German high court rules on plea bargains

German Supreme Court to rule on them shortly.

That quintessentially American construct of plea bargains is also being used in Germany, and the country's supreme court is expected to rule on it in about half an hour at 10 AM on 19 March.

This is going to be interesting because Germans are rightfully uneasy with this instrument. In the US, we have come to accept it as an efficient alternative to a full jury trial. But a deeply flawed one that often creates chaos. In Germany, the system is rather different. While there are jurors, there is nothing like a juror selection for each trial. Jurors have a five year tenure, sit on the bench with the judges and there is always one more judge than there are jurors. So, in a five "judge" court, there can be five full time judges or there will be three judges and two jurors.

That makes plea bargains a little less attractive because the system is less complex to start with. However, plea bargains have apparently gained popularity, and unhappy defendants have made it through the courts to the German supreme court.

The crux, as in the US, is that the defendant has to plead guilty to some or all of the charges -- and there is a danger people will plead guilty to something they did not do.

Again, German prosecutors tend to be less creative as their American counterparts, the latter tend to rack up as many bullet points as they possibly can for the subsequent negotiations. That has, for example, included an indictment charge "attempted overthrow of the US government" for someone accused of selling a few hits of LSD.

You could argue that the bar for "reasonable doubt" over here is a bit higher than in the US, for instance, in the case of the old lady and the internet.

We'll see what the German supremos will rule in a few minutes.

[Update] The ruling is out: plea bargains are legal but there are serious procedural deficiencies. More than half of judges in a survey admitted to flouting the rules or "going informal". All three convictions that were at the heart of this court case were invalidated and sent back to the lower courts.