Anyone who has been convicted in a criminal trial (or has received a penalty order) can challenge this decision and have it reviewed by a higher court—particularly through the legal remedies of Appeal and Revision.
The Key Difference Between Appeal and Revision
The terms “Appeal” and “Revision” are often mistakenly used interchangeably by legal laypersons and the media as a legal remedy to challenge a criminal judgment. However, there are very important differences: While an Appeal constitutes a new factual instance, a Revision only examines legal errors in the judgment.
This means: In the case of an Appeal, which is only possible against judgments of the district court (single judge or lay judge court), a completely new trial is held before a new court. The now competent regional court can reassess all existing evidence, witness testimonies, and expert opinions, and even introduce completely new evidence—the case is, therefore, completely retried.
In contrast, in a Revision, the judges usually decide from their desks in a written procedure. Even if an oral revision hearing is held, the judges cannot assess new evidence but can only examine the judgment of the lower court for legal errors—meaning procedural mistakes and violations of the correct application of criminal law. Since this involves highly complex legal questions, Revision is considered the supreme discipline of criminal law, mastered by only a few lawyers.
Overall, an Appeal provides a full second chance for the defendant, while a Revision is the last and unfortunately significantly less promising option.
An Appeal Is Only Possible Against District Court Judgments
The legal remedy of Appeal in criminal law is only applicable against district court judgments, meaning judgments by a criminal judge or a lay judge court.
Since district courts handle a large volume of cases, their judgments are often superficial and sometimes legally flawed. This is likely why lawmakers created an additional, full-fledged judicial instance:
The appellate court is not bound by the district court’s judgment and can decide completely differently. This means the case can be completely reopened, and the initial situation—sometimes even entirely—altered: New evidence can be gathered, new and old witnesses can be thoroughly re-examined, (new) expert opinions requested, negotiation talks with the prosecution and court conducted, and of course, the legal situation reassessed. Conversely, a strategic defense plea, often accompanied by a procedural agreement (so-called deal) or a victim-offender mediation, can be effective, regularly leading to a significantly milder judgment in the Appeal stage.
In an Appeal, the defense can thus be completely restructured, and the charges can be renegotiated under a different perspective. If a defendant was wrongly convicted by the district court, an acquittal or dismissal of the case is possible in the appellate court.
Important: The deadline for filing an Appeal is extremely short. From the day of the oral announcement of the judgment (against which the challenge is made), there are only 7 days to submit the Appeal in writing (or record it in the court registry).
No justification is required at this stage and can be provided later if necessary. The crucial point is that the Appeal is filed in time!
Filing an Appeal suspends the legal finality of the first judgment, meaning an imposed fine or even imprisonment cannot be enforced. Furthermore, no entry is made in the criminal record until the Appeal process is concluded—the defendant remains legally innocent.
When Is Revision the Right Legal Remedy?
Unlike Appeal, Revision is the last—and in cases where the initial judgment was made by a regional court, even the only—legal remedy available to challenge a conviction. Revision is also possible against district court judgments, though this is relatively rare (so-called direct Revision).
This means: Against a regional court judgment, Appeal is not an option—only Revision is possible.
What many people don’t know: Revision is a purely formal procedure that only examines whether the lower court’s judgment (the regional court’s ruling) was legally correct. It deals solely with legal issues and does not involve reassessing witness statements or other evidence, as in an Appeal. In a Revision, the trial is not retried; instead, the judge primarily checks at their desk whether the lower court committed legal errors in its judgment (so-called substantive law errors) or in the trial process (so-called procedural errors).
The Revision lawyer must, therefore, be capable of identifying purely legal errors in a court’s ruling, which requires profound legal knowledge, often even academic expertise.
Additionally, the courts handling Revisions set extremely high requirements for the legal reasoning of a Revision. Even minor mistakes by the Revision lawyer can render the appeal inadmissible, meaning the challenged judgment remains valid. This is why Revision is considered the most difficult legal field in criminal law.
For the defendant, Revision also carries significant risk—not only must the lawyer be capable of identifying errors in the judgment, but they must also argue them correctly, which, given the exponentially increased formal requirements set by Revision courts, has become a real challenge.
Without years of experience and especially academic expertise, a successful Revision is now hardly possible, as evidenced by the alarmingly low success rate of only 3–10%.
As in Appeal, the deadlines for Revision are also extremely short. A Revision must be filed within 7 days of the oral announcement of the judgment.
Unlike an Appeal, however, a Revision must be substantiated in writing by a lawyer, specifying the legal errors being challenged. The deadline for this justification is only 1 month after receiving the written judgment. This deadline cannot be extended! This means the lawyer has an extremely limited time to review the entire judgment and trial records, requiring immediate expertise and experience in Revision law—without which a proper Revision argument cannot be formulated within the tight deadline.
Constitutional Complaint
The constitutional complaint is the last resort when all attempts to overturn unfavorable decisions or judgments in criminal law have failed. The right to freedom, the presumption of innocence, protection against judicial arbitrariness, and the right to a fair trial are constitutionally protected fundamental rights, which are unfortunately often disregarded in criminal proceedings.
In criminal cases, a constitutional complaint is usually filed in the following situations:
- The (further) detention complaint of the imprisoned individual was unsuccessful
- The defendant’s revision failed
- The application for retrial of the convicted person was rejected
However, the constitutional complaint is only admissible within one month after receiving the negative court decision.
