AUBURN – Francoise Gallant arrived in court Monday morning with no intention of denying that he strangled his girlfriend in a drunken argument last January.

He killed her. Nobody is disputing that. The jury of six women and eight men chosen for his trial face a different question.

They must decide whether Gallant should be set free because he was too drunk and high to know what he was doing when he wrapped a towel around Cherie Ann Andrews’ neck and pulled it until she stopped breathing.

“I’m not going to talk a lot about the facts of the case,” Gallant’s lawyer, Jim Howaniec, told the jury in his opening statement. “The evidence is two-fold. There is physical evidence and there is psychological evidence.”

The psychological evidence, Howaniec continued, will show that Gallant is not guilty of murder because he was intoxicated and suffering from an “abnormal condition of mind” at the time of the killing.

“Because of his intoxication, he didn’t do it,” Howaniec said.

Whether Gallant’s defense of being too drunk and high is enough to get him off completely will likely result in a legal argument between Howaniec and Assistant Attorney General Fern LaRochelle.

In order to be guilty of murder in Maine, people must plan to kill or they must know that their actions could result in death. People who kill without this intent or knowledge could be found guilty of the less serious charge of manslaughter.

LaRochelle told the jurors in his opening statement that it will be their job to convict Gallant of the charge that best suits his actions: manslaughter or murder.

Howaniec doesn’t see it the same way.

Based on Gallant’s indictment, which charges him with “knowingly and intentionally” killing Andrews, Howaniec doesn’t believe the jury should have a choice.

“We are here to argue the charge of murder,” the defense lawyer said during a recess Monday. “It is the only charge.”

Howaniec said he and LaRochelle will likely argue their points on this matter after the testimony is complete and before Justice Thomas E. Delahanty II gives his final instructions to the jury.

Struggle

According to Monday’s testimony, Gallant and Andrews had been dating for one and half years. They didn’t live together, but Andrews often let Gallant stay at her Park Street apartment.

On the morning of Jan. 24, the couple started drinking beer and vodka and popping Valium-type pills at 8 a.m. Later that night, after Andrews cooked dinner, the couple got in a fight because Andrews asked Gallant to leave.

“The matter escalated into some sort of struggle,” LaRochelle told the jury. “And, during the course of the struggle, Cherie was strangled to death.”

Police found Andrews’ body the next morning. She was covered with blankets, and a teddy bear had been placed by her head.

Witnesses

Two of Gallant’s friends who testified Monday described what Gallant did when he left Andrews’ apartment.

Craig Austin said he was sitting in his kitchen when Gallant knocked on the door, came in and said, “I did the ultimate thing.”

Austin asked Gallant if he robbed a bank or killed a black person. When Gallant told Austin that he didn’t do either but he did kill someone, Austin got him a beer and told him to sit down.

“If you didn’t rob a bank or kill a black person, what did you do?” Austin asked Gallant. “Kill your girlfriend?”

Gallant put his hands in the air and nodded his head, Austin said. Then he asked Austin to wait 24 hours before he called police and he left for another friend’s apartment.

Michael Murray testified that when Gallant arrived at his apartment on Jan. 24, he simply told him that he did something bad. Then he tried to sell him a necklace for $20.

Murray said he didn’t know at the time that the necklace – a chain with two crosses – belonged to Andrews.

Gallant spent the night on Murray’s floor. When police arrived at the apartment the following morning, after getting a call from Austin’s mother-in-law, Gallant was sitting at the kitchen table drinking a beer, Murray said.

Gallant was arrested later in the day, after he confessed to police.

The state is expected to wrap up its case against Gallant Tuesday morning. Then Howaniec plans to put Gallant and two psychologists on the stand.

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