaine Matte n’apparaissait pas sur cette photo, ce qu’il n’était pas nécessaire de démontrer à la Cour, car la photo n’était manifestement pas celle du capitaine.¸
Cet incident de la photo démontre à quels moyens mesquins et petits, cyniques et injustes peuvent recourir certains journaux pour faire de la sensation et à quels moyens non moins petits et cyniques recourent malheureusement parfois certains avocats pour diminuer des témoins ou des parties contre lesquels ils agissent.
De telles méthodes ne sont ni à l’honneur de ces journaux ni à l’honneur de ces avocats.

THE EXECUTION OF COFFIN : BEHIND THE SCENE

(A literal translation of that letter)

Please take note that your presence

is required at the Bordeaux jail, on the

9th February 1956, around 11.30 p.m.,

for the execution of Wilbert Coffin

on the 10th of February 1956.

COFFIN’S EXECUTION
(Rapport Brossard, chapitre 12, volume 3, pages 526 à 531)
(A literal translation by Clément Fortin)

At the very beginning of his book « I Accuse the Assassins of Coffin », at page 15, after having made a touching description of Coffin’s last moments and of the execution itself, Mr. Hébert, with delicacy and charity gives himself up to the following virulent comments against captain Matte :

Pages 15 et 16 :
« Among the witnesses, there was captain Alphonse Matte of the Provincial Police, to whom was entrusted the task of finding the murderer of three American hunters murdered in the bush near Percé. Captain Matte decided one day that Coffin was the guilty one ; then, with sadism, partaking of the psychiatrical clinic, he hounded his culprit until he was condemned to death.
His role ended on the day he handed Coffin over to Mtre Noël Dorion and Mtre Paul Miquelon, two reputed headhunters who would certainly not let go a good Crown suspect.
«Noble souls, you do not know captain Matte yet ! Be informed right away that this conscientious police officer wanted to hear the last gasps of his hanged victim: it was his reward. Without shame, he left the prison through the main entrance and appeared before a crowd of bystanders. He was relishing his victory. The day before, he had declared to newspapermen : « Justice has prevailed » »

Of all Mr. Hébert’s insulting accusations towards captain Matte, this one is the most indecent.
A proof, the exactness of which is unquestionable, has established before us the following :
For a long time, a line of conduct, followed at the Department of the Attorney General, requires that the police officers, who were in charge of an investigation, following which the accused of murder has been found guilty, attend the execution and be witnesses of the following Coroner’s inquest ; it was on the instructions of the Department of the Attorney General that captains Matte and Sirois went to the Bordeaux jail a short while before midnight, the evening of the 9th of February 1956, to attend, for this sole purpose, Coffin’s execution. (Click on the image above to read a copy of the letter from the Quebec Provincial Police ordering captains Matte and Sirois to attend Coffin’s execution.)
At the hotel where they had retired before going to the prison, captains Matte and Sirois, while waiting the moment where they would have to go to the prison to accomplish their painful duty, were invited by an acquaintance of captain Sirois, whom he had met in the afternoon, were invited to be driven to the prison.
This friend of captain Sirois, Mr. O’Dowd has told us what happened : The three of them arrived, in an automobile, around 11.15, 1.30 in the evening, at the entrance gate opening on the long interior way leading to Gouin Boulevard at the prison doors. Before the iron gates, there were some bystanders: his car having been admitted to go in, by guards on duty, he drove the two police officers to the prison door, came back outside the iron gates and parked his vehicle along the boulevard: as he was feeling jittery, he decided to take a walk while waiting the time his passengers would come out of the prison; he came back to the prison around a quarter to one o’clock in the morning; a short time after, the two captains came out on foot. There were some people near the iron gates ; there were also a certain number of automobiles parked along the Gouin Boulevard : as soon as he saw the two captains, he drove with his car towards the entrance ; the two officers got immediately into his car and returned to the hotel. To his knowledge captain Matte and captain Sirois talked to no one: the pedestrians who were near the prison entrance were some 30 to 40 people at the most ; these people kept quiet. There were as many people around one o’clock in the morning than there had been at their arrival around 11.30. He was not aware, when the two officers came back, of any demonstrations ; no one seems to have recognized them : they were all dressed in plain civilian clothes.
According to Mr. O’Dowd, when his passengers and he returned to the hotel, captain Matte and captain Sirois were jittery and depressed and did not talk. Mr.O’Dowd suggested then to Raoul Sirois to go and have a drink ; « You might feel better » said he ; Sirois and him went, then, to a restaurant on the other side of the street for a drink, but captain Matte did not follow them and went back to the hotel.
Captains Matte and Sirois confirmed Mr. O’Dowd’s account of their trip to the prison, and affirmed that they had not at all asked the authorities to send them to attend the hanging, that it was with no light heart that they accepted and that, on the contrary, this gloomy spectacle that took place before their eyes left them depressed and sad.
It was then “ the cynical manner in which captain Matte received his award while hearing the last gasps of his hanged culprit and showed himself to the crowd of bystanders to relish his victory and the triumph of justice”.
All this is very sad, but sad most of all because of the immense extent of the injustice made by the author without any reason other than that of running a pen dipped in vitriol.
To the facts that I just described, an incident is linked up to what happened before us, in the course of our enquiry.
While captain Sirois was testifying, Mtre Gravel showed him a photo which proved subsequently to be one of those that a Toronto newspaper had published the day following the hanging ; this photo was one of the two persons seated on the bench of a van; the legend at the bottom of the photo mentioned that one of those two persons were “captain Matte, hirsute, seated in the van carrying Wilbert Coffin’s corpse.” After Mtre Gravel had asked captain Sirois to look at the photo and read the legend, the legal adviser to the Commission asked immediately Mtre Gravel to file this photo as exhibit; the latter one refused bluntly and withdrew the photo from the hands of Mr. Sirois, but not before the witness had had time to state that captain Matte did not appear on the photo. Rather than having to file this photo that he ought to know it was accompanied by a legend, Mtre Gravel withdrew, then, the questions he had asked captain Sirois about it.
In the afternoon, the legal adviser to the Commission filed, himself, copies of the same photo and of the newspaper in which it had appeared and proceeded to prove the following facts : the same photo had been reproduced in a Montréal newspaper ; a few days after that production, captain Matte summoned the newspaper to retract ; this newspaper published a retractation and excuses explaining that following false information (no doubt from the Toronto paper), they had stated erroneously that this photo represented captain Matte.
The two captains affirmed that effectively captain Matte did not appear on that photo, which it was not necessary to demonstrate to the Court because this photo manifestly was not that of captain Matte.
This incident demonstrates the means, small, cynical and unjust to which may resort to certain newspapers to make sensation and what means, not less petty, cynical and unjust use sometimes unfortunately certain lawyers to diminish witnesses or parties against whom they act. Such methods are neither to the honour of the newspapers nor to that of those lawyers.