Criminal proceedings pose the most severe state intrusions on fundamental rights, up to and including life imprisonment. Typical fundamental rights violated in criminal proceedings include:
- The right to a fair trial
- The prohibition of arbitrariness
- The presumption of innocence
- The right to freedom (general personal freedom)
- The right to a lawful judge
- The prohibition of double jeopardy (Ne bis in idem)
- Protection against self-incrimination (Nemo tenetur)
However, the fact remains that less than 3% of constitutional complaints are successful. For complainants without legal representation, the success rate is even below 0.5%. Another fact is that almost all constitutional complaints are filed by laypersons or lawyers who have had no prior experience with this legal instrument or the Federal Constitutional Court.
Even experienced criminal defense attorneys and revision specialists often fail due to the complex nature of constitutional law, sometimes already at the written or judicially established admissibility requirements. In practice, many constitutional complaints merely repeat the arguments made in the criminal revision process and add a final constitutional evaluation, which is insufficient. Instead, it is necessary to substantiate the violation of the complainant’s rights specifically in terms of constitutional law.
For all these reasons, this last and often desperate measure should only be pursued with the assistance of one of the few recognized specialists in constitutional law. Only then are there realistic chances of success.
Retrial of Criminal Proceedings
The retrial of a case allows a legally binding criminal judgment to be reopened in order to overturn the original judgment and obtain an acquittal or at least a reduction in the sentence.
The background of the retrial process is to prevent or correct a “miscarriage of justice” and to give the convicted person one final chance to rectify an erroneous judgment.
However, a retrial is only possible under very strict conditions! The most relevant case in practice is when new facts or evidence prove the convicted person’s innocence. This includes all findings that lead to a different evaluation of the evidence and were either not known or not considered when the final judgment was issued.
Legal errors in the challenged judgment or an incorrect assessment of evidence do not constitute new facts.
Furthermore, the procedural hurdles for a retrial are extremely high and follow entirely different procedural rules than the rest of criminal law.
Unlike in appeals and revisions, there is no risk of a harsher punishment in a retrial.
In certain cases, the retrial court may even order a postponement or suspension of sentence enforcement.
In summary: While a retrial is the last chance to correct a wrongful conviction or miscarriage of justice, it is generally only successful if (new) evidence is available that was previously unconsidered. Additionally, retrial proceedings are highly complex in legal terms. Due to the complexity of filing a retrial application and the niche nature of this legal area, very few lawyers specialize in it.
For this reason, it is advisable to engage a recognized specialist as early as the preparation stage of the retrial. Without expert knowledge, a retrial application has virtually no realistic chance of success.
Preparing a retrial application usually involves a significant amount of time and financial resources. Therefore, it is recommended to first conduct a realistic assessment of the individual factual and legal situation.
Summary
When challenging court decisions, especially an already issued judgment, it is crucial to engage a lawyer specialized in legal remedies. To correct wrongful decisions, excessive penalties, or simply incorrect judgments, one needs an expert who understands the full range of possibilities and can achieve the best possible outcome.
Revision, in particular, is considered highly complex in criminal proceedings and involves strict formal requirements. Even minor mistakes can lead to inadmissibility, which is why the general failure rate is extraordinarily high. This is not due to the rarity of judicial errors—on the contrary, errors are common—but rather because revision arguments often fail due to lawyers’ insufficient familiarity with revision law, which significantly differs from general criminal procedural law. The same applies to constitutional complaints, which are even harder to win.
Similarly, in appeals, it is necessary to fight with both confrontational tactics and legal expertise, ensuring the best possible outcome to overturn or mitigate the sentence.
The key to our success—particularly in criminal legal remedies—is our strict specialization. Just as specialization is essential in medicine, it is equally crucial in criminal law: The complexity of the field requires highly qualified experts in each subarea.
Our team consists of legal scholars, specialist lawyers, and a former prosecutor who focus exclusively on criminal procedural remedies. This specialization enables us to engage with courts at eye level and achieve above-average results.
That is why our team comprises only specialists: attorneys, lecturers (including at the German Judicial Academy), and criminal law experts who focus exclusively on specific legal remedies such as detention complaints, revision, or constitutional complaints.
This ensures the necessary expertise and experience to provide our clients with comprehensive legal advice and representation for the best possible outcome. The success of criminal legal remedies depends entirely on choosing the right lawyer.
Our law firm is committed to utilizing all available legal options in criminal proceedings and developing effective defense strategies that specifically target the systemic weaknesses of the justice system.
Our law firm is dedicated to utilizing all legal options available in criminal proceedings and developing effective defense strategies that specifically target the systemic weaknesses of the justice system.
No other area of law offers such discretionary margins, considering the broad range of legal consequences provided in criminal proceedings: from case dismissal (with or without financial conditions) to the summary penalty order procedure, to non-initiation of proceedings, acquittal, warning, waiver of punishment, or prison sentences ranging from a few months to many years—with or without probation.
The outcome in criminal law largely depends on the choice of the right attorney.
Just as with a doctor, trusting that you are in the best possible hands is the most important factor when hiring a lawyer. You are welcome to contact us in advance to get a personal impression of our experience and expertise.
