Legal remedy
Attorney for Criminal Law Munich
Specialist Lawyer for Criminal Law Munich

Appeal

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The appeal can be used to challenge a conviction by the district court / lay judge court. This is almost always recommended, as significantly better results can usually be achieved in the appeal courts.

Revision

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The revision is the last legal remedy to challenge a conviction, and it is also the most difficult. Nevertheless, it is not hopeless. Because formal or factual-legal errors are often made in the lower court.

Arrest complaint

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It is not uncommon for an arrest warrant to be issued (90% of the time due to an alleged risk of flight) in view of the “high expected sentence” or other very vague “reasons”. Such arrest warrants are usually unlawful because they rarely provide evidence of facts that actually indicate a risk of flight, for example (the same applies to the so-called reason for arrest of the risk of repetition or obfuscation).

In most cases, no facts are established at all that speak for or against a reason for arrest.

It is therefore important to immediately contact an experienced lawyer (and not one recommended by the court) who (with the appropriate knowledge) will examine the options for revoking or at least suspending the arrest warrant – often successfully!

Important: No other legal remedy has such a high success rate as detention law: well over 50% of all detention complaints and detention reviews lead to the detention warrant being revoked or at least suspended.

However, this requires rigorous implementation of the client’s legal positions and exceptional expertise and experience in detention law. This is why we only employ specialists, because what is self-evident in medicine also applies to criminal law: here too, the matter is so complex that it requires highly qualified experts in the respective individual field. We have therefore made it our mission not to subordinate ourselves to the will of the court, but to fight when necessary – with all the criminal procedural means available to us.

Other legal remedies

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If all regular legal remedies have been exhausted, judgments can be subjected to further review in justified cases, e.g. with a complaint to the Federal Constitutional Court, the European Court of Justice or a petition to the State Parliament.

Objection to a penalty order

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The penalty order is intended to punish “minor offenses” and minor to medium-level crimes quickly and easily. This saves not only the courts and public prosecutors a complex legal process, but also the accused – or at least that is the theory.

What many people underestimate, however, is that the penalty order is not a fine that is simply paid – like a traffic ticket – and then it is done with. The penal order is similar to a conviction by a criminal court and has identical legal consequences (entry in the certificate of good conduct/Federal Central Register, previous conviction and any associated problems with official permits such as driving licence, possession of weapons, business, etc.).

If you receive a penalty order, you should therefore seek legal representation immediately. This is because you only have 2 weeks from the time of delivery to file an appeal, otherwise the imposed penalty will become final. It is then generally no longer possible to take action against the penalty order unless you can prove that you missed the deadline through no fault of your own.

An appeal is actually almost always worthwhile, even if only to reduce the amount of the penalty, which is likely to be successful in the majority of cases. In addition, the objection to the penal order can usually be withdrawn without any problems.

Constitutional complaint

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The constitutional complaint is the last resort if all attempts to avert adverse decisions or judgments in criminal law have been unsuccessful. The right to freedom, the presumption of innocence, protection against judicial arbitrariness and the right to a fair trial are fundamental rights protected by the constitution, the disregard of which is unfortunately not uncommon in criminal proceedings.

In criminal cases, constitutional complaints are therefore usually filed in the following cases:

• The prisoner’s (further) complaint about detention was unsuccessful
• The defendant’s appeal failed
• The legally convicted person’s application for a retrial was rejected

In criminal proceedings, the most serious state infringements of fundamental rights are threatened, up to and including life imprisonment. Typical basic 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 freedom of action)
• the right to a legal judge
• the prohibition of double punishment (Ne bis in idem)
• protection against being forced to incriminate oneself (Nemo tenetur)

The fact is that less than 3% of constitutional complaints are successful – for complainants who are not represented by a lawyer, the chance of success is even less than half a percent. But it is also a fact that almost all constitutional complaints are filed by laypeople or lawyers who, in their professional work, have had no previous contact with this instrument of law or with the Federal Constitutional Court itself.

But even experienced criminal defense lawyers and even appeal experts often fail due to the complex peculiarities of constitutional law, often due to the written, but sometimes only judicially established admissibility requirements. In particular, in practice, the complaints already raised in the criminal appeal proceedings are often repeated and given a final constitutional assessment, but this is not enough; it is much more necessary to justify the violation of the rights of the person concerned in detail, especially from the point of view of the violation of specific constitutional law.

