Now he has time to rethink

It’s just before midnight on a saturday in february when thomas and anne D. (names changed) come home. Only when they are in their house in gaustadt, they notice that everything is ransacked. A burglary. He searches in vain for his four wristwatches, which he has kept in a display case. She lost two smartphones and a notebook.

Treacherous DNA trace

Later the criminal police bamberg will not only determine how the thief got into the house. He used a tool found on site to lever out the door via the terrace. She will also identify him beyond doubt from a DNA trace. As a repeat offender known to the investigating authorities in the surrounding area.

Because a two- to four-year prison sentence is to be expected, the defendant unpacks before judge marion aman, who forms the court of lay assessors with her two lay assessors. He confesses to the crime and immediately explains what he used the loot for: drugs. At least part of the stolen goods. The other things were broken. He had thrown away.

Despite this, the husband and wife "suffered relatively little damage from theft" of about 800 euros were incurred, as prosecutor marian rubsamen stated. As well as property damage to the patio door of 50 euros. "But that seems to me to be rounded off in their favor, if you consider what a craftsman charges", judge aman says to the defendant.

Prisoner of the search

Over the past thirteen years, his search for increasingly hard drugs has taken him from cannabis to crystal meth to cocaine and heroin. "I can not let go of it." In order to obtain the necessary funds for the intoxicants, he already became a delinquent as a teenager and now continues seemingly seamlessly as an adult. Only interrupted by jail stays, a few odd jobs in construction or in the cleaning industry and a therapy that he broke off of his own accord.

The list of previous convictions with which he has occupied the public prosecutor’s offices and district courts in nurnberg/furth, bamberg, hersbruck and lauffen am neckar since then begins in 2007, when he was not even 15 years old. From classic property crimes such as fare evasion, theft in all its variations and damage to property, to violent offenses such as attempted, negligent, premeditated and dangerous bodily harm, to exotic cases such as disrupting religious observance, misuse of emergency calls or substituting a criminal "work" the defendant is going through the penal code. Not to forget the umpteen insults and threats.

"Impressive number"

When the trial court had summed up all the verdicts, the defendant was left with an eight-year juvenile sentence. Considering that juveniles and adolescents can be sentenced to a maximum of ten years, an "impressive number", recalls georg niklas, according to attorney mareen basler (bamberg).

As fast as the accused had searched all rooms of the present, he spoke of five to ten minutes, so fast it did not go at the amtsgericht bamberg. Even though judge aman and her honorary colleagues only needed a little more than an hour this time to hand down the sentence of two years and two months for residential burglary and damage to property. Which was not least due to the fact that the married couple D. Not needed as witnesses.

For the accused, however, not much changes. He has been in custody since april 2018 because of a previous trial. At the time, the charges included theft, attempted extortion, unlawful possession of drugs and unlawful possession of firearms.

The therapy he wanted could not take place that morning. First of all he had to get a place in therapy and then he had to stick it out for at least a year and a half, more like two years. She does not see either at the moment because of the lack of motivation, according to judge aman. "You have to rethink. You have time for that now."