Edda Weßlau
Edda Weßlau (* 9. September 1956 in Wolfsburg; † 12. April 2014 in Bremen) war eine deutsche Kriminalwissenschaftlerin.
Nach Studium (Einstufige Juristenausbildung Hamburg), Promotion (1988) und Habilitation (1994) wurde die ehemalige Mitarbeiterin von Gerhard Fezer im Jahre 1995 Professorin für Strafrecht und Strafprozessrecht an der Universität Bremen, wo sie auch als Dekanin (2005-09), Mit-Direktorin des Zentrums für Europäische Rechtspolitik (ZERP) und Mit-Herausgeberin der Schriftenreihe "Bremer Forschungen zur Kriminalpolitik" wirkte.
Veröffentlichungen von Edda Weßlau
- Vorfeldermittlungen – Probleme der Legalisierung „vorbeugender Verbrechensbekämpfung“ aus strafprozessrechtlicher Sicht, erschienen bei Duncker & Humblot, Reihe Strafrechtliche Abhandlungen, Berlin 1989.
- Das Konsensprinzip im Strafverfahren – Leitidee für eine Gesamtreform?, Nomos, Schriftenreihe Strafrechtswissenschaft und Strafrechtspolitik (hrsgg. von Thomas Vormbaum), Baden-Baden, 2002.
- "Peiniger tot - Frau vor Gericht" - Der "Haustyrannenmord" - Ein Beispiel für das Verhältnis von Dogmatik, Lebenswirklichkeit und Rechtspolitik. In: Sven Burkhardt u.a. (Hrsg.) Korrespondenzen. In Sachen: Strafvollzug, Rechtskulturen, Kriminalpolitik, Menschenrechte. LIT, Berlin 2005 (S. 368-379).
- Von der Aufrechterhaltung der Moral über den Opferschutz zum Standortfaktor – oder: Was heißt rationale Kriminalpolitik heute? in: Helmut Pollähne / Heino Stöver (Hrsg.), Komplemente in Sachen: Kriminologie, Drogenhilfe, Psychotherapie, Kriminalpolitik, LIT, Berlin, 2010 (S. 251 – 260).
- Regelungsdefizite und Regelungspannen im Achten Buch der Strafprozessordnung, in: FS Rainer Hamm 2008
- Der blinde Fleck. Eine Kritik der Lehre vom Beweisantragsrecht, in: FS Gerhard Fezer 2008
Weblinks
- Vollständige Liste der Publikationen von Edda Weßlau
- Court to decide on courtroom deals, Deutsche Welle Darin: Edda Wesslau, a professor of criminal law at the University of Bremen, believes these informal negotiations represent a threat to the German justice system.
The judges of the constitutional court will have to rule on plea bargaining "The way it has spread and the mechanisms by which it has spread are rather like what happens with corruption," she told DW. "Everyone says, 'Why should I be the idiot who plays according to the rules?' Everyone else is doing it and are only benefitting from doing so." In 2009, trial regulations were amended to include plea bargaining. The new rules said that deals could be negotiated regarding the severity of the sentence but not over the verdict. In order to ensure that the process of holding the trial remained public, everyone involved was entitled to give an opinion on the deal and had to agree to it. The defendant had to be informed of his rights. Inadequate regulations But doubts surrounding plea bargains have not been put to rest. Wesslau insists that Germany's parliament was dishonest when it wrote that judges were still obliged to find out the truth of a case. "[As a judge], I would be wanting to shorten a trial through a deal, and I would want to avoid having to go through the whole process of hearing all the evidence. That certainly has an effect on the process of finding out the truth of a case." Even the presumption of innocence is affected, Wesslau says. "If one wants to enter into a deal, one is already assuming that the prosecution's case is true." A shorter time in prison may seem like a good exchange for a quick confession Critics also note what they call the "penalty gap." That "gap" has to do with the judge's ability to threaten the defendant, either with a particularly light sentence for a confession or a particularly heavy one if the defendant fights the case. That, says Wesslau, puts the judge in a position that is against the principle under which he or she is supposed to be an independent, neutral party. The judge is even allowed to propose the deal in order to shorten the trial. "He's no longer neutral if he agrees to a deal in which the premise is, 'This is the perpetrator, more or less as described by the prosecution,'" Wesslau says. Other models? In Anglo-Saxon countries, things are different. There, plea bargaining takes place between a defendant and the prosecution. The judge merely checks whether the deal was legal and voluntary. Wesslau considers the rules in Italy, while not perfect, to be better than those in Germany. There, the judge has to decide if the deal conforms with the facts of the case - in other words, that someone isn't confessing to things that are absurd. He also checks that the sentence is still appropriate and that the confession was voluntary. In Germany, the balance is between justice and a backlog of court cases "The judge makes sure that no one is taking advantage of anyone else - especially of the defendant," says Wesslau. Swiss judges have a similar function. "Deals there can only be made for offenses which carry prison sentences of less than five years," she said. Plea bargaining takes place in almost every European state. Even in Austria, one of the last countries without plea bargaining, a law is being planned to introduce it. Traditional practices In practice, old-fashioned, informal deals continue to be reached in Germany, says Sauren. "The deals are rarely as formal as the law requires," he said. Neither Sauren nor Wesslau believes that the constitutional court will ban such deals when it announces its ruling on Wednesday (20.03.2013), although Wesslau thinks it will require improvements. Regardless, she doesn't believe a ban would help. "That's another similarity with corruption," she said. "If you make a law that corruption is illegal, and these are the penalties, you still don't get rid of it."