“All That’s Right”
Why was the double murderer acquitted in the Vienna “crime scene”?
The report by Willibald Lehner (Alexander Lutz, center) is a key factor in Stefan Weingartner (Johannes Zeiler, left) being acquitted. The strategy was put together by the windy lawyer Thomas Hafner (Julian Loidl).
© ORF/KGP/Sara Meister / ARD Degeto
A curious trial in the Vienna “crime scene” led to a confessed double murderer being acquitted by the jury. How could this happen?
Ne bis in idem – this Latin legal principle is the basis of the spectacular acquittal that was at the beginning of the current “Tatort” episode from Vienna. Although there was no doubt that Stefan Weingartner (Johannes Zeiler) had committed a double murder, and that he even confessed to the crime, the man left the courtroom as a free citizen. The fact that the proceedings could not be resumed corresponds to the sentence quoted at the beginning. In German it means: not twice in the same thing.
But how could the accused be acquitted in the first place? In order to achieve this, the defense attorney Thomas Hafner (Julian Loidl) dug deep into his bag of tricks. When Commissioner Moritz Eisner (Harald Krassnitzer) sat on the witness stand, Hafner asked him several times about the revolver that the defendant kept in his gun safe in the dining room at home. Eisner didn’t understand the meaning of the question at first and described it as “irrelevant” because it wasn’t the murder weapon. He should be wrong.
The expert Willibald Lehner, who then testified, attested that the accused was insane. He could remember everything that happened before the murder in detail. Even the exact wording of his wife’s and her friend’s conversation. Weingartner, on the other hand, has no recollection of the act itself. The expert concludes that he did not act intentionally and was not of sound mind. Because then he would have used the revolver – and not cut the throats of the two women.
“Tatort”: The jury acquitted the accused
The jury followed this reasoning. When asked whether Stefan Weingartner killed intentionally, they therefore had to answer in the negative. The judge had no choice but to acquit the accused of the charge of murder with intent.
It is even legitimate for the criminal defense lawyer to use all kinds of tricks to acquit his client. And the jury and the judge didn’t necessarily get it wrong either. The public prosecutor’s office made the decisive error: They should have included the criminal offense of bodily harm resulting in death in the indictment.
But the case seemed so clear that she refrained from doing so. That has paid off. And it can no longer be corrected retrospectively. Because it also applies in Austria: Ne bis in idem.
Here you can read the criticism of the current “crime scene” again