“Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Knowledge of it, however, often is one…”
S. J. Lec
The French journalist and playwright P. Decourcelle once said: “A thief is a person who takes their own property wherever they find it, and who never finds it at home.” Thieves have always been regarded with a certain wariness, and rightly so — they are capable of inflicting substantial material, physical, and emotional harm. Indeed, who would enjoy having valuable, needed possessions taken from them, possessions earned through honest labor? As is well known, there is a compulsion — sometimes even a psychological condition — that drives even fairly well-off people to periodically take what belongs to others.
In Germany, as in most countries of the world, theft is treated as a fairly serious offense, carrying criminal liability of up to ten years’ imprisonment. People from every walk of life come to our firm for legal help, and not all of them are, of course, unquestionably honest and entirely law-abiding. A lawyer’s task is by no means to pass philosophical judgment on their moral character, but to provide professional advice and legal support so that a client’s rights and interests are unconditionally upheld. Even where a person has erred and genuinely committed an offense punishable by law, they deserve fair and humane treatment, and a punishment strictly within the bounds of the law. That is precisely what the justice system exists for: to weigh a situation as a whole and reach an impartial decision.
The average person — and all the more so a foreign national living in an unfamiliar country — can find it difficult to orient themselves and find, on their own, the arguments and evidence needed to clear charges they never actually committed. The matter is often made worse by the fact that a person accused of an offense, in particular theft, aware of their own “past sins,” may lose faith in the rule of law and the possibility of a fair trial even while genuinely innocent. Unfortunately, such a person may give up too soon, resigning themselves to a bleak outcome and a harsh punishment. The value of timely, qualified professional help in such a situation is hard to overstate. In this article, we describe one case from our practice, involving a client who came to us believing he was in a “hopeless situation.”
Client Story: Charged Despite His Own History
A young man, a Russian national — let’s call him Roman — had never been known for a compliant temperament, even as a child, and had never been an entirely law-abiding citizen. He would occasionally find himself in unpleasant situations that involved, to one degree or another, a brush with the law. For the past several years, he had been living in the socially stable environment of Germany, working in construction. Roman had never engaged in outright criminal activity and was well aware of how seriously Germany treats criminal offenses.
As a decent man, he had always preferred to earn his money through his own labor and steer clear of other people’s belongings. Imagine his shock, then, when he learned he was being accused of aggravated burglary theft. His situation at that moment was bleak indeed: under §243 of the German Criminal Code (Besonders schwerer Fall des Diebstahls — an especially severe case of theft), he faced anywhere from three months to ten years’ imprisonment.
Although Roman had had his share of run-ins with the law in the form of administrative offenses, he insisted he had not committed this particular offense and was completely unprepared for such a charge. By the time he came to us, he was in an extremely low state and believed there was no chance of an acquittal. It must be said that he sought legal help rather late — the public prosecutor’s indictment (Anklageschrift) had already arrived by post. As a result, the upcoming trial hearing was, by that point, unavoidable. We assured Roman that our firm’s lawyer was ready to defend his rights and legitimate interests, and convinced him that it was worth fighting for himself.
A Screwdriver With Fingerprints at the Scene
Once we received the case file from the public prosecutor’s office, we realized a rather complicated picture was emerging. Indeed, some unknown intruder had entered an apartment while its occupants were away. The perpetrator had shown no restraint in carrying out the plan — smashing a window to get into the apartment, taking every valuable item, and disappearing without a trace.
So how did the police come to suspect our client of this brazen, high-value burglary with forced entry?
It turned out to be quite simple: a screwdriver not belonging to the apartment’s owners had been found at the scene. It had evidently been used by the perpetrators to force the window and was then left behind — whether out of haste or intentionally, no one could say. It was on this unfortunate screwdriver that police found Roman’s fingerprints, already on file in their database. That became the basis for charging our client with something he had not done. According to Roman, he had been working construction and used a screwdriver every day — one that any of his coworkers could easily have picked up. He was unable to say precisely when or under what circumstances that might have happened. It thus fell to our firm’s lawyer to demonstrate that the screwdriver, while one piece of evidence in the case, was not conclusive or exhaustive proof of our client’s guilt.
The Lawyer’s Work: Three Theories Casting Doubt on the Charge
Moreover, on a closer review of the case file, our firm’s lawyer noted that entry had been made not through the front of the building but through its side. The apartment’s occupants had been away for an entire week, and police had been unable to establish exactly which day the offense had occurred. Having carefully studied the facts, gathered evidence, and drawn on a thorough knowledge of the law and case precedent, our lawyer prepared the following arguments to clear our client of the charge.
First, the occupants had been away from the apartment for an entire week, and the theft was only discovered once they returned — the police were unable to pin down the exact day it happened. That meant that, once the window had been broken, absolutely anyone could have entered the apartment and left behind the screwdriver our client had previously used.
Second, while it was theoretically possible that the actual perpetrator used precisely that screwdriver to break in, given the nature of Roman’s job, any of his coworkers could have used his screwdriver without his knowledge.
Third, it was also conceivable that the actual perpetrators deliberately planted Roman’s tool at the scene to mislead the investigation and throw it off track.
Outcome: A Full Acquittal Under “In Dubio Pro Reo”
All of these weighty arguments undoubtedly cast doubt on the soundness of the public prosecutor’s indictment. During the trial hearing, our firm’s lawyer presented several plausible alternative accounts of how the offense might have occurred, after which the judge developed serious doubts about our client’s guilt. It is worth noting that, in criminal proceedings, the presumption of innocence known as “in dubio pro reo” applies — meaning, literally, “when in doubt, rule for the accused.” Under this principle, if there remains an unresolvable doubt as to the defendant’s guilt, the court is obligated to acquit. In other words, a judge must be fully convinced of guilt before handing down a conviction.
Fortunately for our client, a great weight was lifted from his shoulders: he was fully acquitted, and every charge against him was dropped. What is more, the court ordered that all of his legal costs, along with the other court costs, be reimbursed from public funds.
Conclusion
This case, like many others from our practice, illustrates just how important it is to seek professional legal help in good time, especially when facing a criminal charge. As this case shows, sometimes it takes only persistence and a genuine desire to see justice done to achieve a positive outcome — especially when the case is in professional hands.
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