Misweighting of marijuana classification as a non-hard drug in criminal sentencing

The Federal Court of Justice (4th Criminal Senate) dismissed the defendant's appeal as unfounded, upholding the Landgericht Bochum's conviction and sentencing from August 3, 2023, and ordering the appellant to bear the costs of the legal proceedings. The case involved a criminal trial for drug offenses, specifically the possession or distribution of marijuana, where the defendant challenged the original judgment on grounds of legal error. The appellate court determined that while the lower court's characterization of marijuana as "not a hard drug" suggested an insufficient weighting of this mitigating factor, the error did not affect the outcome because the trial chamber had already considered numerous other substantial mitigation circumstances that justified the lenient individual sentences imposed. The decision applies § 349 Abs. 2 StPO regarding the rejection of unfounded revisions and establishes that minor sentencing errors in weighing statutory or case-specific mitigation factors are tolerated if the overall result remains just due to the presence of other favorable considerations.