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Stephan Ernst, sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Walter Lübcke
Photo: Kai Pfaffenbach / dpa
The Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt am Main sentenced the defendant Stephan Ernst to life imprisonment for murder on January 28, 2021.
In addition, the court issued a reservation to order preventive detention.
More detailed analyzes are not possible before knowledge of the written reasons for the judgment.
A few initial remarks can be formulated.
Anyone who read or heard the news of the judgment shortly after it was verbally pronounced and was surprised cannot be a customer of Deutschlandfunk.
On January 25th, three days earlier, he had written in a caption on his website: "In the trial of the murder of the Kassel district president and CDU politician Walter Lübcke, a judgment has been made." The DLF also knew the content of the judgment : "Accomplices and accomplices remained unresolved", and: "Many questions remained unanswered.
She has to clarify the policy now. «But we already learned the motive, the evidence regarding the further homicide accused of the defendant Ernst as well as the result regarding the co-defendant H.
Thomas Fischer, arrow to the right
Born in 1953, is a legal scholar and was chairman of the 2nd criminal division of the Federal Court of Justice.
He is the author of an annually revised standard short commentary on the criminal code and numerous other specialist books.
All right, three days before the verdict is announced!
The DLF, mother of quality journalism, has overtaken »Bild« itself.
It has to be said, however, that the broadcaster fitted in with the sound of the negotiation.
As you will remember, this had begun with the presiding judge's remarkable request to the two defendants, "Don't listen to your lawyers, listen to me!"
He had also immediately explained how he imagined it if you listened to him: "A frank confession is always beneficial."
The joke with the favorable outcome
At least one person could be completely satisfied with himself when the verdict was announced: "I said: A confession will always work in favor of the accused," said the chairman (after the "SZ" reported) during the "oral communication of the essential content of the Reasons for the judgment «, as it says in the Code of Criminal Procedure (Section 268, Paragraph 1, Sentence 2).
One could certainly consider it a rather unsuccessful joke to consider the imposition of life imprisonment with the simultaneous determination of "particularly serious guilt" to be a "favorable" outcome.
This impression could even be reinforced if one considers that the remaining suspended sentence in the event of life (!) Imprisonment requires practically exactly the same prognosis of future compliance with the law as the failure to order or suspension of preventive detention.
The possible (!) "Favorable" for the accused lies somewhere in an unforeseeable (!) Future with a scientific fine-tuning between two "prognosis" terms (!).
To call this a "favor" already requires a healthy dose of optimism (with the accused) and self-assurance (with the judge).
But since the latter is out of the question, you can be sure that the joke with the favorable outcome was not meant to be funny.
At most "image" could agree with the "favorability" theory;
there it was reported in joyful anticipation: "Public prosecutor wants to lock Lübcke-Killer away forever" (December 22, 2020).
more on the subject
The proceedings against the Lübcke assassin: judgment and uncertainty
In any case, the cited golden rule of the chairman about the effect of confessions (of any kind), even against the advice of defense counsel, should probably not give most criminal defense lawyers any reason to pass them on to their clients.
Hopefully not a multi-volume judgment
Sufficient reports have been made of the defendant Ernst's confessions.
It is certainly not the place here to join in the general evidence-worthy and better knowledge that has been shown for months in and for the interested public.
The criminal senate heard and weighed all the confessions, revocations, amendments and restrictions and came to a conclusion as it was its task.
The considerations that the five judges determined for their decision will have to be read in the written reasons for the judgment.
One can only hope that they will not attempt to go down in history as a further example of the power of the courts to research contemporary history, that is to say: You do not have to write 800 pages of reasons for every murder just because the main hearing was long.
Experience has shown that the Frankfurt judges are not as susceptible to enjoying multi-volume judgments as courts from some other districts.
"The first right-wing extremist political murder of a politician since Walther Rathenau" - this was one of the favorite slogans of a historical press during the months of the "Lübcke Trial".
What this attempt at sensationalization was actually supposed to express or bring about remained in the dark.
Is that supposed to point to some kind of gruesome "record", a criminal record, a sensational novelty?
In the past, we have witnessed the first politically motivated murder of a federal prosecutor, the first murder of a BDI president, the first right-wing bomb attack on an Oktoberfest, the first right-wing radical series of murders of immigrants, the first Islamist mass murder in Berlin and much more.
What is the point of highlighting a characteristic of the victim in order to be able to depict the act not as the second or repeated, but rather as the "first" of an imaginary series?
It is a rather repulsive method of upgrading news to generate an additional sensation and horror effect from the fictitious setting of a terrible event in an alleged series: "First deaths", "first riots", "first looting" ...
more on the subject
Higher Regional Court Frankfurt am Main: Walter Lübcke's murderer sentenced to life imprisonment
How this is used and that the emphasis on the time lag to the murder of Rathenau in 1922 (also) has a slightly different nuance is clear: the murder of Walter Lübcke is often used as a »sign« and a warning sign, as an external expression and climax of a right-wing extremist Radicalization and willingness to use violence are described, which "now for the first time" are resorting to political murder again, as in the Weimar Republic.
Whether this conclusion is correct does not seem certain to me, and the analogies behind it appear rash, alarmist on the one hand and belittling on the other.
