Offset of criminal sentence for unconstitutional procedural delay in appellate review

The German Federal Court of Criminal Justice (BGH) dismissed the defendant's appeal as unfounded, upholding the conviction and sentence imposed by the Frankfurt Regional Court, but ordered that three months of the custodial sentence be considered served due to constitutionally impermissible procedural delay. The dispute concerned a criminal appeal challenging the prior instance's judgment, where the defendant argued that significant delays in the appellate proceedings violated his right to a hearing within a reasonable time. The decisive legal basis was the doctrine of "rechtsstaatswidrige Verfahrensverzögerung" (rule-of-law-violating procedural delay) in the second-instance proceedings, which mandates a specific reduction in the unserved portion of the criminal sentence to compensate for the violation, while the substantive procedural objections raised by the defendant were found to be legally unfounded.