We have a custom field called Unique Email that is enforced to be unique.  This field is populated by a apex trigger that runs before inserting/updating.  I'm trying to use try/catch to take an alternate action if this error is experienced but the catch doesn't seem to be happening:



Here is my code:

trigger uniqueEmail on Contact (before insert, before update) {

        for (Contact c : Trigger.new) {  
            try{
                c.Unique_Email__c = c.Email;
            }
          
            catch(Exception a){
                system.debug(c.id);
                c.Unique_Email__c = NULL;
                List<Contact> contactList = new list<Contact>();
                contactList = [SELECT Id,Email,Remove__c
                                    FROM Contact
                                    WHERE email = :c.Email AND id != :c.id
                                    LIMIT 100];
            
                for(Contact updateContact : contactList)
                {
                    updateContact.Remove__c = FALSE;
                    update updateContact;
                }
                if(c.id==Null){
                    c.Unique_Email__c = NULL;
                    Delete c;
                }
                else{
                    for(Contact cOld : trigger.old){
                        c.Unique_Email__c = NULL;
                    }
                    
                }
                //insert email code
            }
        }
    
}