Criminal revision: admissibility of the appeal and absence of legal errors to the detriment of the defendant

The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) 5th Criminal Senate reversed the Lower Court of Hamburg's decision to reject the defendant's appeal as inadmissible, subsequently reviewing the merits and dismissing the appeal as unfounded, thereby upholding the original conviction and ordering the defendant to bear the legal costs and necessary expenses of the adverse party. The case involved a criminal appeal against a lower court judgment, where the procedural focus was initially on the admissibility of the defendant's revision, which the appellate court found had been erroneously dismissed by the instance court. The decisive legal basis concerns the requirements for admissibility of a criminal revision and the standard for substantive review, where the court confirmed that no legal error to the detriment of the defendant was established upon re-examination.