All of this is reason enough to take the last and often desperate measure with the help of one of the few proven specialists in constitutional law. Only then are there realistic prospects of success.

Attention: In all of these cases, however, the constitutional complaint is only admissible within one month of receiving the negative court decision!

Resumption of criminal proceedings (after a final judgment)

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With the reopening of proceedings, a final criminal judgment can be “reopened” in order to obtain the annulment of the original judgment and instead an acquittal or at least a reduction in the sentence.

The background to the reopening procedure is to avoid or correct a “judicial error” in order to give the convicted person the (last) chance to correct a wrongful conviction.

However, reopening is only possible under very strict conditions! The most relevant case in practice is when new facts or evidence can prove the convicted person’s innocence. This is all new knowledge that leads to a different assessment of the evidence and that was either not yet known or simply not taken into account when the final judgment was issued.

Legal errors in the contested judgment or an incorrect assessment of evidence are not new facts.

In addition, the formal legal hurdles in the reopening procedure are extremely strict and follow completely different procedural rules than in the rest of criminal law. Unlike with the legal remedies of appeal and revision, however, there is no risk of a harsher punishment. In certain cases, the reopening court can even order a postponement or interruption of the execution of the sentence.

In short: reopening in criminal law is the last chance to correct a miscarriage of justice and to reopen the case. However, this is usually only possible if there is (new) evidence that has not been taken into account up to that point. In addition, reopening is very demanding from a legal perspective. Due to the complexity of the application and the small niche area, very few lawyers are familiar with reopening.

For this reason, it makes sense to commission a qualified specialist when preparing the reopening procedure. Without expert expertise, an application for reopening has virtually no realistic chance of success.

Preparing an application for reopening usually involves a considerable amount of time and money. If in doubt, it is therefore advisable to first obtain a realistic examination of the factual and legal situation in the individual case.

Deleting data (DNA, fingerprints, photographs, police notes, etc.)

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Identification procedures such as DNA saliva samples, fingerprints or photographs are increasingly being carried out by the police – even if there is only a suspicion of a crime, before a court conviction. No one is obliged to hand over personal data without a court order.

If the identification measure has not yet taken place, it is strongly advised not to comply with it without a thorough (legal) review. And even if a court order has been issued, it is certainly possible to take action against it with good prospects.

If personal data has already been handed over, it can also be successfully taken against it afterwards. It is a mistake to think that the data will be automatically deleted or destroyed at some point. Even if there is a final acquittal or a final termination of proceedings, the investigating authorities are all too happy to hold on to the data once collected.

Other data that the police authorities collect in their own databases about everyone who comes to the attention of the police can also be deleted, e.g. if the statutory retention periods have expired.

You can also use your lawyer to assert claims to the police for information about all processes and data stored there, and then, in a second step, enforce their deletion if necessary.

Our specialization

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The core of our success – especially in criminal law remedies – is our narrow specialization. What has long been a matter of course in medicine also applies to criminal law: Here too, the matter is so complex that highly qualified experts in the respective individual field are required:

Because only with special specialist knowledge and contemporary expertise can incorrect judicial decisions be reviewed and above-average results achieved.

That is why we only employ specialist lawyers, lecturers and specialised criminal law attorneys, each of whom concentrates on individual areas within criminal law, for example exclusively on legal remedies such as detention complaints, appeals or constitutional complaints.

This means that we always have the necessary expertise and experience to provide our clients with comprehensive advice and help them achieve success together. Because, especially when it comes to criminal legal remedies, success depends on choosing the right lawyer.

Change of lawyer

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The core of our success – especially when it comes to criminal legal remedies – is our narrow specialization. What has long been a matter of course in medicine also applies to criminal law: Here, too, the subject matter is so complex that highly qualified experts in the respective individual field are required:

Because only with special specialist knowledge and contemporary expertise can incorrect judicial decisions be reviewed and above-average results achieved.

That is why we only employ specialist lawyers, lecturers and specialised criminal law attorneys, each of whom concentrates on individual sub-areas within criminal law, for example exclusively on legal remedies such as detention complaints, appeals or constitutional complaints.

In this way, we always guarantee the necessary expertise and experience to advise our clients comprehensively and help them to succeed together. Because, especially with criminal legal remedies, success depends on choosing the right lawyer.