At a homeless shelter, a heavily intoxicated resident falls into a woman’s bed, who then sets her mattress on fire. Now the woman, who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, has been convicted of arson resulting in death.
Judge Norbert Riedmann is not a man who gives advice to the accused or interferes in their lives. But now he’s doing it: “It’s up to you how to proceed,” he says to Sonja H., who is in a wheelchair and staring down. He has just sentenced the 48-year-old to six years in prison and a placement in a psychiatric clinic. The woman had set fire to her room in a dorm because a drunk roommate had made a mistake in the door and ended up in her bed. Sonja H. fled to the balcony, the man died.