The Acquittal (After Pretrial Detention) – a Rare but Fascinating Phenomenon of the Criminal Justice System

Abstract

The acquittal leads – compared to other phenomena – a shadowy existence in German criminal law and criminological science. A research team from the Institute of Criminology in Tübingen investigated criminal proceedings where the accused were held in pretrial detention before eventually being acquitted and categorized and described the proceedings from various perspectives utilising a multidisciplinary approach. The article deals with the role of doubt in such proceedings and the way in which so-called “second class acquittals” are expressed in written judgements. Furthermore, this article, besides providing an overview of exemplary main results, aims to inspire the scholarly community to pay more attention to acquittal decisions taken in different parts of criminal procedures, also within a comparative perspective.