“I can’t breathe, help, help, help!” On the afternoon of August 18 of last year, the lawyer Christian R. screamed for minutes in conference room B 173 in the criminal justice center on Nymphenburger Strasse. Several law enforcement officers brought him to the ground by force just in front of the judges’ table during a hearing. The officers handcuff R’s hands behind his back and drag him outside the boardroom.
These are scenes that have never happened before in a hearing before the Munich I district court. An unprecedented scandal that was secretly documented by the defense on two videos. Since the Courts Constitution Act strictly forbids audio and video recordings from ongoing proceedings, the recording was confiscated. On this Wednesday, however, the recordings are now “evidence” in a trial before the district court and are shown in almost full length. In the dock sits lawyer Christian R. He is wearing a robe.
After the scandal in the hearing in August 2020, the public prosecutor applied to the local court to issue a penalty order against the 54-year-old lawyer. Among other things, R. is accused of having insulted the presiding judge Sigrun Broßardt and the two representatives of the public prosecutor’s office several times in the process in which he and his colleague lawyer Alexander Betz were defending a father who was accused of child abuse. The penalty warrant provides for ten months’ probation.
But Christian R. has lodged an objection. Therefore there is now a main hearing before the district court. Proceedings due to insults are part of everyday meeting there and are usually dealt with quickly. Not so in this case. Judge Gertraud Bachmann has scheduled four days of trial for the proceedings against Christian R.
Christian R. described the judge as “mentally ill and unable to practice”
The trial of the alleged child abuse, in which the insults are said to have occurred, began at the beginning of May 2020. A judgment was not made because the presiding judge Sigrun Broßardt retired before the ongoing proceedings were concluded. The procedure was therefore called again at the end of November 2020. On the defender’s side, among others, is again Christian R. A judgment is still pending.
In the penalty order issued by the local court, R. is accused of having tried from the beginning to “delay” the first trial, chaired by Judge Broßardt. The accused was concerned with “creating a mood in which an objective negotiation was not possible”. Christian R. had described the judge “through various paraphrases and word choices as mentally ill and incapable of practicing a profession”.
The lawyer is also said to have attacked the representatives of the public prosecutor’s office “repeatedly aggressively, verbally unrestrained and without cause” – always “in a roaring or loudly screaming, unobjective tone”.
But not only Christian R. yelled – at least in the hearing on August 18, 2020 – but also a group leader of the public prosecutor’s office at Munich I Regional Court, who supported his colleague at the time. The prosecutor can be seen and, above all, heard on the two secretly recorded videos.
The recordings made him “stunned”, explained lawyer Friedrich Fülscher after Judge Bachmann had shown the recordings. He wondered why his client, although he was wearing a protective mask, was being accused of not maintaining the minimum corona distance to the presiding judge – while the two representatives of the public prosecutor’s office sat close to each other and did not wear mouth and nose protection. The fact that Judge Broßardt “just continued negotiating” while his colleague was tied up in front of the judges’ table was “incredible”.
Lawyer Alexander Stevens, who, along with Philip Müller, is also one of R.’s defense lawyers, was indignant that the prosecutor, after R. had been brought to the ground by the police sergeant and shouted that he could no longer breathe, maliciously remarked: “Scream you can still. ” The prosecutor assumed a “victory pose” and laughed, lawyer Müller said indignantly. He had the impression that the public prosecutor only took part in the trial on August 18, “in order to provoke anew”.