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Introduction

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The German Prosecution Service

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Abstract

As the twenty-first century enters its second decade, Germany stands clearly on Europe’s center stage. Propelled by an economy that has served as an engine of Europe’s economic growth as well as a safety net for Europe’s more troubled economies, German influence has been a driving force behind the continuing growth and form of the European Union (EU). Within the EU itself, German policy has decidedly influenced the contours of European policies regarding trade, environmental policies, security and justice, and human rights. In the legal arena, Germany’s Basic Law has arguably supplanted the U.S. Constitution as a model for new democratic constitutions (Bahners 2009).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    BVerfG, 1 BvR 2378/98 of March 3, 2004.

  2. 2.

    BVerfG, 1 BvR 357/05 of February 5, 2006.

  3. 3.

    Veritas Initiative, First Annual Report (2011) 11.

  4. 4.

    See “Waldenburg” Training Materials (on file with author) (stating that German prosecutors do not function as parties but they possess a duty to be objective and to ensure that justice is administered according to the law). From 2004 through 2010, the author conducted field research in 16 different prosecution offices in Germany. To protect the anonymity of the interviewees, fictitious place names and a numerical coding system have been used to identify documents and interviewees.

  5. 5.

    See §152(2) StPO and §172.

  6. 6.

    See §§160(2) and §296 (2) StPO.

  7. 7.

    See §§244, 249, 252–60 StPO.

  8. 8.

    §153(1).

  9. 9.

    An abbreviated criminal procedure involving an agreement between the defendant and court that is roughly similar to an American plea bargain.

  10. 10.

    In the absence of a confession agreement, it is the duty of the court to establish the truth through the taking of evidence. See §244(2) StPO.

  11. 11.

    See §257c StPO.

  12. 12.

    Appellate Judge Interview [22FE], 22 July 2004.

  13. 13.

    Id. (“If this would be my room, you would find furniture over there . . . On one side you would find the remark ‘entrance’ and on the other side ‘exit.’ And this is the perspective of a good public prosecutor. That what is coming in now today has to be finished.”).

  14. 14.

    Appellate Judge Interview [13MU], 10 April 2004.

  15. 15.

    See §153 StPO.

  16. 16.

    Appellate Judge Interview [22FE], 22 July 2004.

  17. 17.

    Given the differences in the procedural posture of adjudicatory hearings in Germany, I refer to these hearings as “main proceedings,” which is a rough translation of the German term for those hearings, throughout the rest of this book.

  18. 18.

    Pursuant to §153 Nr. 2, prosecutors may use pre-trial agreements to dispose of any crime classified as a Vergehen. This category of crimes includes any crime which does not have a minimum prescribed sentence of at least 1 year of imprisonment. However, because many German crimes, which we might typically classify as felonies, such as some forms of rape and serious white collar crime, possess a possible minimum sentence of less than one year imprisonment, they are classified under German law as Vergehen or minor crimes. As Frase (2001, p. 22) confirms, very few nonviolent offenses are classified as Vergehen.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Law, Indiana University, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

    Shawn Marie Boyne

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  1. Shawn Marie Boyne
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Appendices

Court Cases (German)

Federal Constitutional Court: BVerfG, 1 BvR 2378/98 of 2 March 2004.

Federal Constitutional Court: BVerfG, 1 BvR 357/05 of 5 February 2006.

1.1.1 German Law

German Code of Criminal Procedure

  • Sections: 152(2), 153, 153 Nr. 2, 153(1), 160(2), 172, 244, 244(2), 249, 252–260, 257, 296(2).

Reports/Statistics

Veritas Initiative. 2011. First Annual Report. Preventable Error: Prosecutorial Misconduct in California 2010. Santa Clara: Santa Clara University of Law. Available at http://www.veritasinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/ProsecutorialMisconduct_FirstAnnual_Final8.pdf. Last accessed on 1 June 2013.

Interviews

Appellate Judge Interview [22FE], 22 July 2004. Appellate Judge Interview [13MU], 10 April 2004.

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Boyne, S.M. (2014). Introduction. In: The German Prosecution Service. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40928-8_1

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