Credit for suspended detention with reporting obligations as compensation for unconstitutional procedural delay

The Federal Court of Criminal Justice (BGH) dismissed the defendant’s appeal as unfounded but corrected the lower court’s ruling under § 354 StPO to credit five months of custodial detention as fully served, thereby establishing the final operative outcome in favor of the state while granting the defendant a specific legal benefit. The dispute centered on the appropriate compensation for unconstitutional procedural delay, specifically addressing whether the lower court had adequately factored in the period during which the defendant complied with significant reporting obligations after the execution of the detention order was suspended. Relying on the doctrine of unconstitutional procedure delays and the precedent that such suspensions accompanied by burdensome reporting duties must be credited toward the sentence (citing BVerfG NJW 2006, 668), the BGH determined that the Regional Court of Bremen’s initial compensation calculation was insufficient and ordered a correction to the record to reflect the time served under those conditions.