A double murderer sentenced to life imprisonment who wants parole after more than 50 years has successfully filed a constitutional complaint. The district court of Koblenz, which had previously rejected this, must examine the man's application again, as the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe announced on Friday.

After such a long period of imprisonment, the basic right to freedom carries great weight. It does not seem impossible that the risk of new sexual offenses against life can be limited "to the unavoidable minimum".

The now almost 80-year-old climbed into a house in Mainz in 1970 because he wanted to have sex with a young woman living there. When their mother woke up, he killed her with a knife and then the daughter, who rejected him and screamed for help. After two years in custody, the man was sentenced to life imprisonment for two counts of murder in 1972.

Two motions to stay the remainder of the sentence

From 1991 onwards, the man, who had later retracted a confession, was in open prison for a long time, but was transferred back several times because, among other things, masses of pornographic magazines and videos, lingerie, adhesive tape, cable ties and women's heads cut out of magazines were found on him. In 1997, the district court determined that the particular severity of the guilt no longer required further execution of the detention. However, a favorable risk prognosis cannot be made.

In Karlsruhe it was about two applications for the suspension of the remainder of the sentence on probation, which the man had recently made in vain. The district and higher regional court of Koblenz recognized that he had recently proven himself in open prison. However, both courts had concerns because of the lack of processing of the deeds.

According to the Constitutional Court, however, it should have been taken into account that the plaintiff's "sexual urgency" may have decreased due to his age. It can be "assumed that given the extraordinary length of the sentence, the risk of future (sexual) crimes of only minor or moderate importance should no longer stand in the way of suspending the remainder of the sentence of life imprisonment on probation." According to an expert, the man was not an impulsive offender. Therefore, it should be checked whether there is the possibility of "creating an accompanying and controlling structure through probation conditions" and thus limiting the risk of a relapse.