A fanatic and stupid poor sausage
Were fanatical right-wing extremists more peaceful between 1949 and 2019?
And are they more of the opinion today than in the sixties or the nineties that they are "fish in the water" of an alleged popular anger against the usual objects of their fantasies of destruction?
Must, should, can the Kassel murder shake up the Germans more than the open demeanor of the "Hoffmann military sports group", the "Guben hunt" or the Lichtenhagen fires?
I dont know.
People like the Defendant Ernst should not be given the impression that they are in a historically significant line and at the head of a movement whose murderous manifestations span a century.
The accused Ernst, convicted of murder, is, according to all that a newspaper reader knows, not only a fanatic obsessed with violence, but also a rather stupid, poor sausage, like almost all people with a similarly crippled worldview and motivational apparatus.
Ascribing a role as a figure in contemporary political history to him would be too much of an honor for him and his like-minded people.
The rest of the verdict is as it is: You could read the essentials for days and weeks.
The form of the questioning of the victim of the accused of the second homicide by the chairman of the Senate and the defendant's defense counsel may, if one follows the reports, have been less a coincidence than an anticipated result.
And the remarkable figure of the co-defendant Markus H., who miraculously escaped from the undergrowth of Ernst's confessions to freedom, will have an impact.
"No objective evidence" spoke, as most of the "trial observers" had known for a long time, for his involvement in the crime.
Well, we'll see what the OLG writes about it.
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Reactions to the verdict in the Lübcke case: "At least since the NSU murders, we shouldn't have closed our eyes"
The main hearing will be remembered not least because of the very dubious handling of the court with an unpleasant criminal defense attorney who has since resigned, whom the defendant, spurred on by the chairman and his second criminal defense attorney, withdrew his "confidence" in a very strange way after the chairman of the senate understood him had given that this defense attorney would "harm" him.
The withdrawal of confidence was based on the fact that, in the view of the chairman, the lawyer defended “improperly” - an assessment that the court is entitled to only in extreme exceptional cases and can in no way be based on the fact that a defense attorney submits evidence that is “wrong”.
With this justification one could shoot out the respective defense attorney in countless proceedings for politically motivated acts.
Either way, once everyone has agreed, no one will appeal with an appeal.
And the question of how, when and with whom the Senate tried to find a replacement for the defense attorney who might (!) Be dismissed will certainly not be counted among the "open questions" that supposedly still need to be clarified after the end of the trial.
Let's say carefully: It was not a highlight of the procedural art.
Surviving dependents do not have to perform an "achievement"
The reporting on the role of the co-plaintiffs, i.e. the family of the victim, was also remarkable.
Almost no report that did not emphasize that they were "present almost every day of the trial" and that did not praise that they "exposed themselves to confrontation with the accused."
Here, too, there is a strange mood that is difficult to describe as compassion and solidarity.
The bereaved of a murder victim do not have to perform an "achievement" for which the press praises them or not.
It is, in general, neither good nor bad, neither merit nor imposition, "to expose oneself to the main hearing" if one is a joint plaintiff.
For some people it may be a torture, for others a relief, for others the attempt to bring their own experience and the terrible events into an external and internal context that enables them to understand, cope with and continue living.
The "working up" is now taking its political course;
it can feel bad in an election year.
Allegedly "many questions remained unanswered", as the Deutschlandfunk and the chairman of the Hessian AfD agree, who wants to deal with "the failures of the security authorities" in the investigation committee of the Hessian state parliament.
We look forward to the contributions of the named party to the clarification process and to the final report of the committee including the minority votes.
Incidentally, the AfD chairman informed the press that any lower sentence against the defendant Ernst would "not do justice to the importance of the murder (of Walter Lübcke)";
it is "an important sign against extremism".
Really great!
Certainly the chairmen of the neighboring AfD regional associations of Hesse and Thuringia will call for a mask-protected rally against right-wing extremist violence.
You can then see the blue flags fluttering in the wind of the rule of law.
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SPD General Secretary Klingbeil: "The Nazis will not be impressed by this judgment" By Christian Teevs
What's next?
Those involved in the proceedings who are entitled to appeal will consider whether to appeal the judgment;
There is a period of one week for this.
Then one waits for the written reasons for the judgment;
then there is one month to justify the revision.
There is no new evidence in the appeal proceedings;
the public will have to live with the "open questions", at least for the time being.
A good approach to controlling curiosity would be if the citizens, each for themselves, would think about what those "open questions" actually are that now need to be clarified.
A minimum of respect
One does not have to assume that the population's tension on what election campaign ammunition the parliamentary committee of inquiry will bring up and bring in is particularly great.
The riddles in the course of the convicted murder will, as soon as the news has moved on, rightly and quickly lose interest.
The question that remains is whether there are other puzzles and questions that are closer to the citizens themselves.
They do not only concern the twisted, xenophobic abysses in the minds of the Frankfurt defendants.
But, as everyone knows, the need for a minimum of human and civic respect in general.
The delimitation, unrestrainedness and joy in the fantasized or real violence, which is fomented for remote reasons and as a mirror of social uncertainty affects many areas, starts on a relatively small scale, but has devastating effects in the long run and broadly.
That should not only focus on the setting up of "examples", but also generally on the search for "scapegoats", the hysterical dramatization of everything negative and the poison of a secret joy in decline.
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