Franckel wanted a well-known non-Jewish lawyer as co-counsel and engaged Vincent de Moro-Giafferi (a flamboyant Corsican, leading anti-fascist activist and former education minister in Édouard Herriot's Radical government), with Yiddish-speaking lawyer Serge Weill-Goudchaux as his associate. Legal fees and expenses were paid from Thompson's fund for Grynszpan's defence. Until Franckel and Moro-Giafferi took over his defence, it was accepted that Grynszpan went to the Embassy in a rage and shot the first German he saw as a political act to avenge the persecution of his family and all German Jews. His statements after his arrest supported this view; he told the Paris police, "Being a Jew is not a crime. I am not a dog. I have a right to live and the Jewish people have a right to exist on this earth. Wherever I have been, I have been chased like an animal." Franckel and Moro-Giafferi said that if Grynszpan was allowed to claim that he had shot vom Rath with such a motive, he would certainly be convicted and possibly executed (despite his being a minor); French law took a severe view of political assassination. If the crime could be shown to have a non-political motive, he might be acquitted or receive a lesser sentence; French law traditionally took a lenient view of crimes of passion. Moro-Gaifferi's legal strategy depoliticized Grynszpan's actions.Schwab, Gerald The Day the Holocaust Began, New York: Praeger, 1990 page 95. Grynszpan was enraged by his lawyer's proposed crime passionel defense, insisting that he was not homosexual and had killed vom Rath as an act of political protest against the German government's antisemitic policies. The shy, socially-awkward Grynszpan confided to Moro-Giafferi that he had never had a girlfriend and was still a virgin, asking his lawyer to arrange a sexual encounter with a beautiful French girl in case he was sentenced to death.Schwab, Gerald The Day the Holocaust Began, New York: Praeger, 1990 page 58. Grynszpan considered himself a hero who stood up to the Nazis, and believed that when his case went to trial his (preferred) "Jewish avenger" defense would acquit him. The outcome of the Schwartzbard trial in 1927, when Sholom Schwartzbard was acquitted for assassinating Symon Petliura in 1926 on the grounds that he was avenging pogroms by Ukrainian forces, was a major factor in Grynszpan's seeking the "Jewish avenger" defense (to Moro-Giafferi's chagrin).
Franckel wanted a well-known non-Jewish lawyer as co-counsel and engaged Vincent de Moro-Giafferi (a flamboyant Corsican, leading anti-fascist activist and former education minister in Édouard Herriot's Radical government), with Yiddish-speaking lawyer Serge Weill-Goudchaux as his associate. Legal fees and expenses were paid from Thompson's fund for Grynszpan's defence. Until Franckel and Moro-Giafferi took over his defence, it was accepted that Grynszpan went to the Embassy in a rage and shot the first German he saw as a political act to avenge the persecution of his family and all German Jews. His statements after his arrest supported this view; he told the Paris police, "Being a Jew is not a crime. I am not a dog. I have a right to live and the Jewish people have a right to exist on this earth. Wherever I have been, I have been chased like an animal." Franckel and Moro-Giafferi said that if Grynszpan was allowed to claim that he had shot vom Rath with such a motive, he would certainly be convicted and possibly executed (despite his being a minor); French law took a severe view of political assassination. If the crime could be shown to have a non-political motive, he might be acquitted or receive a lesser sentence; French law traditionally took a lenient view of crimes of passion. Moro-Gaifferi's legal strategy depoliticized Grynszpan's actions.Schwab, Gerald The Day the Holocaust Began, New York: Praeger, 1990 page 95. Grynszpan was enraged by his lawyer's proposed crime passionel defense, insisting that he was not homosexual and had killed vom Rath as an act of political protest against the German government's antisemitic policies. The shy, socially-awkward Grynszpan confided to Moro-Giafferi that he had never had a girlfriend and was still a virgin, asking his lawyer to arrange a sexual encounter with a beautiful French girl in case he was sentenced to death.Schwab, Gerald The Day the Holocaust Began, New York: Praeger, 1990 page 58. Grynszpan considered himself a hero who stood up to the Nazis, and believed that when his case went to trial his (preferred) "Jewish avenger" defense would acquit him. The outcome of the Schwartzbard trial in 1927, when Sholom Schwartzbard was acquitted for assassinating Symon Petliura in 1926 on the grounds that he was avenging pogroms by Ukrainian forces, was a major factor in Grynszpan's seeking the "Jewish avenger" defense (to Moro-Giafferi's chagrin).