Although the choose had steeled himself for a grueling struggle, the hashish case was over in mere minutes.
The defendant had been caught in his dad and mom’ home with 7.5 ounces of marijuana, and the choose was preparing for the prosecution to attempt him as an grownup since he was simply 18, and technically may very well be held accountable beneath the grownup legal guidelines.
But the district lawyer mentioned he deliberate to attempt the case beneath Germany’s youth legal guidelines.
That gave Judge Andreas Müller a gap. Presiding over the courtroom within the conventional black gown and white tie, he instantly threw out the case, citing a youth court docket statute that encourages rehabilitation relatively than punishment.
“Maybe one day, when you’ve had the chance to learn to become an able businessman, you can become a cannabis entrepreneur,” Mr. Müller advised the defendant, eliciting chuckles within the courtroom in Bernau bei Berlin, a small, picturesque neighborhood north of the German capital. The defendant, Justin H., whose surname is protected by Germany’s strict privateness legal guidelines, was too shocked to react apart from to nod.
Judge Müller is legendary in Germany for his relentless criticism of the regulation criminalizing hashish possession. Often with apparent anger in his voice, he has argued in opposition to Germany’s hashish regulation in quite a few TV dialogue panels; at pro-cannabis demonstrations; in a e book; and even in a rap video, all whereas serving as an lively choose. In his courtroom, the place he hears primarily youth but additionally grownup circumstances, he has repeatedly thrown out minor possession circumstances.
“It makes me so mad to see so many young people locked up and criminalized just because they use cannabis and not alcohol,” he mentioned throughout a cigarette break at Bernau’s busy municipal court docket.
Part of his anger arises each from the frequency of hashish arrests — 181,000 on minor possession or use prices in 2021 — and the billions of euros spent imposing what he mentioned was the “absurd” regulation in opposition to getting excessive.
In 2020, Judge Müller wrote the primary criticism to Germany’s highest constitutional court docket, asking it to overturn the hashish regulation. Other judges adopted, and the court docket is now reviewing 10 drug circumstances despatched by three totally different courts in Germany.
“For young people like us, it’s pretty inspiring to have someone from an older generation, who is a judge, advocate for a thing that maybe goes against conventional opinion,” mentioned the rapper GReeeN, 33, who typically sings favorably about hashish. “It’s important — we need people like him for change.”
GReeeN, whose actual title is Pasquale Denefleh, is aware of the choose from a video they made collectively. The choose, enjoying himself, raps concerning the evils of hashish prohibition. “Smoking weed is not criminal; smoking weed is normal,” he sings.
The German authorities has begun taking the choose’s facet within the hashish debate simply because the choose, 61, is getting ready to retire from the bench.
In mid-April, Karl Lauterbach, the nation’s well being minister, introduced a plan legalizing hashish for private use; within the coming months, a extra complete plan that might ultimately legalize and tax the sale of hashish is predicted to be proposed.
After years of a conservative-run authorities, the brand new center-left coalition beneath Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a Social Democrat, has signaled it’s more likely to approve the proposal, which might make Germany the primary European nation the place not solely the possession but additionally the general public sale of hashish is not only decriminalized, however legalized.
Although the adjustments to the regulation would have come with out his assist, Judge Müller and others imagine he performed a small half within the overhaul.
“It’s fair to say that he was instrumental in showing that demands for reform were not just coming from the cannabis community, but from a more established perspective, too,” mentioned Ates Gürpinar, a member of Parliament and the drug coverage spokesman for the far-left Die Linke occasion, which helps legalizing hashish.
Before the coalition’s newest plan was introduced, Judge Müller had threatened to arrange avenue protests to place strain on the federal government.
That pugnaciousness is a signature a part of the choose’s fashion.
“Because of his rough edges, he’s not just well-known, he’s also feared,” Mr. Gürpinar mentioned. “He will just fire off things even if he knows that it could irritate potential allies.”
Judges in Germany wield a variety of energy of their courtrooms, however with a number of exceptions — like a choose arrested for her half in a plot to overthrow the federal authorities final December — they have a tendency to remain out of the political fray.
Not so Judge Müller, who often will get into spats on Twitter, the place he has 60,000 followers. He is also the deputy director of the German chapter of LEAP, or Law Enforcement Action Partnership, a hashish advocacy group run by law-enforcement officers, legal professionals and politicians.
Some law-enforcement officers say the choose doesn’t sufficiently separate his activism from his day job. In 2020 the native district lawyer’s workplace utilized to have him recused from listening to hashish circumstances. Ricarda Böhme, a prosecutor, mentioned in an interview that given “the objective overall view of his public statements” the choose may in “no way be able to reach an unbiased decision” on such issues.
But the next court docket dominated for the choose and he was capable of proceed listening to these circumstances.
Born within the city of Meppen in Lower Saxony, Judge Müller’s father, traumatized by his expertise as an 18-year-old soldier in World War II, drank himself to demise when the choose was 11. His brother hung out in jail on a drug cost and died younger. Judge Müller was the primary member of his prolonged household to graduate from highschool.
“It was a present to my mother,” he mentioned about his profession alternative.
Starting in Bernau as a choose in 1997, Judge Müller was a part of a technology of judges from the previous West Germany who got here to the previous East Germany to assist modernize and democratize the judicial system after the collapse of communism.
For all of the leniency he has proven in hashish trials, he has a repute as an unsparing choose in different circumstances.
“I’ve sent quite a few people to prison,” he mentioned. A tabloid began calling him “Judge Merciless” till he threatened authorized motion.
Before he grew to become recognized for his advocacy on hashish, Judge Müller was feared amongst far-right youths for his aggressive stance on prosecuting neo-Nazis.
For some time he declared a particular footwear worn as an identification marker by German neo-Nazi skinheads — the Dr. Martens 16-eyelet boot with white shoelaces — a weapon in his courtroom, forcing guests and witnesses who got here carrying the boots to seem in socks. He gave conditional sentences that pressured right-wing youth to go to mosques and share meals with immigrants from inner-city districts. He had folks go to focus camps and write essays. He meted out jail sentences for first offenses.
“He’s an activist in some ways and has been committed to liberal drug policies for years, but when it comes to other offenses, he’s also known as a strict and uncompromising judge,” mentioned Hasso Suliak, lawyer and an editor at Legal Tribune Online, a German authorized news web site, who has adopted Judge Müller’s court docket circumstances.
All this has made the choose not less than a minor movie star, particularly in Bernau bei Berlin. A current packed day of trials in Bernau needed to be delayed as a result of Judge Müller heard a neighborhood electrician needed to satisfy him.
When he discovered his admirer, he gave him his newest calling card: a package deal of cigarette rolling paper with the choose’s personal picture emblazed on one facet and the phrases “legalize it” printed on the facet.
Source: www.nytimes.com